Freaking Headache

Ach, what a day. Won't go into all of it. It was just a freaking mess and it left me with a headache that lasted all day.

Even now that I am home and have taken my sleepytime meds, my temples are still pounding.

It was just a cluster freak from the word "go".

There was a fight that morning that turned into a 10-5 (help!!!) on the other side of the camp. One of ours got a face full of pepper spray and went down. They thought he was having a heart attack and he went out to the hospital.

That's bad. But they say he's okay and should be back soon. That's good.

Then one of the inmates had some sort of seizure after he got to the Hive and quit breathing.

That's bad, too.

But they say he's okay now and should be back soon so he can do his time in the hole.

Can't win them all, I guess.

So BG and I came in and pitched in to try and clean up the general mess and straighten things out.

One of the things I do every day is count and account for the kevlar suicide gear. The smocks and blankets. Not only are they quite expensive but they fear that one could be used to get over the razor wire for an escape. So they take that accountability quite seriously.

I set off to count about 2:30 this afternoon. There were a few that weren't where they were supposed to be, but I found them anyway. We are supposed to have eight blankets and eleven smocks.

I found all the blankets.

I could only find ten smocks.

Got BG to come in and double check my work. Same result.

Kept looking. Searched the lockers and the laundry bins and the closet. No joy.

Told the Sarge and kept looking.

By 3:20 my Sarge had gotten here and he and the day shift Sarge and BG and Chuck and I were all searching.

I was getting worried and pissed off. By this time all of the day shift people except for the Sarge had left for the day.

At about 3:35 a voice from one of the cells says "Hey, you might check up in 14 cell. He was on suicide watch last night."

WTF? Why did they put someone on suicide watch all the way up there? Something they did on midnight shift. All the suicide watch inmates are supposed to be on the ground floor, preferably in camera cells. Somebody got lazy and didn't want to do the moves to do it right so they just stuck him up in an empty cell.

Sure enough, they had taken him off suicide watch that morning and given him back his clothes but never took the smock back.

I was relieved and no longer worried but the headache lasted all evening.

All because someone got lazy and then things got hairy the information was never passed on correctly.

This job is hard enough sometimes.