Saving Face

The time had come to break me out of the cocoon of polished linoleum and plastic moulded chairs in medical and strike out into the rest of the jail to give meds in the housing units. The jail housed approximately 500 inmates, about 150 of which received meds. The day shift arrived at 5 AM, two nurses pull pills for the jail and try to hit the floor around 7:30 AM, one going to the East side and one going to the West. The old jail was the heart of the structure, built in an "H" shape with new additions added to one side and the back if the "H." On my first day of med pass I would do the West side and the adjacent new housing pods.

The West side looked like a jail out of a 1940's movie. Men in black and white jumpsuits lived without the benefit of airconditioning behind worn steel bars in a series of small blocks. Each block was different, either dormitory style, semi-lockdown or total lockdown blocks. I half expected to see James Cagney rattling the bars when I stepped onto the catwalk. When the officer opened the heavy steel door to the block men stuck little mirrors through the bars. "It's a nurse," I heard them say. "Which nurse?" Another would ask. "I don't know, a new one. She's pretty. She's got brown hair, brown eyes...um..glasses, She's small," one with the mirror would describe me. "Hey new nurse, what's your name?"

I would tell them my last name while I arranged little medicine cups of water on the crossbeams of the bars for the dormitory blocks and walked down the catwalk to the individual cells of the lockdown blocks. The officer was not allowed to go into the lockdown blocks with me, "In case something happens, he needs to be able to control to block from the outside," the pharmacy manager had explained, showing me the manual controls for the doors and gates within the block embedded into the wall outside the block on a previous tour. "Nurse who?" they would ask, my name is unusual and I would often have to repeat it, sometimes a spelling was required to satisfy the curiosity of a certain block. Most of the men wished me well and told me they hoped I stayed. If there was someone masturbating in the far corner of a dormitory block or after I left a lockdown block, I decided I would not notice this.

Then I moved on to the pods. Each pod was a modern, two-tiered housing unit. I pushed the medcart just inside the door of the pod and the officer stood next to me while the inmates lined up to approach the cart one by one. Giving meds in the pod was a more chaotic experience, some men resting a hand on the cart while I poured the meds. The officer was often distracted by the phone. Sometimes I felt myself leaning back, wanting to take a step back. But one of the most important laws of corrections is to never take a step backwards. Either you stand your ground or you turn and run. I missed the bars and controlled structure of West side. As I poured one man's meds into the little medicine cup of water I noticed some of the foil backing from the blister pack floating in the water. I tried to fish it out with the edge of the little manilla pill envelope. I couldn't snag the foil, so I dipped the edge of my pinkey into the water and extracted it. The man looked at me as if I had just thrown up in his meds. "I'm not taking that, I don't know where your hands have been," he said, taking a step back from the cart. I wasn't sure how he thought the meds got from the blister packs to the business card sized manilla envelops. Angels from heaven? Fairies? Machines? "Fine, that's your choice, that's a refusal," I said. "No, it's not a refusal, you put your hands in my water," he said. I threw his pills still in the water in the trash can attached to the cart. "Next," I said. I had his meds in the cart and the medical record on the cart as well, I could have easily re-pulled his two pills. Granted that would have been with my bare hands as well. But I didn't want to stop and pull his pills, I wanted the line to move. Either he took it or he didn't.

I completed the rest of my med pass without incident. As I rolled through intake on the way back to the medical floor I wondered if he would write a grievance on me. I envisioned myself in the Health Services Administrator's office. She'd tell me that wasn't how we did things here. I'd nod my head and tell I'd do better next time. Back in medical I started to sign off my book, signing my initials in the little block for the day. The phone rang, the floor officer in the pod asked me if there was any way the man could get his medication, he was upset. I told him no. I didn't want the inmate to think that I had come back up to medical and been made to turn tail and take him his meds. Then I realized this was stupid. Part of my whole raison d'être for working in corrections was to show compassion and model good behavior for a population that had perhaps not seen much of it. I knew I was intimidated by the new environment and compensating with rigidity. I needed to take him his meds, he could think what he wanted about my reasons.

I put his two little pills in a new manilla envelope and took a little medicine cup of water along with me back to the pod. I stepped onto the floor with no med cart between me and the men. I waited while the officer called the inmate. I didn't know if he would taunt me for returning, or give me another lecture on hygiene in the correctional setting. "Sorry for all the trouble," he said when he stood before me. "It's OK," I told him, pouring the meds into the little cup. "Thank you for coming back," he said after he swallowed his melting pills. I left the pod and returned to medical for the rest of my shift.