One day, years ago when I was younger and epilepsy still a stranger....I heard the phrase "medical marijuana" for the first time. I thought it was a joke. Or an oxymoron. Medical marijuana? The phrase conjured up scenes of dubiously ill stoners lounging around smoking joints, boisterously complaining about being sick and winking as they asked one another for another "dose" of medicine. Marijuana as medicine? Yeah, sure...
But life has a determined way of making fools of us all. It seems to make a sport of eventually forcing us into corners so that there are few ways of escape except through doors we'd earlier scorned. What once seemed far-fetched and foolish becomes exactly that which life--and its school of hard-knocks--brings us to embrace as desirable, necessary, and health- and life-saving. And yes, maybe even wise.
And so, here we are in 2016, standing with our 11 year daughter Awesome, who has intractable (drug-resistant) epilepsy, excited, hopeful, and eager to enter the realm of medical marijuana.
It's been a long road getting here. On the one hand it's been three and a half years of seizures, trying diet and natural approaches to treating seizures, a wild and crazy ride on the anti-epileptic drug (AED) roller coaster, an intractable epilepsy diagnosis, and finally, whispers of pre-brain surgery work-ups. And on the other hand, there's been growing awareness of the hope that medical marijuana offers children with intractable epilepsy, the amazing anecdotal stories, the legal hurdles, participation in protests asking for access, and then finally the introduction in our state legislature of a medical cannabis (marijuana) bill.
For the last several months we've held our collective breaths as a medical marijuana (medical cannabis, CBD) bill was introduced in our state legislature, struggled to fight its way out of committee, was passed overwhelmingly by the state house, was passed overwhelmingly by the state senate, and found its way to the governor's desk where it sat for several days, hanging between life and death. We contacted our elected officials and prayed fervently--and asked our friends to do the same. And then things got very dramatic. There were happy rumors to the effect of "the governor's expected to sign the bill" and then sleepness nights after rumors of "the governor's going to veto the bill in the 9th hr to ensure it dies". We and other parents of children with epilepsy asked everyone we knew to flood our governor's office with phone calls in support of the bill. And then, he--the governor--simply signed the bill.
And that was that. Suddenly, just like that, medical cannabis--yes, medical marijuana--will simply become legal in our state on June 1, 2016.
And I couldn't be happier. In fact, I'm elated. I feel like the Red Sea has just been parted so that we--Awesome and all the children who suffer from intractable epilepsy and their parents--can now walk through on dry ground.
The world is new with deliverance....and with hope.
And so, in four days from now we start a new part of this epilepsy journey.
I'll write more later about what brought us to this point. And what we've learned about CBD in preparation. But for now, we're just happy to be standing where we are....
Ready to start our child on medical marijuana--in the form of CBD oil--in just a few days.
And as if to underline the need, Awesome had another big seizure this morning.
Marijuana as medicine? You betcha. Yes, please.
Isn't it funny how life works?
Isn't it funny how life works?
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