Did I just mess myself up? (Prescribed drugs related)

Im assuming shift = manual?

My barkies and meowies are hungry so im have to get them some swallowies.

 

Ok I have severe ptsd. My psychiatrists ( just kept throwing med at me] having said that I know let my family dr all of my meds. We have gotten me off several meds which was hard as hell . On some I’m just having to keep a maintenance level in my system.

So my dr types a liability letter and nothing show on drug tests. Arguably 2 of the worst megas would not hire me. So I kept my business to myself which I’m covered anyways by ADA.

I kept my business to myself and got on one of the better starting company with no problem

 

If you did not take them, then it's not in your system. If you did NOT FILL THE PRESCRIPTION. Then the Pharmacists will put that one into a holding file. My pharmacy has about on average 10500 scripts yet unfilled for a variety of reasons running in real time.

When you fill a prescription starting with the first pill going into a bottle with your name on it, the Pharmacist by law has to enter into the living document PMB for your state what is being filled, how many and when. Including also as of couple weeks ago new legislation that provides HIM or HER the right to refuse to fill it should it be deemed you as a abuser, example showing up a week before your refill date hoping to fill early because you ran out early.

If you did not fill a drug, it did not happen.

Since you did not put that drug into your body, there is no problem on driving a 18 wheeler. It's only when you put some drug into your body that is when Federal Rules kick in for you, for example I have a tooth that is coming out monday. When I take pain medicine for that monday night, I will not be driving for 5 days. To be sure it's out of my system and not have a DUI.

Federal rules allow you to take medicine, But only if you spend 4 times the half life span of the last dose it takes to be eliminated from your body time off before you drive again. And usually have a note in case of a MRO hot drug test random to defend yourself from a positive.

It's not a black and white either, or etc. But when you fill something, and take it into your mouth, Then the Federal trucking stuff applies. As well as the State's drug monitoring as it does in this so called war on opiates.

Now I will write about something else.

Mental Health. VA Style. It morphed in the last three years in particular. We saw it coming and got out of it. Ex has PTSD problems for very particular issues service connected not discussed online ever. Or anywhere. Espeically not inside a Mental Health facility of the VA that now has the power to assign her a dormitory room under a pass code and locked doors until such time they deem her able to be released after treatment if necessary. The VA near us has a small number of Vets who are not allowed to go home until the doctor is satisfied there is no gun suicide, no risk or potential problems. No one talks about that. Yet it is happening.

She learned enough to know where to go and how to take care of that and she is doing well. But for our purposes what Mental Health has become across the board, it's a form of survillence from Orwell's 1984. It's not acceptable to us anymore. And so, we don't seek them out.

In short.

Whatever is bothering you in life, a uppity wife or disboediant child or a boss who is being overbearing or money issues, or whatever. Fix it. Even if means adjusting your life to eliminate (Divorce for example... as I did...) the person who is the problem. OR if the area you live in has too much violence such as Baltimore. Emigrate. Don't sit there and go crazy by degrees.

 

The DOT doesn’t have access to your medical records! They only know what you tell them. The ADA won’t protect you from employment discrimination unless you have proof you were discriminated against which requires expensive legal representation.

 

Here is Arkansas (A good plain example of a working State PMB which all states have.)

Arkansas Prescription Monitoring Program » Home Use the side tab and select Dispenser and read the plain langauge description. Then the Pharmacist description on the left tab of the main page. This will give you a ball park idea.

You asked why no one tells you why when you are adviced not to say anything about a mental health etc. In trucking it has to be intolerant towards anyone who even hints at mental problems, if not also early mental illness etc. You do NOT want these in the big truck for obvious reasons. They can hurt so many people or kill so many. You cannot take that chance of even one.

That's why you do not exhibit in any way or behavior or actions that you are struggling with a stressor in your life bad enough to hurt you in the mind.

In plain trucking talk, before you touch that 18 wheeler ask yourself is your mind right? (As in calm, organized, ready to respond to emergencies or whatever without going overboard.) for example you had a quiet dinner and drinks at the truckstop table your wife 2000 miles away at home is doing well and there is no issues between you two. Then you will know the contentment and quiet of your mind ready for battle in that truck for 10 hours. (Or 11 rather.)

Now. One Safety expert decades ago told our class. Any time a trucker has a accident, the previous 72 hours contains a root cause event.

Back to the dinner scenario. Half way through the phone call your wife starts to accuse you of something you did not do, such as cheating at the strip bar while she slaves to keep the household. You get upset, then angry at her and no matter what your declarations of innocents to the false charge over the phone you cannot stop your wife from getting really bad at you. Therefore you boil over in righteous anger.

And you still have a thousand miles to go until delivery two days from then.

