CANNAMOMS

By Moriah Barnhart

When my daughter was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer at the age of two, I didn’t realize how little rights we as parents really have in the United States. I didn’t realize how limited our options are and how politicized medicine is here in the nation that leads the world. Had I foregone recommended treatment, although none were likely to cure her, I was told the State would have taken custody of her and she would undergo those approved treatment options without me by her side. Watching her wake up partially paralyzed after her first brain surgery, seizing, dying and being resuscitated, arms boarded down while intubated, hyperventilating with terror, and me being unable to explain to this innocent baby why she was suddenly being tortured by the people she loved and trusted, changed my perspective on the state of medicine in America today. 

Watching your child suffer is the greatest trauma a parent can endure aside from losing them altogether. However, even those whose children do survive physically may in many ways lose their child to the permanent and debilitating side effects of conventional treatment options. Our survival rates are deceiving. Signing off on these treatments is an inexplicably devastating task which leads to irreparable feelings of culpability and regret for many parents, especially for those whose children suffer the most devastating of the known and unknown side effects. Children often die from heart failure or organ damage as a direct side effect of harsh chemotherapies and radiation. Our statistics are skewed.  

Quickly into my daughter’s journey, it became clear that I may one day have to choose between saving her life and granting her a quality of life worth living. That is the hardest position any parent can ever find themselves in. Compounding this unimaginable trauma was that in this fight for her life, I was forced to simultaneously fight antiquated laws and corruption. I wasn’t just up all hours of the night watching the rise and fall of her chest for signs that she was still alive, but also now for swat teams and helicopters over our home. 

Through her seven years of diagnosis, six of which have been on experimental trials at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, cannabis has been the only thing to safely alleviate her pain or help her nausea and vomiting. Seven years ago, I couldn’t believe that this little plant, one of the world’s safest and most medicinal, was able to revive her childhood and give her back the will to fight and live. I also couldn’t believe that even in these dire circumstances, even in the hospital where no conventional medicine was a guarantee, no one had access to it. Of all the hundreds of medicines she’s taken to date, cannabis is by far the safest. That’s indisputable. 

But this isn’t just about my daughter. She’s my world, but everyone has someone they would sacrifice everything for. This is about millions of children like her. Millions of suffering children without cures. Millions of Americans of all ages suffering without cures. This is about vets who don’t know how to reintegrate and can’t shake their sense abandonment. This is about millions upon millions of Americans living with diseases, disabilities, and debilitating (happiness-inhibiting and even suicide-inducing) pain. This is about traumatized parents like me living with PTSD, depression, and anxiety in isolation. This is about alleviating suffering, promoting happiness, enhancing quality of life, and demanding our personal freedoms. This is about compassion and the welfare of ourselves, our loved ones, and our neighbors superseding the corruption that has grown from unchecked power. 

Corrupt politics leads to bought science. Bought science leads to bad medicine. Bad medicine leads to an overwhelmingly sick society wherein cures are elusive but unsafe, lifelong treatment options are a dime a dozen. We know that there is corruption in the highest ranks of our government. There is not a single citizen of our country who does not believe that. But when confronted with the direct consequences and potential solutions, we brush these off as conspiracy theories. It’s so much easier to come home from our 9 to 5 in American fashion and open a six pack, watch a reality show, pass out and repeat than it is to really confront the seemingly insurmountable adulteration of democracy we are living in today. We like to think of enemies of democracy as intangible terrorist groups in deserts across the globe thousands of miles away from us here. But our greatest threats to freedom exist within the ranks of power right here in our own backyards. 

Brave men and women fight for our freedoms overseas, so I have always vowed to maintain that fight here on our home front. And I hope more people will join in that fight. It’s our only hope. 

Partial paralysis

Just before starting cannabis oil (out of a surgery without pain meds due to history of stopping breathing)

Just after starting cannabis oil:

Just after starting cannabis oil