There is something that I do not often talk about but it is part of the same story and so perhaps this is a good time as any to talk about. In doing so I am jumping a little ahead of the story about my conversations with Anna, so please bere with me. After the April/May phone and email conversation in which Anna told me that she had indeed killed the patients on the seventh floor, I decided that there had to be some way I could perhaps offset the pain and suffering her actions have obviously caused. I talked to Anna about this numerous times. After some thought I decided to go back to school to become a nurse and to provide my patients with the care that she was so oviously unable to provide those patients on the seventh floor of Memorial. I talked to Anna a number of times and she agreed that going back to school would be a good thing and as she told me in a number of emails that I will be publishing, that she hoped it might ultimately help to offset what she had done. So, in the Spring of 2007 I enrolled at Walla Walla Community College and started the CNA classes as a first step to becoming a nurse. The program lasted a number of months and during this time Anna often asked how the class was coming along. After graduation, I was hired by Park Manor Nursing Home as a CNA. I remember my first day at work I was paired up with an experienced CNA and she explained to me that everything I had learned in class I was to forget because it had nothing to do with the reality of working in a nursing home. Looking back, I should have realized that such a statement was a "red" flag, but at the time I was simply happy that in helping my patients I was also helping to offset some of the pain Anna's actions had caused.
I remember the two patients. One was an elderly female patient who was housed in the west wing of the nursing home and the other was a male patient housed in the east wing of the nursing home. The female patient was the first to go and it always took place during the night shift when staff was at a minimum. The charge nurse started early in the evening with hourly injections of morphine to the patient. I remember just before my shift ended at 9pm one of the staff finished preparing the patients death certificate while the patient was still alive. By the time I left that evening the charge nurse was administering doses of morphine every hour on the hour. The next day I was told the patient had died as a result of respiratory arrest. At the time, I dont think I really understood what had happened though I was a little concerned. A few weeks later, I arrived at work to find that the male patient on east wing had been moved to room two and was kept isolated from the other patients. The charge nurse, I cant remember her name but I remember she had lovely blonde hair, started administering morphine to the patient every hour. While each dose was not in itself fatal, the administration of morphine doses every hour soon increase the amount of morphine in the patient to fatal levels. And thats how they did it! Before i left at 9.30pm I asked the charge nurse if we where infact euthanizing the patient and she looked at me and said yes thats exactly what we where doing. The patient died later that evening and the next day I called the nursing home and told them that I quit and would not be returning. I had become a CNA to help patients not to do what Anna had done to hers. A few days later I was asked to come in and talk with the supervisor. She told me that the nursing home would give me a substantial pay raise and any shift I wanted so long as I came back to work and did not tell anyone outside the nursing home what had hapened.