Trust me, you are going to stomp to your truck, savagely haul that thing on to the highway and anyone who gets in your way adds to your anger which boils over. I can go on from there but most people will understand that you are going to get hurt, killed or someone else will. Or at a minimum you will have something happen to possibly lose your job, freedom or whatever.

Your mind was not safe. Your wife cannot be blamed because she does not know what you do know as a professional.

I think I'll leave it here and remind you of one incident with Sacremento City Hall some years ago where a trucker lost it mentally, circled the Hall and it's facilities for some hours with a 18 wheeler before ramming the doors up the steps with the truck. Whatever set him off is very small compared to this attack on society.

Usually when people have problems big enough to be in the media, shortly later it is learned that they have been under mental health treatment of some form or another but yet continued to be allowed to do something relatively dangerous to public safety. People knew there was problems. But no one thought something bad will happen.

That is the first thing. The minute you start telling your dispatcher that you want to go get your refill of zoloft at the walgreens or whatever, they will remove you from that truck soonest. You follow me?

In my case I am a pain patient. I have a very good pain doctor who trusts me to give me absolute freedom from contracts and other limitations which is binding. However when I break something as I did before and go to the ER because it hurts too much, all is well with the doctor until HE finds out that I am a pain patient.

God forbid that he will fix me anymore. Out I go. That's the end. Bye bye. Why? because if the ER doc starts to give me IV or Needle pain medicines which is REALLY good the STATE will write him a nasty letter and challenge his treatment of me and my broken bone. WHy did you give this person that medicine. Why? (Standard of care treatment...) that doctor must get hundreds of letters.

And so he defends his ER from drug seekers who go there first. He throws them out all the time. And all of that goes into the PMB for each patient.

I don't believe Mental health is any different.

 

I suspect that you’ll be okay either way. Heck, I had a prescription for Adderall (amphetamine) for ADD and showed the prescription pill bottle to the drug testing folks and passed my DOT drug test with no problems, twice now.

 

Ok, Ive been a bit overboard thinking you want a full blood Class A.

The school bus people might not help you with very much at all. I know very little to nothing about school bus people. To be honest there is a multi generational problem between truckers and school buses. I suppose if you had 50 kids being rowdy things get difficult.

The industry has it's ways of eliminating problem people. I myself was eliminated by blacklisting for a couple of years which is legal provided it's done a certain way in each state. The workaround was to run a dump truck or something so small there is no DAC anywhere. Nothing. Just show up with a big enough CDL and get to work, yer late. And in winter be laid off until it warms up for blacktop next spring.

The reason i was BL'ed was simple. The company shorted my miles and allowed me to sit with no work for weeks. I ate my savings and quit. Maryland accepted my suit in court against the company on basis of being able, ready and availible to work but eventually unable to maintain the necessary health and so forth to do so as cited by a forgotten landmark case. Maryland ruled in my favor and I gained back months of award money. The company did not like that at all. That's ancient history, it is more than 20 years ago it does not apply if I wanted to go trucking today. There is a 10 year cutoff on employer history anyway. They are part of a family of a billion dollar structure so they still exist as do I. This is strictly a short story of one way a problem driver can be eliminated.

In someways it's like the military. You can be black balled, written up or otherwise recorded until you are dismissed, or fired. If you examine employment laws you will find two things. First "At will" and second which is a biggie in Employers favor. Ability to fire as a disciplinary measure. It's a decades old law which I think still stands today.

Today in this industry with big databases in which it does not take long for anyone with access to learn about anyone as much as there is ever recorded. (And how... almost to the point of who I took out on dates etc as a teen etc which is also part of some of those databases in Baltimore County.) But anyway without going overboard there is that.

From what I understand with Busing of students. Those people are even more strict. Believe it or not, I cannot be on time to collect sleepyheads from the same 50 houses in the tight time frame on time exacting arriving to the school. Part of that reason for being in the Deaf School most of my time was almost 2 hour bus rides. Very long and sometimes they find me asleep in the back of the bus at the garage and parents come get me. No big deal then, but today it would blare in the media, lost kid etc. In my later years we flew home from school. My pilot friend got hours and I got navigational practice in the right seat and radios etc. Once we were blown off course towards KBWI and when challenged by Approach we had to sort it and fast. Too many heavys coming for the Gamber Marker approach west at near our altitude and position. We worked it out with 4 miles to spare. Today you wont come off the ground without permission from Washington center.

But I digress. It's hard sometimes to stay on subject and slide a little into story telling. So skip that part.

There is a time in my years where the laws, HOS etc were meaningless. If you followed them, you could not deliver on time (More exactly explained as demanded time to arrive, not legal HOS appts) and you were fired. IF you did not quit anyway for not making money.

Today's ELD and extreme attention to the minute of your trucking threatens to make sure you only earn so much and no more. Particularly when you are stuck with a old company that insists on paying you 0.34 a mile.

Good luck out there.