Word: forts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Melissa was grateful when Cassidy finally came home. "I felt like I could breathe again," she says. But because of the continuing head pain, the Army decided to send him to Fort Knox, 150 miles (240 km) from his home in Indiana. It was a strange choice. Cassidy was apparently suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) compounded by posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which should have required treatment by neurologists. But there are none at Fort Knox's Ireland Army Community Hospital...
Just as the Pentagon failed to anticipate the duration and cost of the Iraq war, it has been woefully unprepared for the waves of wounded who return home needing care. Earnest, hardworking medical personnel haven't been able to handle the deluge. At Fort Knox, Cassidy and more than 200 other soldiers were placed in a newly created Warrior Transition Unit (WTU). The Army is spending $500 million this year on such units, in which troops operate as a military detachment and continue to be paid. After a 2007 Washington Post series focused attention on poor conditions at the service...
During his first month at Fort Knox, an MRI of Cassidy's brain revealed no "hemorrhage, edema, mass effect or midline shift" that would clearly indicate TBI. Nonetheless, his case manager made a note in his file that "headaches are gradually worsening." Cassidy tried a slew of prescription pain relievers without success. Because there was no physical evidence of an injury, a civilian neurologist working for the Army who examined Cassidy in late April concluded that the headaches were most likely "posttraumatic migraines." The doctor prescribed two more kinds of drugs. It was the soldier's lone visit...
...Fort Knox, Cassidy spent most of his time alone in his room with his laptop computer and Xbox video game. "While he was at Fort Knox," his wife says, "he was actually getting worse." He met with his case manager weekly but saw Kearney, his psychiatrist and only regular doctor, barely once a month. Their first visit was on May 30, 2007, nearly two months after he arrived at Fort Knox. "Alert and smiles throughout the interview, is anxious," Kearney typed into Cassidy's file. "He was under fire and under constant stress and was mortared frequently." Kearney prescribed Valium...
...while the pills sometimes worked, they didn't keep the headaches at bay. "We kept asking, 'What's the treatment plan here?'" his wife recalls. "There was never an answer for that." After a terrible headache drove Cassidy to Fort Knox's emergency room, Kearney prescribed methadone for the first time on Sept...