This has been a long frustrating week and I do not want to get into every detail so to make it easy I am going to post both an email I sent to someone last night and a link I was sent that has me quite upset. This all relates to what I have been dealing with concerning inproper care by the VA for my husbands PTSD....any thoughts, insight would be appreciated!

Dear _____ and _____,

I am sending you both an article I was told about by a young Iraq vet at the Veterans Center today concerning deaths of some of our young soldiers here in WV. I was floored reading this and it helps me understand better that I am not nor was I ever wrong or alone in my complaints to the VA about my husbands medicines and care.

In fact I have attended two doctors appointments with him now, one in December and one two weeks ago and I was very upset with what I heard and learned. They could not answer me (or him) about actual diagnosis, treatments or medications properly and neither of those two doctors said they could even order a sleep apnea test for and he had to wait until another appointment with another doctor. After many telephone calls and finally getting my husband to sign a release form I think they are trying to cover a few mistakes up and reading this article makes me wonder even more.

Today was another day of, gee what is going on now?

We received a new prescription in the mail from his doctor at the VA he saw on January 14th at his appointment. My husband was never told by the doctor that he was sending him a "new" prescription and that the other two medicines he is currently taking were discontinued in December and Jan? The doctor only asked him if he needed more medications and that his blood work came back with him having a lower kidney function creatine level of 1.6 and higher cholesterol of 236 from the 201 it was back in July 08.

Now if my husband had taken this "new" medicine (Prozac) with the others he is currently taking (Celexa, Wellbutrin and Seroquel) could he have overdosed?

Imagine that! I called and demanded the doctor call me or him to explain why he has this new medicine.

Funny how at the two appointments the one on December 18th when we asked about these medications specifically and again on January 7th for the doctor (s) at both those appointments to tell us he was still suppose to be taking the two medicines. Well today his doctor tells me and a nurse and the desk clerk those two medicines he is taking now were discontinued in December 2008 and Jan 2009??? so I am really confused now but the paper work online shows all were discontinued in September?

Not only that I had the nurse at the main hospital try to tell me today that they (the VA) did not even prescribe him the one anti depressant and it was not showing in their system, yet it shows in the local clinics computer system? More confusing.

Since April 2008, my husband was getting so many bottles of meds he had a 6 month stock pile here at the house due to the VA pharmacy and doctor continuously ordering more even when the other medicines were not near being gone. This continued until I called the main pharmacy in November 2008 and demanded them NOT to send anymore medication he had plenty. Yet at every appointment they continue to ask him, do you need more medications? Uhmmm try looking in your system and computer???

So today I I tried getting some answers and wow, the computer systems are showing new dates as to when the medicines were discontiuned....like as of yesterday now and as of his appointment on the 14th? Funny that the main pharmacy could tell me it is the same doctor going into the system changing these things and I printed up the online papers and compared them to the papers I printed in October and everything is different. The bottles that we got in the mail some are not even showing on the screen and others dates have changed of the date they were mailed out from the papers I have from October......
I am MAD!

So here below is the article I was sent that talks about 4 men from here who went to the same clinic and took similar meds as my husband was up until yesterday when they stopped them all.

Vets taking PTSD drugs die in sleep
Hurricane man's death the 4th in West Virginia
A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.

A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.
Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, served in the infantry in the Middle East in 2005, where he was wounded in combat and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while hospitalized.
Military doctors prescribed Paxil, Klonopin and Seroquel for Johnson, the same combination taken by veterans Andrew White, 23, of Cross Lanes; Eric Layne, 29, of Kanawha City; and Nicholas Endicott of Logan County. All were in apparently good physical health when they died in their sleep.
Johnson was taking Klonopin and Seroquel, as prescribed, at the time of his death, said his grandmother, Georgeann Underwood of Hurricane. Both drugs are frequently used in combination to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Klonopin causes excessive drowsiness in some patients.
He also was taking a painkiller for a back injury he sustained in a car accident about a week before his death, but was no longer taking Paxil.
On May 1, the night before he died, Johnson called his grandfather, Duck Underwood, and asked if he could pick up his 5-year-old son and take him to school the next day. Johnson and his wife, Stacie, have three children, all under 6 years old. Their car had been totaled in the accident the previous week.
When Underwood arrived to pick up the boy the next morning, his knocks were not answered at first. He heard Stacie Johnson screaming. She opened the door and told him she couldn't wake her husband. They called paramedics, who could not revive him. Doctors did not declare an immediate cause of death.
Toxicology and autopsy results could take as long as 60 days, authorities told the family.
"I want to know the cause of death," said Ray Johnson, Derek's father. "Stacie said he was fine that night. Everything was normal. He kissed her goodnight and went to sleep."
Stan White, father of soldier Andrew White, has become an advocate for families of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. During his son's struggle with the disorder and since his death, White has tracked similar cases. He knows of about eight in the tri-state area of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
He and his wife, Shirley, introduced themselves to the Johnsons and Underwoods at Derek's funeral and offered their help. He is in contact with the office of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who is a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Rockefeller requested an investigation into these deaths, which is ongoing, said Steven Broderick, the senator's press secretary.

"When I talked to his family about Derek, I realized it was the same old story," said White. "It was all too familiar. He was taking those same drugs as the others, and, yes, I believe they are still prescribing that combination."
After speaking with family members, White wonders if the patients are taking the medicine as prescribed. He said PTSD patients suffer short-term memory loss and shouldn't be relied upon to track their medications.
Georgeann Underwood agrees.
"You shouldn't put vulnerable, mentally unstable people on drugs like that," she said.
An outgoing, personable young man who worked at several jobs to support his young family, Johnson frequently was offered other jobs by customers in the stores where he worked, Underwood said.
In 2006, he returned from the Middle East depressed and short-tempered. Johnson had operated an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or rapid-fire machine gun, and rarely spoke about his experiences there.
After his military prescriptions ran out, Johnson's medications were prescribed by private physicians because he refused to go the VA hospitals where he said he was required to wait long periods of time for appointments. His grandparents paid for his medications.
"He had a very short fuse," Ray Johnson said. "That was the biggest difference in his personality after he came back."
Until his death, he worked 12 or 16 hours a day. He was an electrical apprentice at the John Amos Power Plant until he was let go when his work hours approached the union limit for apprentices. He was on his way to apply for another job when the car he drove was rear-ended on April 24.
Johnson died May 2.