Imagine This....

All parents have their breaking point and last Wednesday, I had mine.

We'd been gone for 8 days for our trip to the Mayo Clinic for their Diagnostic Team and my son had had enough. I had had enough. We just got home from a nearly 4 hour car ride where my son whined nearly the entire way and it'd been more than 48 hours since either one of us got some sleep.

My father had finally urged me to put him down for a nap and for me to do the same. So, I put Abram down in  his crib, made sure we did our normal routine of sound-maker, lavendar lotion back-rub and crib soother. Plus - the almighty blanket fluffing. But he just started to cry. I figured he was just over-tired so I went into my closet - to CRY. I just couldn't handle it anymore.

Then I heard him screaming. An awful scream. And I ran in there to find my son had screamed so loud and so hard that he'd made himself projectile vomit all over himself, his bedding, through the crib slats and all over the floor.

I yelled up the stairs to ask for my parents to help and my mom came running to clean him up while I changed all his sheets and scraped vomit off his pillows. We got him put back down and he fell right asleep while I fell into a heap on the couch and just BAWLED.

I felt like a horrible mother. I felt like a failure. I felt lost. I felt alone. And I felt ANGRY.

Since the day my son was born we have had to FIGHT. We had to tell the Nurses his lips and fingers were purple. We had to tell our Pediatrician - and another and another that SOMETHING WAS WRONG before anyone would listen. I KNEW he was having seizures before the "professionals" even agreed with me.

When you have a sick kid you lose everything: Your friends who you thought would always be there. Your family who just don't understand so they don't bother to say anything. Your faith in people and doctors and even the universe. It is HARD and no one gets it except for the people who live it.

At Mayo we were treated with Dignity and Respect. My old videos that I showed for seizure examples were confirmed as just that. When my son was collapsing and our local doctors turned us away and told us they couldn't help us and shipped us off.. it turned out that they were overdosing my child on a benzo. Those collapsing spells weren't new seizures - they were a side effect of TOO MUCH MEDICINE.

At Mayo, we were NOT frowned upon or shunned for giving our child CBD. At Mayo,  we weren't told that we needed to add yet another harmful pharmaceutical with a myriad of dangerous side effects to our toddlers medicine regiment. Does that mean it will always be so? I don't know. He has EPILEPSY. Our pediatrician said it best when she said "I can't tell you what the next year will bring you. But I can tell you it's not your fault".

In Iowa:

• I am a criminal because I give my child CBD. I tried to do the right thing, but sadly the doctors in our state don't want to for fear of either losing their license or for fear of being sued by an angry parent.
• I beg for help from my politicians and only a small portion of them even respond to my phone calls and e-mails. I have had enough. My child has endured more than most people can imagine. He is strong and he is kind and he is forgiving. He also has the best smile that could melt even the coldest heart if these politicians and lawmakers would even take the time to look.
• I have found that non-profit and publicly funded hospitals will hire and pay lobbyists to fight the bill that you so desperately need to help your child. While at the same time they spend thousands of dollars on commercials bragging about how much they care about sick kids. I think they need to add an asterick to their catch phrase.. *Unless your child has Epilepsy.

Today,  when speaking with US Senator Charles Grassley - I admitted that although I tried my best to follow the law here - and went through all of the proper routes - I was unable to obtain the Registration Card for my son. Due to that reason, I was forced to do what was best for my child and that I was happy to report that my son is nearly three months free of physical seizures.

I did not get a congratulations. Or an "I'm happy to hear that". Instead I was quickly dismissed to another one of his advisors who talked to me about all the things that Grassley is doing to try and change things but that CBD cannot be rescheduled until there is more "research". I reminded him that such research would not be able to be done UNTIL they rescheduled CBD as a Schedule II drug - due to the fact that it is illegal at the Federal Level - no research can be done until that happens. I got a chuckle and a bad joke about "The Chicken and the Egg" metaphor.

In light of the need for "more research" I asked specifically how it is that the United States Government and the Department of Health can have a Patent 6630507 for "Cannabinoids as an Antioxident and Neuroprotectant" and that their own document states clearly that cannabinoids "are substantially non-toxic even at very high doses"
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To which he laughed and said "We are Congress not Scientists".

Imagine now - if this were your child. Suffering from Day One and as a parent - being forced to be a "criminal" because Doctors, Hospitals and Politicians don't have the guts to stand up for what is right.