Richard Rodriguez
Hepatitis C Patient
Richard Rodriguez enlisted in the military in peacetime during the 1970’s, though he was fully prepared to die for his country if necessary. Years later, he dodged bullets in the original Desert Storm conflict, and he lived to tell about it. Richard had thought he had exited the service unscathed. But decades after the fact, doctors discovered Richard had not been as lucky after all.
Soon after retirement, Richard began experiencing excruciating lower back pain. Assuming he had pulled a muscle or had developed some unknown disk injury, he tried to rest and recuperate, but the pain only got worse. Almost a month went by with no improvement, so Richard made an appointment with the VA hospital. Military physicians discovered problems with Richard’s blood tests and they found he had an enlarged spleen. They noted that he had worked with toxic chemicals during active duty, explaining the cause of his illness. Richard was told he had cancer of the spleen and lymphoma. The spleen was removed immediately, but unforeseen complications nearly ended Richard’s life right then.
Floating in and out of consciousness, Richard’s memory is reinforced by his wife’s recollections of that terrible moment when the doctor informed them both that the spleenectomy had been performed in error. He had been rushed to the ICU after surgery, and Pam was very worried. It was obvious something was very wrong. Then the doctor rushed in apologetically. He said, “Richard, I made a terrible mistake . . .” He went on to explain the details. The good news was that Richard did not have lymphoma or cancer of the spleen. The bad news was that Richard had Hepatitis C with progressed cirrhosis, (hardening) of the liver. Richard grabbed the doctor’s arm, asking, “Doc, how long do I have?” The doctor was solemn. “You might not make it out of the hospital . . I’m going to try to get you on the transplant list, but I’m afraid it’s too late.”
The intense psychological tension was slightly relieved an hour later with a much different second opinion. The second physician contradicted the first and called the life-threatening cirrhosis “mild”. Pam and Richard were perplexed with the mixed messages. On one hand, Richard had nearly died and was terribly sick, but perhaps it was the first doctor’s misdiagnosis that was to blame for his sudden, drastic decline. But the second doctor’s opinion was such a contrast with the first, they decided they should consult a specialist.
Richard found a third doctor who put him on interferon therapy three times a week. There is no way to adequately describe the terrible side-effects of chemotherapy, whether in cases of cancer or Hepatitis C. The effects are somewhat similar. Richard injected the drugs himself nearly every other day for a whole year. Every one of those times he was driven to bed with skin-crawling irritations and gut-wrenching nausea. The injection sites were very painful, turning red, puffy, and sore for days. Richard’s tongue became so swollen he could barely swallow a few drops of water. Even the thought of eating solid food made him wretch. He was in sheer agony three times a week, and merely miserable on the other four.
The doctor suggested medical marijuana to help Richard cope with the side-effects of the interferon. He knew that the interferon treatment was like radiation poisoning intended to fight the disease before it killed the host. The doctor knew that no other anti-emetic drug was as effective as marijuana, and any other drug would cause further destruction of the liver. Because it is up to the liver to filter alien substances out of the bloodstream, any pharmaceutical pill would cause greater harm than good by adding harsh synthetic chemicals to his bloodstream. Hepatitis C patients must refrain from all drugs, many common foods, and especially alcohol that causes further liver damage. Marijuana is often recommended because it can be ingested without involving the stomach when nauseated, and because cannabis compounds are known to be relatively harmless to the liver and other organs.
Richard lost his job. He lost his appetite. He lost dozens of pounds. He also lost all his hair, and a little of his mind. Interferon is a terrible drug—to be used only under life-threatening circumstances. Richard was still terribly spaced out and severely ill even six months after the first year of interferon treatment ended. He and Pam thanked God, their doctor, and the voters of their state who all helped put medical marijuana within the reach of those patients like Richard who are in such desperate need of this remarkable herbal remedy. Without medical marijuana, it is quite likely that Richard would have died. With marijuana, Richard is now on the road to some sense of stability in his difficult life.
Richard is definitely on the transplant list, but even if his name came up today, a new liver would add a new set of problems, and it would not cure his disease, but merely buy him another ten years or so before the new liver was ruined by the same blood-borne disease that is now destroying his original liver. Although it is far less well-publicized than AIDS, almost one quarter as many Americans are infected with Hepatitis C, and they are all dying. Richard never used illegal drugs, and he never had a sexual partner with the deadly disease. Chances are, he contracted the silent killer through the multi-use jet-injectors used to inoculate solders during the 1970’s when Hep C ran rampant through blood banks and other medical institutions. Richard had no idea. They taught him how to kill, and how to survive in combat. But they never taught him how to beat the slow bullet they shot into his arm—the malingering shadow of death called Hepatitis C.
