I had mentioned a while back that Gillian had received two new diagnoses and a new medication, our 9th anti anxiety medication in a year (http://relatabletogether.blogspot.com/2018/02/id-like-to-sove-puzzle.html). Well, that medication was not our golden ticket. It was terrible. It made her worse. I emailed her psychiatrist to let her know and her response was to take her off the meds for three days and then just given her half a pill a day instead of a whole one and then let her know how she was doing in two weeks. Seriously?! I didn’t want even a crumb of this medication in my child. It was making her crazier then before so what, half a pill would just make her a little less crazy?!! No thank you! I was mad. Mad at the doctor for not really helping us, for not giving us any kind of hope that one of the millions of medicines she had was going to help our daughter. I was mad that she didn’t really seem to be getting just how bad things were for Gillian and how horrible our home life was. I felt like she didn’t even care. We were just another patient to her, a medical record number and that was it.
I stood in the kitchen that night feeling just completely hopeless. My heart was in tachycardia (as it does after a stressful day), my body was exhausted, my emotions were exhausted, my brain was exhausted. Chris walked in and I looked up at him with tears streaming down my face (again) and said, “If we don’t find something that helps her soon, I am going to die from a heart attack or a stroke. My body can’t take this anymore.” I was completely serious. Years of stress has had a negative affect on my body. Heart issues, adrenal fatigue, TMJ, back pain, neck pain, anxiety, complete exhaustion. I was at the end of the rope hanging on by one little thread that was fraying really fast. He asked me what I thought we should do and I told him that I thought it was time to get her a medical cannabis card and try CBD and THC oils. He agreed.
We had talked about trying cannabis oil on and off for the past year but never felt God leading us in that direction. We had only heard great things about others using them for their special needs kids. It wasn’t something new to us but it was something new to our home. I don’t know why God didn’t want us to explore this option sooner but when we had talked about it before I never felt a peace about trying it out. A year ago I had all the appointments lined up to get Gillian a medical cannabis card and an appointment at the dispensary to talk to someone about what we would use. Literally an hour before the appointments God gave me this totally unsettled feeling so I canceled the appointments and that’s when we started with our psychiatrist and our long journey of anti-anxiety medications. Now, here we were a year later having exhausted almost every route but this one. Suddenly I had an overwhelming peace that this was exactly what we were supposed to be doing.
I kept Gillian home from school the next day and off we went to the doctor to get her cannabis card. The doctor was a very kind man, who looked over the big pile of medical papers describing all of Gillian’s diagnoses and understood exactly why we were there. He signed all the paper work and off we went to the dispensary. In all honesty here, people, this was my first time in a cannabis dispensary and actually my first time even being near any type of marijuana. I was so nervous when we walked in. Here we were, a red-headed white lady with her chatty, disabled daughter. What a pair! At the entrance was a security guard and a “bouncer-type” guy checking people in. He was a big guy with tattoos from head to toe and a long beard. For those of you who know Gillian you know that this is just the type of guy she likes. She immediately started telling him that she liked his beard and his tattoos. I was telling her to be quite. Geesh, child. There was some logistically issues with our paperwork since I have conservatorship over Gillian and have to be on the paperwork as well so “bouncer dude” had to call the owner, Jason, out. Honesty again here, I was shaking like a leaf at this point because I was so nervous and had no idea what the heck I was doing. I was such a rookie. Jason came out and I told him who I was (we have mutual friends) and why I was here with Gillian. Oh my word, you guys, he was the nicest guy ever! He told “bouncer-dude” to handle the paperwork because we were legit and then he took me to the waiting area where we sat and talked about all that had been going on with Gillian for over half an hour. He got it. He gets it. He has a special needs child as well and cannabis has been a life saver for his child.
Jason explained what THC and CBD do and what the difference is between them. I was liking what I was hearing and getting excited about trying something new. He then told me what the side affects are...eating, sleeping and being happy. What?! Seriously?! So basically you’re telling me that this is going to help my daughter eat, which she was rarely doing much of these days, sleep, she has never slept though the night in her 19 years on earth, and be happy , which I would give anything just to see her happy again. Is this for real?! I laughed and told him that those are my kind of side affects. As we were getting ready to leave Jason told me that he knew that this was going to be the start of healing in Gillian and in our family. He guaranteed it. I was speechless. No doctor had ever told us that. No doctor had ever given us any kind of hope for Gillian to be happy and they never even cared about the affect it was all having on our family. All we ever heard was, “ this medication has some bad side affects but maybe it will help.” Hope, someone was giving us hope. It was amazing!
Now normally after an appointment with the psychiatrist I would get in the car and cry because I was so stressed about trying another anti-anxiety medication and nervous abut the side affects we would have to endure. When I got in the car after leaving the dispensary I cried tears of joy because someone actually cared enough to give us hope. Someone had been where we are and they had found healing and now they were helping others find healing to and we got to be some of those people. I immediately called Chris and told him about the entire wonderful experience and the little bottles of hope I now had. I couldn’t stop smiling. I was overjoyed that my family, our home, was going to find peace again.
It took about 48 hours of Gillian taking the oils and she was a completely different person. Within a couple of weeks she was sleeping through the night (without us having to give her Unisom) and she was having only about 1-2 tantrums a week. Peace was being restored in our home. Laughter was back and everyone was just overall happier. It was wonderful. It is wonderful. It hasn’t been perfect, we occasionally have days where it seems like the oils aren’t helping but she is nowhere near being that horribly anxious person she was before.
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Now I have to tell you about how awesome all the people at Jayden’s Journey and Kase’s Journey are..........
As Jason, Gillian and I sat on the couch in the waiting area, Gillian kept waving to the security guard and calling him a police officer. This was cracking every up who worked there and Jason proceeded to tell Gillian that he was just a rent-a-cop. Oh my word it was hysterical. They were all totally loving Gillian and commenting on how awesome her fedora was. She informed them of how much she liked Michael Jackson and the next thing I knew, they had Michael Jackson blaring out the speakers in the dispensary and they were dancing with Gilly. Remember “Bouncer-dude” the guy who totally intimidated me when we walked in? Well as we left, Gillian was giving him a big hug and telling him once again how awesome his tattoos and beard were. When we went back to the dispensary a couple of weeks later “bouncer-guy” saw Gillian and got a huge smile on his face and told her happy he was to see her again. He’s really just a big teddy bear!
The first time I visited Kase”s Journey, “rent-a-cop” was there and he remembered Gillian and I and got a big smile on his face and just laughed. He loved that she called him a police officer and that we all got to joke with him about it. The people who work at both of these dispensaries are the most amazing people who’s desire is to help people find healing and hope through cannabis. They know their stuff and are always patient with me as I ask a million questions about the oils and the dosage Gillian is taking. I now visit one of the dispensaries once or twice a month and they are both such welcoming places. I laugh now when I think about how nervous I was that first time.. I am so grateful that God has brought us to the place of hope and healing and for the people He has placed in our lives who fight the fights for cannabis.
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