Chapter 5 - PHARMACY NUMBERS
The pharmacy records went back twelve months.
Controller inhaler prescribed every day.
Refills inconsistent.
Three explanations possible:
Elodie missed doses.
Extra inhalers existed from previous prescriptions.
Some doses happened at school? Controller usually home.
We gathered all inhalers.
My house.
School.
Bernice’s.
Travel bag.
One expired.
One nearly empty.
Two nearly full.
The math did not match the logs.
Dr. Patel would not say:
Bernice caused every exacerbation.
He said:
“Medication adherence appears substantially lower than documented.”
Then:
“This likely contributed to poorer control.”
Likely.
Not certainty.
Then the insurance claim records.
No missing pharmacy transaction.
No secret alternative pharmacy.
The medication simply had not been refilled enough.
Then Bernice’s credit-card purchases.
She had bought herbal chest rubs.
A humidifier.
Saline.
Honey lozenges.
None criminal.
She believed in remedies.
Then a book:
Raising Resilient Children Without Overmedicalizing Childhood.
A general parenting book, not evil manual.
She highlighted sections about anxiety amplifying symptoms.
Then wrote in margin:
Griffin never learned this.
My childhood returned.
I had asthma too.
Milder than Elodie’s.
My mother used to make me sit upright and breathe before allowing inhaler.
Sometimes perhaps appropriate if symptoms were anxiety.
Sometimes not.
I remembered one baseball game at twelve.
Wheezing.
Dad reached for my inhaler.
Mom said:
“He can finish the inning.”
I did.
Then vomited behind dugout.
I had told story for years as toughness.
Now I heard something else.
I called my old pediatrician.
Retired.
Records mostly unavailable after decades.
No point manufacturing certainty.
I could remember.
That was enough for my personal history, not a legal case.
Then Bernice’s attorney released a statement to CPS:
Mrs. Maddox denies withholding medically necessary treatment. She encouraged age-appropriate independence and used breathing techniques recommended by general educational materials. Any missed controller doses were accidental or due to Elodie’s refusal.
There.
Defense.
Could some missed doses be refusal?
Yes.
Elodie hated the taste.
Did Bernice sometimes struggle?
Probably.
Then:
Mrs. Maddox believed Mr. Maddox was overly reliant on medication and admits expressing this opinion. She denies falsifying logs intentionally.
That would become the central fight.
Opinion versus action.
Then Tessa found an email Bernice sent to herself.
Subject:
ELLODIE MED PLAN.
Three months earlier.
Morning controller every other day unless wheeze.
Evening only after active day.
Rescue:
wait five minutes unless severe.
Walk before rescue if she says tight but looks normal.
No waking Griffin unless ER-level.
My hands shook.
This was not the physician plan.
She had created her own.
Then bottom:
Update app as prescribed so Griffin doesn’t panic.
There.
The first adult corroboration.
Not yet every detail.
Enough to understand intent.
She had deliberately entered doses as prescribed even when following her own reduced regimen.
Why?
May you like
Because she knew I would object.
Chapter 10 was approaching.