Martin Martinez
Intractable pain patient
Martin Martinez was riding a motorcycle that was struck head-on by a car at a combined speed of 60 miles per hour. His body landed 40 feet from the point of impact, on the front lawn of a church. His head, limbs, hips, and chest were completely pulverized. Crucial internal organs like the lungs and heart were totally crushed and required immediate surgery. The crash happened just three blocks from a state-of-the-art trauma hospital, but Martin's earthly body would have died on that church lawn were it not for two other fortunate coincidences. The driver in a car behind the crash was an off-duty police officer with a police radio in his personal car. He called for an ambulance immediately, and it arrived almost instantly because the medics just so happened to be right around the corner. As fate would have it, those coincidences combined to whisk Martin onto the operating table within just a few precious minutes.
Even after a dozen major trauma surgeries, the doctors doubted he would live through the night. After thirty desperate days in Intensive Care, the prognosis remained very grim. A total of 27 physicians were consulted. It was believed that Martin would never leave a health care facility. His legs were so mangled, it was certain he would never walk again. And he was also told he would never regain any use of his right arm due to a complete laceration of the nerves in his shoulder. The patient was told that the nerves of his arm would never regenerate. "Severed nerves don't grow back," the doctors said. Martin's first responses were unintelligible. Even though his brain had been protected by an invisible helmet, he was considered brain injured for many weeks due to massive head trauma and nerve damage that incapacitated his speech and vision.
Martin was in agony. Many weeks after the crash, nurses flooded his bloodstream with 10 milligrams of morphine every seven minutes, twenty-four hours a day. He could not sleep because of the terrible pain, even drugged to the limits of safety with the strongest pain medicine available. Then one day an AIDS patient visited Martin and shared some medical marijuana his partner had smuggled into the hospital. Martin was amazed at the immediate release and relief of pain. It was a glorious revelation. The doctor's pain drugs made Martin feel sick to his stomach, extremely constipated, confused, pale, and lifeless. After just a few puffs of a marijuana cigarette, his wrecked body, with 22 major fractures, dozens of organic injuries and lacerations with pin-prickling nerve trauma, seemed to fade into the distance. After that one joint, Martin had his first real night's sleep in more than two months.
Martin's condition became noticeably improved from that point on. Within a week or two he surprised the doctors with a few awkward steps, and he further perplexed them by twitching the fingers of his right hand. Having seen the light, he begged the doctors to let him leave the trauma hospital and move into an out-patient facility. Eventually they gave in. Martin later withdrew to his mother's home for five years of bed rest, physical therapy, and serious study. Already far beyond the grim predictions of many medical professionals, Martin continued on his solitary path of self-regeneration, drawing on many ancient and modern forms of metaphysics and mysticism.
During those five years of primary recovery, Martin consumed as much marijuana as possible, though finances prohibited any more than an occasional quarter-ounce of seedy, "brick-weed" -- low-grade marijuana that had been compressed into pungent bales and smuggled into the US from places like Jamaica, Columbia, or Mexico. The marijuana helped Martin deal with his immense pain, but it worked without imposing the overwhelming physical and mental malaise of pharmaceutical narcotics. Instead of feeling tired, depressed, and lethargic, marijuana made Martin feel physically unblocked and soothed, yet energized -- he was able to work-out in physical therapy much harder and longer using marijuana than without.
Over time, Martin was able to obtain a greater quantity and a better quality of marijuana. Over time, he was able to reduce his use of narcotics and other drugs by using marijuana. Over time, he began to walk and talk almost normally, and he regained complete use of his right arm and hand, much to the surprise of all observers. It seemed like a miracle.
Many people said, "You're lucky to be alive", but he did not feel lucky. Every moment was a struggle. Some people said, "God saved you for a reason", but the agony and hardship appeared completely pointless. Over time, Martin turned physical therapy into carpentry. He over-worked his broken body rebuilding old houses for a living. It was very difficult, but he was modestly successful. Martin had overcome incredible trauma, largely by using an illegal drug. He was able to work very hard when he had plenty of marijuana. Unfortunately, he had to work very hard just to afford plenty of marijuana. After spending more than $10,000 per year on unreliable sources of illegal marijuana, Martin began to grow his own medicine.
