Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1482660
28 patient focus cannabis patient care | vol. 3 no. 3 cannapatientcare.com Facing these tough options, Hall decided to research and seek out further information regarding the benefits of medical can- nabis to help her daughter. "To protect myself and my family, I pushed for a medical card for Brooklyn, even though I didn't technically use the medical card. I feel like there's a lot of igno- rance when it comes to cannabis. They really don't understand how the plant works. And, unfortunately, doctors can only pre- scribe two cannabinoids when there's an entire plant full of hun- dreds of them that they completely ignore. So, I pushed for a medical card, and I got it. And then I networked, and I found the right medicine for her," said Hall. "I think that might be one of the most frustrating parts about choosing cannabis is that each state has their own regulations, which makes it hard to find le- gal access, or the right medicine. On a federal level, it's still con- sidered a Schedule I drug. So, each state has its own little rules. I live in New York so right now cannabis is completely legal, but it wasn't when we started our journey. We started giving her cannabis around her fifth birthday, a little over 3 years ago, and there were very little options in New York at that time. In fact, you could only legally purchase a THC percentage of 15%. Even now a doctor can only prescribe THC and CBD." Eventually, they determined that Brooklyn needed full whole plant medicine which couldn't be legally purchased in their home state. Hall explained how she would often trav- el out of state to receive the cannabis that would ultimate- ly help her daughter. "The laws that are put in front of you, which cause you to either choose to obey and watch your kids suffer, or you have to push through it and say, 'Nope, I'm go- ing to save my kid.' So, I weighed my options. I feel like in 20 years, Brooklyn's still going to be here and I will win either way, even if it ever came back on me, I still win because she is still here, and she is healthy," said Hall. As a parent, the most important thing is their child's health and wellbeing. Chemo was causing her daughter to get sick- er rather than help her feel better. Before cannabis, Brook- lyn was on death's doorstep. Her parents decided to use Rick Simpson Oil (RSO), which contains a high tetrahydrocannabi- nol (THC) percentage and is extracted from the Indica plant. In the beginning, it was used alongside the chemotherapy, but the RSO had no chance to fight back from the chemo. After a few months of using them together, Brooklyn's parents de- cided to cancel all "big pharma" treatments, this included the chemo and radiation treatments. They went all in on cannabis as their miracle plant. "As soon as we did that, and I'm not jok- ing, it was almost overnight. When we were using the chemo, she developed these horrible mouth sores which prevented her from eating, and she was almost completely nonverbal. She was pointing and grunting, that's it. She was on the couch all the time. She would sleep a lot, and was just lethargic. She had no quality of life. As soon as we stopped using the chemo, she started talking again," said Hall. "Once we started just sticking to cannabis, it was like she did a complete 180. It was like with- in a week, I saw a completely different kid and it gave me so much hope. To the point that now I push everybody to look into it because it was such a profound impact on her life that I truly Kurt Hall reading to Brooklyn while inpatient at Golisano Children's Hospital in Syracuse, New York (September 2017). Brooklyn announces to her friends and family she is NED (no evidence of disease) in January 2020.