Just as he's finishing breakfast Jenny barges into the room and throws a sheet of paper on the table.
"I'm not here to talk." she says abruptly, "Dr. Walsh asked me to give you this. I think you need to read it. If you want to talk once you've read it, you know where to find me." Before Ray can respond, she raises her hands defensively, turns and walks back out.
"What now?" he wonders. It's Sunday morning and he has just had a very restless night due in no small part to his own stubbornness. He dozed off and allowed his pain to get out of control before he called the night nurse.
Ray was still trying to get his head around what had happened yesterday. He still wanted to be clear before he confronted anybody about their apparent indiscretions. At least he had not reacted immediately. He had calmed down and was ready to hear what had happened. Maybe this note would provide some answers. If he was not satisfied, he would investigate transferring to a different rehab facility.
He picked the sheet up and started to read. It was a printout of a computerized incident report. He was familiar with the system. They used it at county. The report was opened at 8pm Friday, by James Walsh. It had been updated at various times over the weekend by a number of people including the facility nurse manager and Jenny. He knew that once something was logged on this system, it could not be deleted nor could the time or date be altered. It could simply be added to and commented on. All follow-up loggings were timed and dated separately. There were four headings.
Description of incident. Remediation. Outcome. Follow-up.
The description, once logged could not be altered in any way. The other fields could be added to but not deleted. Each entry was timed and dated automatically. He had to take the report at face value. He learned in short, clear, clinical terms what had happened, how it happened and how it had been reacted to and dealt with. He learned that an agency nurse had let slip to his mum about the overdose and had been dismissed on the spot for her professional indiscretion. After that someone had talked to his mother. He just did not understand why he had not been told at once.
He conceeded, things had been dealt with professionally. Now he just needed to stay calm and talk to the people involved without losing his head again. He smiled to himself and thought he was finally learning to look before he leaped.
He could hear church bells in the distance summoning the faithful to Sunday worship. He sighed, there was time for strife later. Right now, he just wanted to relax.
He reached for his i-pod, put it on, lay back on his pillows and simply did nothing. He could act later.