Prison PT

year in review

One year done and dusted. It’s gone so fast.

As I reflect on my first year working in a state prison, I find myself smiling. “I wish I started years ago.” But, as I often say, “right time, right place.” I just don’t think I was in that head space to think this was for me.

It was a year ago that I sat in on a patient visit with my co-worker. I was a ball of nerves. I recall not even being able to speak clearly because my jaw was held so tense that it wasn’t loose enough to form words when I needed it to.

It wasn’t just a new job. It was a new position where I was working for someone else, around other people, after working on my own for 12 years. And this new job happened to be at an all male (+ transgender women) prison.

The patient visit I sat in on was a gang member and he terrified me.

I know this now, but I didn’t then. And I hate to generalize, but they notice everything–all the little details–patterned socks, jewelry, anything you leave out on the counter. They’re constantly scanning the environment –likely a learned safety tool.

I could feel him looking at my wedding ring. It made me stop wearing my ring inside for many, many months. It’s back on my hand when I go inside these days.

Currently, that same individual is my patient. And he’s been nothing but respectful and kind.

A big lesson learned working here is that it’s hard to hate up close. Scary individuals on the outside are (for the most part) not so scary up close.

Let me back track here. There have been about three individuals that I would have been ok avoiding their presence, and would still like to. And a recent encounter who made all the custody in edge.

The nurse on the mental health floor called a week before asking if I could get this guy in for PT, as the doctor had entered the order a month before. So I scheduled him.

The day before the visit I review the chart and notice the last PT discharged him because custody said he wasn’t safe to escort. These things happen, so I cautiously blew it off as a one-off incident.

The day of his appointment, I have about four different custody and a nurse approach me prior to his morning appointment. “You know it’s not often we suggest you don’t have someone’s restraints removed for a session, but….” Yeah, this guys different. He’s attacked people walking down the hall while he’s in restraints. He wrecks the rooms he stays in. The floor above flooded weeks previously…it was him that caused it.

I’m thinking to myself that I need to be on guard. Very on guard. But strangely I’m not nervous.

Perhaps it’s because I have a sergeant, 3 custody officers and my supervisor escorting this individual in to see me. Restraints stay on. I keep my distance. Fortunately he’s not experiencing symptoms like he was when the order was placed. He’s respectful and thanks me.

I share this story, because a year ago if that had happened, I think I’d have forgotten that I hadn’t gone to the bathroom or eaten anything all morning. And my gums would probably be chewed up from nerves, hands sticky with stress hormones.

I recall my co-worker saying she’s maybe gotten too comfortable. And another says, “don’t ever get too comfortable.”

It’s been a year. Lots of little moments of gratitude. Patients commenting that they enjoy coming to PT for the outside view of water and mountain and that they feel it’s a place they can relax and talk to someone “normal.”

I’ve always thought of PT as a profession to help the person in front of me and not just the body.

I do find gratitude in holding a space that makes someone feel safe in a place or mind/body that doesn’t always feel safe. And prison is certainly a place of dichotomies.

If anything, I’ve learned to cultivate more patience, as things move at a snails pace in the state prison system. But I’m happy to take it slow…..

Oh and that one troublesome patient I saw? Three days later he set his hospital cell on fire and boarded up his door causing an evacuation of the hospital floor. I’ll count myself lucky that I got him on his best behavior. And a reminder, don’t get too comfortable.

And we’ll all float on okay…..here’s to another year?

*just to note, I’ll be leaving out the name of the institution that I work at. It’s a state prison for reference. Images are not from the prison as no devices are allowed in.

caring for the incarcerated

Prison PT