Our son was born 9/10/1959

He was the apple of the eyes of his grandparents and his parents. Perry developed an endearing personality that won him many friends throughout his life. He was a good student and participated in many extracurricular activities. He was particularly fond of music and acting in high school and later college plays. His passion was playing guitar, singing, and writing songs.

Perry started developing kidney stones in his teens and was introduced to opiates for pain control of kidney colic at an early age. He began to abuse them and later became "out of control". This led to a downward spiral during which he lost his wife, a beautiful home, and his independence. He wrote his own prescription for "Lortab",got caught and was arrested. I asked that he be mandated to drug treatment as part of his sentence. He spent twenty eight days in inpatient recovery. This was the first of several inpatient and outpatient recovery programs that Perry used to try to beat his problem. He did have periods of sustained recovery and was productive and happy during those times. He was instrumental in turning a fledgling home respiratory care company into a profitable and effective business. Many of his patients told me that Perry's visits to give them their respiratory treatments always cheered them up. Some said that Perry had only to walk into their room and they felt better. The company was later sold for three million dollars, with the stipulation that Perry remain with the company for two years. Later in his career he became the audio/visual technician for an up-scale resort that catered to conventions and political meetings. He met and set up for two U.S. Presidents and received a white house press corp commendation for his work with the then incumbent President. He also worked with many well known entertainers. Perry could have been anything he wanted to be. He was intelligent, talented and personable, but he had an illness, an irresistible hunger for mood altering substances. Yes, it is a disease ! I resisted believing that for a long time, but when you think of someone who has a lot going for him and knows that if he relapses, he is going to loose those things that are dear to him, but does it anyway, what else could explain that behavior except that it is an illness.

The last time he relapsed, he admitted himself to a private "Methadone clinic", a fatal mistake. Perry's lab work done on the first day of his treatment there showed that he was physically ill. There were numerous abnormal values, yet, the next day he was dosed with 30mg's of Methadone and this was increased by 10mg's each day until he received his last dose of 70mg's on a Friday. His girlfriend found him dead in his apartment two days later. The Coroner estimated that Perry had been dead for twenty four to forty eight hours. The medical examiner found the cause of death to be "Methadone toxicity". Other findings were "necrotizing bronchial pneumonia that had consumed one third of his lung capacity, and a greatly enlarged heart, among other things. Perry's postmortem toxicology showed only the Methadone and its metabolite, at levels consistent with the doses he had been given at the clinic and his "Paxil" which he had been taking for years for depression. Had his lab work not been ignored had he been referred to a competent physician and given appropriate treatment, he would still be with us today.

We loved him so much and we will never get over losing him.

Sincerely,
Perry's Mom and Dad