Ten years after the motorcycle crash, Martin discovered why God had saved him -- to portray a living example of medical necessity and help stop the unjust persecution of cannabis healers in the United States. He was arrested twice and stood trial for growing medical marijuana in 1996 & 1997. Once again, powerful authorities were forced to revise their opinions. Just as California enacted the Compassionate Use Act, the first of many state laws protecting marijuana patients, the media attention and public outrage surrounding The State of Washington vs. Martin Martinez helped create and establish Washington's Medical Use of Marijuana Act of 1998.
Ten years after his first arrest, Martin Martinez is the author ofThe New Prescription -- Marijuana as Medicine and producer of
CannabisMD : Home, two fact-based resources examining modern scientific studies on this ancient herbal medication The Miracles of Marijuana DVD series and this website,
Marijuana Miracles, explore the subject realm of personal experience.
Note: Modern research has heralded a new age of cannabis therapy that includes a new way to treat destruction and deterioration of neurological tissue. Reviewing this modern research, a leading professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University called this new therapeutic potential ". . . the most medically significant use ever made of marijuana". Martin's unusual experience still remains well beyond the scope of current medical science, but his apparently miraculous recovery from massive trauma may be explained with further research into the neurological benefits of nature's greatest medicine.
See Martin's essay: The Invisible Helmet.
Grizz
Diabetic Neuropathy Patient
Grizz has learned a few things in his 56 years of life. Mostly, he’s learned to take better care of himself than he did in his rough and reckless youth. Grizz spent a huge share of his life riding the rails across America—stowaway freight on speeding locomotives—a vagabond hobo, dead-drunk and howling at the moon, bouncing along on an endless chain of bumpy trains, thrumming through the night—clackity-clackity-clackity-clack. The life of a footloose train-hopper sounds almost romantic, but the day-today reality was cold, harsh, difficult, and dangerous.
Grizz always rode with his best friends. MD 20/20 and Thunderbird were his favorites, but any high-octane rut-gut would keep him warm and cozy inside. He claims he was drunk for 20 years. He did not eat much, and what he did eat was usually garbage or junk-food. Grizz knew his grandfather had died of severe diabetes, but he never even considered the consequences of his own homeless wanderings. The road was free, but decades of hardcore alcoholism took a heavy toll. He eventually tired of his drunken roaming and sobered up enough to see a doctor. He had suffered many minor injuries while too drunk to care, rolling with the punches and not feeling the pain. But running away without resting those broken bones only made the agony worse when the injuries finally caught up with him years later. Grizz was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in 1990.
Grizz had settled down, actually holding a job and paying rent. But the pain and diabetic mood swings were overwhelming. He gave up riding the trains, but he went back to the bottle, spending most of another ten years in liquid denial. Grizz has learned, as most alcoholics who outlive their self-destructive streaks learn, that they have thrown away the best years of their life, and are left to dwell on their mistakes in frailty and emptiness. When he finally sobered up the second time, Grizz was a total wreck. He had terrible headaches, night-sweats, trouble urinating, and he suffered constant agony in his feet and legs. At first he thought that was just residual pain from the many small bones he had broken while riding the night trains, too high to care. But the pain was horrific, and worsening. Grizz had to quit his job because his legs were so unstable. Then a doctor explained that along with the many injuries to his legs, ankles, and feet, Grizz was suffering from diabetic neuropathy, a neurological condition of numbness and sharp, tingling, contorted agony, flaring up in the feet and other extremities. The prognosis was grave; Grizz was told his foot would have to be amputated before it withered away and poisoned his bloodstream with gangrene.
