HUFFINGTON
09.22.13
INVISIBLE CASUALTIES
dream of a Navy career. Instead,
the Navy began the lengthy process of terminating his service
on medical grounds.
In recovery, Joshua was prescribed a cocktail of drugs for
pain, anxiety, nausea and other
side-effects of surgery: diazepam
(Valium), the anticoagulant heparin, the painkiller Percocet, and
five other drugs.
The Percocet, in particular,
was a peril.
The Huffington Post has pieced
together the trajectory of the next
15 months from Joshua’s medical records and Navy investigation reports shared by his father,
from Naval Criminal Investigative
Service documents obtained under the Freedom of Information
Act, from interviews with Joshua’s family and friends, and from
statements issued by the Navy in
response to questions.
Joshua’s mother, Melinda,
had struggled with narcotics for
years, creating considerable turbulence at home when the kids
were young, Don said. Joshua
was extremely close to his mother; there were periods when he
managed the family household in
Joshua was prescribed a
cocktail of drugs for pain,
anxiety, nausea and other
effects of treatment:
Diazepam (Valium), Heparin,
an anticoagulant, the
painkiller Percocet,
and five other drugs.
Wilmington, Del., for her. By the
time Joshua graduated from high
school and went off to Navy boot
camp in Great Lakes, Ill., his
mother had moved back in with
her parents in nearby Ocean
City, N.J. But she and Joshua
stayed in close touch.
That fall, she was diagnosed
with colon cancer, and eventually she was taking fentanyl and
Roxicet for pain. It was an easy
step, when Joshua’s own pain
prescriptions ran out two months
after his surgery, for him to get
the opiate pills from her.
According to a Navy investigation, when Joshua’s prescription
for Percocet expired, “he fed his
addiction by asking his mother to
send him Roxicet.” Roxicet, the
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