What's Your Story? Submitted Stories

A Doctor's Irresponsibility

Kerri started to use marijuana and alcohol when she was in high school in Long Island, NY. We thought it was a “teenager thing.” In 1978, we moved to Louisiana and Kerri started college at SLU. For a short time, the future looked bright.

In 1980 Kerri was the driver in a fatal car accident in which her friend died. Kerri was a sensitive and sweet soul who was gravely affected by this tragedy. She became clinically depressed and even stayed in a mental hospital for five months. During this time, the doctors prescribed Kerri more and more meds. A couple of times, we put Kerri through rehab programs to help her with her dependency on her medications.

Kerri had another car accident in 1989. By this point, we were very aware she had an addiction problem. Kerri had terrible back pain as a result of all the car accidents. In spite of her physical and emotional pain, however, Kerri continued to be the sweet and caring soul she always was, and she went on to graduate from college in Social Work. She wanted to help others like herself with drug addiction problems. Kerri understood that she had an addiction to prescription painkillers, but even all the education she got about the disease could not stop her from using pills to kill her pain.

We tried over the years to give Kerri all the love and support we could in an effort to help her. Meanwhile, she did everything she could to try to beat back her addiction, including going to AA meetings, rehabs enlisting the help of doctors who might help her handle her pain responsibly.

In 1995, Kerri started working for a neurosurgeon in pain management. We foolishly entrusted her to his care for treatment as well. We told him outright that Kerri was addicted to prescription drugs. He failed to understand her problem and Kerri overdosed ten times under his care.

On September 17, 1997 Kerri overdosed and died. We found out that the doctor had given an ok on refills after two weeks to the pharmacy. There were over four hundred pills at her house.

I am so angry at this doctor. The medical board eventually deemed him incompetent, fined him and suspended his license for two years. After nine years we are still in a civil law suit with him and our trial date is soon.

We sent our child to professionals for help and we got a series of enablers who facilitated the progression of Kerri’s illness until the breaking point. Kerri was so smart, sensitive and beautiful. With the right kind of help, she could have been an asset to help safe lives. Because of addiction, her already difficult life was cut short.

We miss her every day. We need to do more to create awareness about addiction. My thanks to Larry King and the Shapiro family for bringing this out to the public.

CONTENT DISCLAIMER

The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Drug Awareness does exercises limited editorial control over the information you may find on FRONTLINE STORIES web pages. Opinions expressed on FRONTLINE STORIES web pages do not necessarily represent the official views of The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Drug Awareness.

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