The doctor ordered a cane, and a walker, and a wheelchair, as well as synthetic narcotic painkillers like Vicodin. The drugs didn’t help much. Grizz was crippled by the neuropathy. Several years after losing stability in his legs, a friend told Grizz about medical marijuana. The friend said marijuana helped relive arthritic pain better than pharmaceutical drugs. In all the years of riding the rails, Grizz had gulped gallons and gallons of cheap wine, but he had almost no experience with marijuana since experimenting in his teens. He was surprised to find marijuana was a better pain-reliever than narcotic drugs. Grizz didn’t know that marijuana is a neural protector that insulates brain cells and neurons from destruction. He didn’t know that marijuana is the only drug known to medical science that treats neurological pain without the stupifying side-effects of morphine and other powerful narcotics. He also didn’t know that marijuana helps reduce addiction by reducing dopamine fluctuations in the brain. Grizz just knew that the pain faded and his motor control increased. He kept on smoking marijuana, as recommended by his physician, and he has miraculously avoided amputation. He has kept both his feet. The pain still throbs and robs his vitality, but a few puffs of marijuana will send his pain on an outbound train. The weary traveler is now happily home in his humble abode, in peace and joy, for the first time in his life. Without cannabis, he would be unable to cope with the pain, and he would be much more crippled than he is at this time. Grizz also knows he would surely fall into another self-destructive phase of alcoholic haze were it not for the life-loving herb called medical marijuana.
Ralph Wilson
Multiple Sclerosis patient
Ralph Wilson was driving home from the airport the first time he had an attack. Without warning, his eyes refused to cooperate. The sudden spell of uncontrollable double-vision while driving in highway traffic was very scary to Ralph, however he was reluctant to alarm the unwitting passenger who had just arrived from faraway Africa. Fortunately, Ralph quickly discovered how to stop the double images by closing one eye. He drove on, and home immediately. He called his family doctor and went in for an emergency examination. Ruling out diabetes and other conditions, the family physician referred Ralph to a neurologist. The neurologist ordered an M.R.I. test of the brain and discovered the cause right away. Ralph was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, (Latin for “many scars”) a degenerative nerve condition that gradually disables brain functions by blocking nerve signals in the brain. There is no known cause of this mysterious disease, and no known medical means to halt its progression. MS patients eventually suffer complete loss of motor skills--the body slowly shuts down as the illness develops into a sadly incurable, irreversible, lingering demise.
The neurologist showed Ralph his M.R.I. scan. Ralph’s brain was dotted with white spots that looked like sprinkles of sugar, and was quick to point out the few options that might help extend Ralph’s life-expectancy. He said, “You have Multiple Sclerosis. There is no known cure, but there are drugs that help control the symptoms. There are two choices: you may be injected once per day, or once per week. The daily injection is a very small needle, and the weekly injection requires a larger needle that must penetrate at least one half-inch into your muscle.” A working man with several different jobs, Ralph opted for the weekly injections. He had never used a hypodermic needle before, so it was an intense learning experience. He was given a grapefruit and told to push through the skin to get the feel of piercing flesh and muscle. He was instructed on how to avoid penetrating his veins with the medium-sized needles, while a nurse pushed a larger needle into his veins for an additional shot of drugs at that first visit.
Ralph was mostly home-bound with severe mental and physical fatigue accompanied by the dizzying double vision for the following three months. He couldn’t drive, and he couldn’t work. He could hardly get out of bed. A friend and fellow worker came to visit Ralph at his home. He convinced Ralph to get off his back and try to get back on his feet. Ralph was needed at work, and he needed to work, because his disability insurance was not adequate to pay his mortgage and other expenses. Fortunately, his psychological motivations were matched by a remarkable physical means of overcoming the overwhelming symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.
Researching his illness, Ralph had read that marijuana helped ease pain, and so he tried using it as medicine rather than an occasional recreational pursuit as he had in the past. He pushed himself up and out of bed, closed one eye to alleviate the double-vision, and he began using marijuana to combat his symptoms: the pain in his joints, numbness in his legs, and the painful tingling sensations that wracked all of his extremities like small jolts of electricity.
Ralph, an avid golf enthusiast and golf-course employee, returned to work, slowly at first, by medicating with cannabis in the parking lot. The more Ralph smoked and worked, the better he felt and the better he was able to deal with the disease. He found that chewing marijuana worked to quells his symptoms when he was not able to smoke on the job. His doctor specifically authorized Ralph’s part-time work-week, calling it “therapy”. And although he was at first reluctant to authorize marijuana as a medicine, the neurologist did sign the documentation after questioning Ralph and discussing the health risks and benefits of this controversial herbal medication. The neurologist became increasingly convinced of the value of cannabis in Ralph’s case as time wore on.
