A Nurse In The Trenches Of Heroin Addiction Reflects


 
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By Paul Grondahl

When nurse Mary Femia arrived for work in the 18-bed detox unit at St. Peter's Hospital and looked at the board of patients, nearly all of them were heroin addicts.

It's been that way for the past couple years, and there's often a waiting list for admission.

Phone calls to the unit were filled with desperation.

"Parents were crying on the phone, begging us to take their son or daughter who was addicted to heroin," Femia said. "But we can't force anyone to come in. They have to want to recover and get clean. I feel so sad for the parents. I've never seen anything as bad as this heroin epidemic."

That's saying something. Femia, 77, of Albany, retired on Feb. 19 after a nursing career that spanned six decades.

"Mary came with the building" was what a St. Peter's doctor, since retired, used to tell patients.

Femia graduated from St. Peter's nursing school in 1958, then in 1996 she passed national boards to be come a certified addictions registered nurse, a rare distinction locally. Last month was actually the second time she retired. After stepping down at 62, she was enticed back to the detox unit in 2000 as a per diem nurse.

"I loved nursing and I loved the patients, but it was time to go," she said on Tuesday. Her husband, Fiore, has health issues and they want to be able to take day trips without worrying about her work schedule.

Femia grew up on Orange Street, and she wanted to be a nurse since she was 5 years old and an older brother bought her a child's nursing kit as a gift. She ended up nursing that brother, Tom Martin, through the final stages of his life before he died at 67 of congestive heart failure.

Even now, retired for less than a month, Femia has been volunteering at St. Peter's, mostly on the fifth-floor hospice — one floor below detox.

"She brings so much compassion and comfort to the patients. She's a deeply caring individual," said Steve Boulet, manager of the detox unit. "I can't think of a more dedicated nurse in the field of addictions."

When Femia started in nursing — an era of blocky white nurse's caps, starched white uniforms and black woolen capes — alcoholics were deemed mentally ill and consigned to psychiatric centers to dry out by all manner of unsavory techniques.

Today, addiction is viewed as a disease and treated like other chronic ailments.

"It's no different than diabetes," Femia said.

Medication-assisted treatment has improved for heroin addicts in recent years, including the widely prescribed Suboxone, but all of the medications also have drawbacks.

In the detox unit and at the Addiction Recovery Center in Guilderland where she worked for many years, Femia helped countless heroin addicts over the rocky shoals of withdrawal.

She eased their distress during a hellish onslaught of vomiting, stomach cramps, profuse sweating and a pounding heart rate. She had a soothing voice and a maternal bedside manner. Her 1958 nursing graduation yearbook described her "quiet way" and called her "a gentle nurse." She kept the qualities over a long career.

Femia is a deeply spiritual person. She's an associate Sister of Mercy and was the longtime president of the Albany Council of Catholic Nurses. She's a volunteer Eucharistic minister at St. Peter's Hospital.

"Recovery requires the mind, body and spirit," she said. "When I minister to others as a nurse, I feel closer to God."

Patients are not locked into the detox unit, though, and many leave voluntarily before they've completed the three-day detox. Suboxone pills have been replaced by more effective film strips that dissolve under the tongue and patients start with three strips the first day, two the second and one the third.

"I don't need to be here" was a common refrain Femia heard from heroin patients as soon as they felt better following the first doses of Suboxone. She tried to convince them to stay, but many left and ended up relapsing and returning a few months later.

"Taking a few pills doesn't do it," she said. "Recovery requires a lot of work and a variety of therapies, including spiritual. Addiction is a family disease. The patients who recover get a lot of support and help from family members."

Her long experience underscored that many addicts often battle underlying psychological trauma, particularly sexual abuse. There is also a strong hereditary component. She wants to see more addiction research.

She's worked with many health care professionals, including doctors and nurses. She also treated clergy.

"I'm so ashamed," an alcoholic Catholic priest told her.

"Don't be ashamed. It's a disease," she told him.

She occasionally got discouraged when she looked at the 18 names on the detox patient board and realize she'd treated half or two-thirds of them before. Reading obituaries for people in their early 20s who died of heroin overdoses after they completed detox was also disturbing. It taught her that addiction does not discriminate.

She added, "When I give a talk, the first thing I say is that everyone in this room has been touched by addiction in some way."


 
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