My Daddy was a First Sergeant in the Army for over 20 years. He spent most of his life in Louisiana and then later moved to Gulfport to be near the VA. On August 29th of 2006 when Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast it leveled his home wiping out everything he owned and what would later become memories of him that we will no longer have. 4 days later my daddy finally got through to me to tell me where he was and that he was not doing well. He had a heart attack the night of the hurricane which ultimately saved his life. My brother went and got my dead and brought him to Tuscaloosa where we were able to get him some fresh clothes and some medical help.

My dad and I together made the decision that Huntsville, Al would be where we would together set up a new home since it is where I was raised and I was taking classes at the local college. I set him up here with the local VA which is much smaller than what he was used to, a private doctor, a dentist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist. Everything I could think of that he would need. Well that wasn’t enough because the VA sent him to a pain clinic because they were so small they couldn’t fathom the amount of pain killers the larger VA could and had been for since 1990.

The Pain Clinic doctor was fine the normal stuff, tried some injections, seemed nice enough. I went with him most of the time as I did with all of the doctors; my dad was my life I was making sure he was taken care of. I even had us both on a special diet to lower his cholesterol, and set up his pills for him at the beginning of every week. I missed one apt. I had to work and couldn’t manage it. The doctor put him on Methadone. I followed the bottle and set up the pills like I was supposed to. Three days later I woke up to find my best friend, my daddy dead on the couch. He was 53, I was 21 I knew nothing about methadone. My dad was a heart patient on Valium and Klonopin and he was given methadone. This should never have happened