Ralph was eventually able to work at several other golf and country clubs, at times holding down up to four different part-time jobs. With marijuana, Ralph is a productive member of society with a reasonable quality of life, despite the devastating pain and fatigue of his disease. Without marijuana Ralph would be bedridden, and probably unable to care for himself, physically, or financially. After many years of study, Ralph’s neurologist is also convinced of the therapeutic value of cannabis, in part because Ralph’s is a distinctly rare case of MS that seems to have stopped progressing. Ralph’s symptoms have not led to complete paralysis, and his M.R.I. tests have not shown further neurological damage. Ralph’s symptoms are reduced by using cannabis, which is common among MS patients, but the one-way progression of MS plaque-scars in his brain has apparently stopped, and that is very unusual. The doctors have no answer as to why Ralph‘s condition has not worsened, but they cannot rule out the possibility that marijuana may be the key to Ralph’s continued survival in this unusual case.
Ralph lives in a small house in a big city. He is a legal marijuana patient in a world that is generally hostile to nature’s greatest medicine. Ralph grows marijuana in his home so he is physically able to leave his home every day. While Ralph is out earning a living at four star country clubs and fancy golf resorts, his house and garden are left home alone. To Ralph, cannabis is essential to his life--absolutely priceless. The “feel good” effects of marijuana are not essential, only a luxury to other people, but it is illegal for non-patients, and so the value of cannabis is far greater that the value of gold. Combining all of these principles often results in disaster for people who are clinging to life in the face of horrendous diseases. They came in through the bathroom window. They must have been small, and very quick. The burglars rummaged the house and made off with many small belongings, including a few bags of marijuana. But they must have taken more than they could carry, because they left Ralph’s suitcase at the bus stop on the corner of his block. Police officers found the case, saw the house address where it belonged, and entered the open front door while Ralph was busy buying groceries on his way home from work. Ralph was elated to be off work that Friday, but his mood changed drastically at the sight of a police car in his front yard. He slowly walked into his disheveled home and learned what had happened.
Luckily, Ralph lives in a big city with well-educated police officers. He quickly presented the legal documentation of his medical marijuana authorization, saying, “Hey, I know what it looks like, but I’m no drug dealer . . .” The cop cut him off with, “I’m not going to arrest you because I don’t believe in arresting non-criminals.” The cop confided that he has a relative with the same illness, so he had personal knowledge of the health benefits of cannabis for people with Multiple Sclerosis. But the officer was also astounded to discover that Ralph was still so active after so many years with the paralyzing condition. “I consume a lot of cannabis to keep the illness at bay,” replied Ralph. The cop understood, but had to do his duty. He said, “Well, I’m not going to take you in, but I have to take all the plants downstairs.” The blue-clad enforcer scanned the living room without seeing it. He said, “I’m not going to search anywhere else,” intentionally ignoring small amounts of cannabis that the burglars had left behind.
The officer did his duty and delivered the evidence to the station, filed a report, and probably forgot all about Ralph and his problems. His superiors, however, took the case to another level. Because he was not a criminal, Ralph was not charged in criminal court. He was never convicted of any wrong doing. But once the legal system get its teeth into a person, it can be as uncaring as a pit bull with lock-jaw. Throughout the US, the War on Drugs has become a many-headed monster, a Medusa, ugly enough to turn its victims to stone. The Civil Forfeiture laws used against operating a house for manufacturing marijuana can still be used against a legal marijuana patient. Ralph was shocked to find that his house was going to be taken by the government, even though he had never been charged with a crime!
The civil attorneys had investigated Ralph and inspected the evidence held against him. They counted his one hundred and forty plants, many of which were uprooted cuttings that were many months from maturation, and they multiplied that number by one thousand, saying that Ralph had possessed one hundred and forty thousand dollars worth of drugs. Therefore, they were going to seize his house in civil, not criminal, court. Ralph was astounded. He has no choice but to come up with the money to hire an expert attorney.
After thousands of dollars and over a year of negotiations and meetings with police officials and city attorneys, Ralph’s legal team was finally able to stop the city from seizing his small home. However, it was not articulate legal wrangling, but rather, the very tangible threat of newspaper and television reports on the case that finally unlocked the legal vise meant to squeeze Ralph out of his small house.
Medical marijuana patients must be wary of cops as well as robbers. After many expensive hours of legal defense, the civil attorneys finally did give up their attack, but the burglars have also been uncomfortably persistent. They struck again, stealing the fruits of another garden in Ralph’s home. Fortunately, Ralph survived that second onslaught without the assistance of police or courts.
