A CRNA's Story of Addiction and Recovery
'We must grant each other permission to save each other.'
A
nita Bertrand, CRNA, MS, has been to
hell and back and back again, twice
getting hooked on powerful painkillers
she'd steal in broad daylight from the Houston
surgical facilities where she worked.
She was like a kid in a candy store. First a 9-
month fentanyl binge, then 8
1
⁄2 years clean,
then a 2-week relapse with propofol about 2
years ago, and now clean and sober again and
back working at a pain management center.
And she wants to tell you all about it. Because addiction could happen
to you as easily and as unexpectedly as it happened to her. Or to
someone on your staff.
She'll bravely step to the podium at OR Excellence in Las Vegas on
Oct. 12 to share her story of recovery, remission, relapse and redemp-
tion.
"I'm doing this to let nurses know that they're not immune to this
disease and that we have to help each other," says Ms. Bertrand, 52.
Ms. Bertrand says she had no history of drug use before she got
hooked on pain medication following her 2005 hysterectomy. "I
believe that having the epidural of opioids was the trigger for me," she
says. She only remembers being on prescription pain meds for a few
days, yet by the time she returned to work 2 weeks later, she claims
she was already hooked.
She soon began diverting syringes of fentanyl and self-injecting.
Even as addiction consumed her, she evaded detection. Nobody
seemed to notice that she was regularly working impaired. And she
had access to a bottomless well of drugs. In 2006, when she was doing
8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A R C H 2 0 1 7
Editor's Page
Dan O'Connor
Anita Bertrand, CRNA, MS
