After a lifetime of problems, a glimmer of hope began to shine on the family
From the moment she was born, Madeline McCain was a bundle of joy for her parents. Like every newborn child, she brought a whirlwind of emotions with her upon her arrival and changed their world forever. However, Madeline faced more challenges than many other children and had to undergo surgery during her first 24 hours on Earth because she suffered from fluid on the brain in the womb and was diagnosed as having hydrocephalus.
Having been born with hydrocephalus, Madeline’s mother expected that her daughter’s early life would be spent in and out of hospital as they organized treatments for her condition. Alongside all the usual trials and tribulations of parenthood, they took the extra pressure and responsibility in their stride and did all they could to ensure that Madeline was well looked after. After the first few months had flown by, her mother suddenly noticed something out of the ordinary.
Whilst sitting at home one evening, Carrie and her husband were playing with Madeline after dinner. Carrie went to the kitchen and saw that Madeline was looking at something out of sight but she didn’t think much of it. On her way back from the kitchen she saw that she was still staring off at something and called to her. Madeline didn’t respond. Carrie called again and then clapped her hands to make a louder sound. Madeline still didn’t respond. Unsurprisingly concerned, Carrie and her husband squeezed Madeline’s fingers and toes and tried to get her attention, but she was caught in a distant stare. Just as they were beginning to really panic, Madeline snapped out of it.
The next day they went to the doctor and explained what had happened. The doctor examined Madeline but couldn’t see any sign of what may have caused the strange episode. They reviewed her medical records and noted that she had received a number of vaccines in the previous months, just as any baby would, but they could not see anything which could be deemed responsible for this sudden bout of her seeming apparently vacant. Despite their concerns, the parents were told not to worry and sent away.
Over the coming months the symptoms returned sporadically. Each time they appeared Madeleine’s parents took her back to the ER or the doctor’s office in the hope of finding answers, and each time they came home feeling disillusioned and let down. They knew something was wrong, but the doctors never saw the symptoms for themselves. Her parents felt powerless.
By the time Madeline was 10 months old the episodes had developed from vacant stares to tremors and shaking limbs. The increasing intensity of the physical symptoms lead her parents to becoming more and more worried about their child’s health. Thankfully, during one of their now-almost-routine trips to the doctor with Madeline, she finally experienced an episode in front of the physician. Once this happened they made a diagnosis: Madeline was having epileptic seizures.
Once a diagnosis had been made, Madeline was prescribed treatment to help control her seizures. Despite her age and pre-existing medical conditions, she was prescribed a combination of Valium, Xanax and anti-seizure medications; because of her inability to chew the tablets, her parents found that they had little-to-no-effect initially and it took a long period of time before they started to see significant results. During this period they found that doctors continually came up with additional medications which had the potential to help her condition, however this became simply a case of adding more pills to the prescription as opposed to exploring different avenues or seeking a significant change. Over the next few years Madeline was diagnosed with Ehlers-danlos syndrome and Chiari malformation along with hyper-mobility and by the time she was in her mid-teens she was taking a cocktail of 22 pills each and every day.
As Madeline grew up, her mother became increasingly concerned about the negative effects that her medication was having on her. She couldn’t sleep due to constant pain and she suffered numerous side-effects including a breakdown in her ability to communicate or think coherently and by the time she was a teenager Carrie found her daughter slipping into a zombie-like state. When a medicine causes more harm than good you have to consider how worthwhile it is, so Carrie began to investigate alternative courses of treatment.
Following a meeting with Madeline’s neurologist it became clear that most of the usual options had been explored and there was little more which could be done using the traditional channels. By this point Madeline had undergone multiple brain surgeries and suffered from chronic pain which couldn’t be controlled or relieved with OxyContin or other prescription pain pills. Although her neurologist did not have a vast level of experience with cannabis as a medicine, she had heard about other patients finding relief in it and saw there was no harm in trying something different. They began to research strains and methods of ingestion and eventually Madeline began using CBD/THCa strains as a new medicine. The impact was incredible.
After a lifetime of problems, a glimmer of hope began to shine on the family: Madeline’s seizures were vastly reduced in terms of both intensity and frequency; her day-to-day life was improved and she was able to focus more on her education; Madeline was finally able to get a good night’s sleep. She discovered that her preferred methods of ingestion were a cannabis oil called Jayden’s Juice which she used during the day (this provided a huge reduction in seizures and even lead to a three month period during which she had no notable seizures whatsoever) and edibles in the evening to help aid a restful sleep (usually Kushy Punch candies). As much as possible she tried to use a minimal dose to avoid any unwanted side-effects, but the impact this has made cannot be underestimated.
Since beginning to use cannabis as a medicine, Madeline has been able to reduce her intake of pharmaceutical pills from 22 a day to 10. She has stopped taking three of her previously-prescribed medications completely (including one she has taken for almost half of her life) and hopes to wean her doses down as much as possible. This has been a huge blessing for the family and they are forever indebted to their neurologist who had the foresight to try something beyond what had been prescribed endless times before. When it felt like the doctors would never offer more than additional pills to add to the toxic cocktail Madeline had to swallow every day, cannabis offered them a chance at salvation.
Now the family wants to share their story far and wide to show other people to keep hope alive even when it seems like there is none. Madeline was saved from a life of dependency on pills with hugely negative side-effects, and now she is showing improvements with each passing month. After appearing in a testimonial video made by Dr. Frank, they have also been inundated with messages of thanks from families in situations that are similar to theirs and they have been touched by their kind words. As time goes on, they hope that Madeline can continue to find solace in her new medicine and believe that one day she might be able to leave the pills behind completely, but for now they just want to play their part in breaking the taboo in the hope of helping others to find their own way to a brighter future.
By PSY-23
Originally Published in Weed World Magazine Issue 135