Now Ralph’s garden is locked up tighter than ever, with security lights and an alarm. His life has more or less stabilized after the disastrous legal battle that shook his world. Ralph still uses large amounts of marijuana to stave off the painful cocoon of disability and death that is called Multiple Sclerosis. At this time, Ralph is still able to work and enjoy golf because he is blessed with the healing properties of cannabis. For those unfamiliar with the typical case history of MS patients and the typical outcome of civil forfeiture cases, it should be noted that this is, in fact, a relatively happy ending.
Mary Rader
Idiopathic Thrombo-cydapeniapurpura/Thrombo-Thrombocydapeniapurpura, (ITP/TTP) patient
Mary lived a good life. She was a good wife and young mother who cooked and cleaned house for a household of 15, and she also watched over 20 other children from her church four days a week. She baked cookies and did laundry. She and her husband were happy and healthy. But midway through a third pregnancy, Mary’s life changed completely.
Her blood platelet level was drastically low. A second test was done, then a specialist was called. Mary’s platelet level dropped to about one quarter of normal. Doctors were concerned because they could not treat her condition while she was pregnant. Her platelet level dropped more as labor approached, leading doctors to predict she and the child would both die in birth. A minister was called to read last rites before a risky C-section was performed. But Mary shocked her doctors by surviving the ordeal, bringing a new son into the world. She then began the painful treatment that helped her platelet level rise. The therapy worked. She surprised everyone by bouncing back from the brink of death—for about six months.
In February of 1991, her platelet level dropped again. Mary felt tired, but said she was well enough to resume the treatments. From then on, she awoke at 5 AM to care for the children; then she drove herself to the hospital by 8 AM for her daily pheresis, a procedure similar to a blood transfusion. Nurses inserted needles into her elbows to drain her blood and then they replaced the blood with added platelets. This painful therapy was more complicated than usual because of Mary’s rare blood type. There were only two blood doners in the entire state that matched her type. And because Mary is allergic to most drugs, there was a constant threat of allergic reaction requiring another drug, benadryl. After about a month of daily pheresis therapy, Mary’s condition became even worse. Her platelet level had not stabilized, and her red blood cell count was also dangerously low. Mary began to fall. More and more frequently she found herself face down on the floor. Her legs just gave out. And she sometimes found herself on the floor but didn’t remember falling. Her doctors were alarmed. A specialist told her that even a minor bruise could lead to internal bleeding that might be fatal. She was admitted to the hospital for a seemingly endless series of tests.
On the third day in the hospital, Mary tried to walk to the bathroom, but her legs collapsed beneath her and she couldn’t get up. There was no sensation in her legs at all. Mary’s doctor told her she was having strokes, which explained her memory problems, and the blood in her legs was terribly clotted, causing severe pain, weakness, and disability.
The domestic workhorse who had spent her days cleaning up after dozens of other people was suddenly confined to a wheelchair. She felt useless. And the feeling of worthlessness did not improve as doctors began to eye her with professional curiosity. They ran every test they could think of trying to figure out why Mary’s blood levels were going haywire. They misdiagnosed her condition several times. After almost a year of testing, doctors told Mary she had Idiopathic Thrombo-cydapeniapurrpurra/Thrombo- Thrombocydapeniapurrpurra, (ITP/TTP), a terminal blood disease so rare it only appears in about 1 in 5 million people. No one had ever survived the condition as long as Mary already had, so the doctors were always surprised to see her.
Mary never lost her optimism. She suffered physical hardship and personal disaster; her young adult life quickly dissolved into an endless series of blood transfusions and tests. The final conclusion was beyond despair. Yet Mary faced each new day with a smile, with hope, and with faith in Divine Will. Her spiritual dignity remained intact, even though there were some extremely difficult moments.
One grey day, Mary felt very ill at ease to find her regular pheresis nurse unavailable. A fill-in nurse welcomed the fragile patient, but Mary’s intuition began to sound an alarm. The nurse had no benadryl on hand in case of emergency. The substitute nurse did not understand the importance of the anti-allergy medicine, and seemed unwilling to listen. Mary became agitated, and she was sedated so the treatment could begin. Even under the influence of heavy narcotics, Mary still sensed something was wrong. She suddenly became very ill. Her temperature dropped, her grey skin curdled with hives, and she went into convulsions. She silently prayed to God for help while poisonous blood infiltrated her sensitive system. The feather-light body shivered and shook uncontrollably.
It was not long before Mary was floating in the air above her own bed. Nurses frantically wrestled with the convulsing body so the transfusion lines didn’t rupture, spilling what was left of her weak blood all over the room. They worked furiously while yelling for help. Mary watched the commotion in calm silence from some faraway perspective. She missed her husband and children, yet felt detached from the scene below. The room grew small and dim compared to illuminations from above.
As fate would have it, Mary’s regular nurse had worked another floor, and had just gotten off her shift. She had walked all the way out to her car in the hospital parking lot. But her brand new car, a recent gift from her husband, refused to even blink hello. Back inside, the nurse noticed the emergency in Mary’s room and barged in with a fury. “Mary,” she yelled, “You get back here right away! You’ve got three children and a husband who need you. You’re not ready to go just yet!” Jumping at the nurse’s orders, the pheresis team quickly applied the benedryl and changed the blood supply. Mary fell back into her body, and the world was loud and painful once more. It was later agreed that one of the donors must have used aspirin or some other drug that caused Mary’s almost fatal allergic reaction that day. It was a miracle she survived. Or maybe it was just telepathy.
Mary survived that terrible episode, and others. She might have been whisked off this planet more times than she can count. But she amazes her doctors every time they see her, especially now that she is busy raising three healthy teenagers. Years ago, her charge physician gave up asking her what she was doing to cope with the agony of her condition. She had refused to take synthetic narcotics and other drugs that were harmful to her, but had no answer to explain how she coped with the immense pain. Nor was there any explanation for her continued survival—a fact that baffles medical experts to this day.
On the second week of November 1998, days after the Medical Use of Marijuana Act was passed in Washington State, Mary proudly went in to see her MD with some not-so-surprising news. Without marijuana, Mary would be dead.
Everyone on Mary’s team has been quick to understand how marijuana is superior to other drugs for someone suffering from allergic conditions and an unstable system. The mild herbal medication called cannabis is non-toxic and non-lethal, even at extraordinary doses. It is no wonder that doctors recommend marijuana for Mary and other patients who cannot take synthetic drugs. MDs do still wonder what is keeping her alive. Perhaps someday there will be answers. There is much to learn about ITT/TTP, and there is much to learn about the miraculous healing powers of marijuana. Until there is more research, marijuana remains the only medicine gentle enough for the pure blood of Mary.
Linda Day
Multiple Sclerosis Patient
Linda Day is a light-spirited woman trapped in a very crippled body. She believes that her upbeat mental attitude is a part of why her disease has not progressed further than it has in the last 30 years. Marijuana has helped to keep her body alive, but Linda also knows that cannabis has helped to support her positive outlook and to accept her unfortunate physical condition without succumbing to depression or apathy.
In 1977, after 36 hours of intense labor, Linda and her husband were blessed with a son. Six weeks later, her joy was overshadowed by a foreboding cloud. Linda woke up one morning with severe double vision. She was terribly distressed, because her sister has suffered the same symptom just before she had been diagnosed sixteen years earlier. Linda made an appointment with an eye specialist, but by the time he could see her, she has already developed ataxia, a loss of balance control. So she went instead to see her family physician. Upon hearing her signs and symptoms, he immediately referred her to a neruologist. He listened quietly while she listed her problems, then he suddenly blurted out, “You have all the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis!”
A series of tests confirmed the doctor’s suspicion--Linda has the same mysterious disease that her sister had. Linda asked her doctor, “what should I do?” He said, simply, “Go on living your life.” While Multiple Sclerosis is still a mystery and is still incurable, at least now there is more known, and there are more options that help manage and reduce the irreversible deterioration of nerve tissue that eventually leads to catatonia and death. At that time, medical therapy for MS patients was mostly a guessing game. Linda was given large doses of steroid drugs that helped control the double vision, but from that point on, her energy began to dwindle.
Physicians and medical researchers at the University were very interested to learn that both Linda and her sister suffered from MS. They poked and prodded and took tissue samples and ran all sorts of tests, but they mostly discovered what they already knew, that they didn’t know very much at all about the cause of Multiple Sclerosis. The drugs helped a little with her vision, but her physical strength was waning. Before long, she could only walk with a cane. Linda was admitted to an experimental therapy at the University. A mold was taken of her back, and then she would come into the hospital every day for 45 days for two minutes of radiation on her lymphatic system. The experimental treatment was ineffective. Suffering the agony of radiation blisters and burns was of no benefit to the group of MS patients who had volunteered for the experiment. One of the patients was so despondent at the outcome, he committed suicide, but Linda never gave in to hopelessness.
Linda has spent 30 watching her body deteriorate. She went from using one cane to two, then a few years later, she was reduced to using walker. Now she is completely wheelchair-bound. For three decades, Linda has suffered intense pain in her legs, arm, and other parts of her body, from the ever-increasing nerve damage and muscle atrophy. Thirty years of neuropathy, daily hypodermic injections, and wretched bedsores, would put a scowl on most faces, but through all that pain and loss, Linda was never lost her gift of gaiety. She is one of those who believes that laughter is the best medicine.
Marijuana helps people cope with neurological pain better than narcotic drugs. Linda believes that the neuro-protective properties of cannabis has helped her retain the use of her arms and hands far longer than expected. Linda also knows marijuana has helped her cope with the mental and emotional pain. Pharmaceutical pain drugs prescribed by doctors work by blocking physical sensations, and that has a decidedly negative impact on a patient’s mental and emotional well-being. Depression, apathy, manic mood swings, confusion, and anxiety can all be triggered by common pain pills, and most of them have a disastrous effect on the intestinal tract. Medical marijuana is most well known for its appetite-producing effects in combating nausea and wasting syndrome in cases of cancer and AIDS. Non-patients use the word “pot” for cannabis, and they call its powerful hunger-stimulation “the munchies”. Non-patients also feel less pain when using cannabis--they call the feeling a “high”. And all marijuana users experience enlivened mental stimulation and improved emotional feelings while “high“. Marijuana enthusiast Allen Ginsburg was well-known for his oft repeated line: “pot is fun” way back in the nineteen-sixties, long before Linda was diagnosed with one of life’s most depressing diseases. Besides reducing her intense pain and increasing her gastric functions, Linda smokes pot because she likes to smoke pot. She says it is fun. And she is not alone.
While she was still able, Linda headed a Multiple Sclerosis support group. MS patients have many physical and mental difficulties to cope with, but the group did prove productive by meeting at various members’ homes to share and compare their cases, and where they might have an occasional speaker or topic. But it was not long before every patient in the group admitted they were medical cannabis users. Soon, the first portion of the meeting was primarily devoted to imbibing marijuana, and the remainder of the meeting became outright hilarious. MS patients talked about their “stupid” disabilities, but then they had trouble recounting their stories without laughing at the ridiculousness of their own predicament. Picture a room full of wheelchair-bound cripples all giggling and guffawing in unison, nearly falling out of their wheelchairs onto the floor, laughing uncontrollably about their terrible problems. Those who would denounce the blessings of medical marijuana should see that very real image and consider this very real question: is a moment of two of spontaneous fun in an otherwise dull and dreary life of disability really such a bad thing?
One of the most serious injustices of the war on marijuana is the outrageous cost of this illegal medicine. The price of pot from illegal dealers is more than the price of gold. So many patients find they have little choice but to grow it themselves. Thus, many patients have had their lives ripped apart by overzealous law enforcers. So the laws had to be changed. Linda did what she could do in 1996 and 1997 to help pass The Medical Use of Marijuana Act. It was a long and tiresome process to help iron out differences and difficulties among the diverse ranks of supporters who helped write the initiative, and it took hundreds of signature gatherers to help put the measure on the ballot. But it was a surprise to everyone that the measure passed so easily. The people of this state support Linda and her friends. The people think it is okay that sick and dying people smoke marijuana. Linda is very proud to have been a part of that crucial awakening in The Evergreen State.
Linda Day remains a staunch supporter of medical marijuana, and she is very pleased to be of help to others in less fortunate circumstances. The woman is a wonder of mind over matter. As she likes to say, “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter“. She proves the old adage about clouds with silver linings and especially the one that says, “If God gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Suffering from an incurable disease that saps the life from her muscles, with huge parts of her life lost and gone forever, Linda’s bubbly laughter is in itself a very real miracle. For Linda, marijuana is not just a medicine, it is a stepping stone to that higher way of being.