Blog by Katherine Lily Mae Harris
Photos by Wayne Daniel’s at Harry Browns farm, me performing June 2016.
It’s wild what the web trap west has to say about people using medical marijuana as medicine.
Meanwhile anyone medicated by any pill prescribed to them, is seen as ‘normal,’ no matter how strong, crazy or bad for you it is.
We become the ones labeled ‘drug addict’ ‘trouble’ ‘problem’
I had three shoulder surgeries in one year. Two extra because of my abusive ex.
I had used marijuana as a younger person, not very regularly, but I enjoyed it when I did. Looking back with the perspective of an adult woman, I used it for ptsd and also for injuries given to me by my ex husband’s abuse. I didn’t need to have it and often a bag would last me a long time. If I was without, I didn’t ‘NEED’ it or have any withdrawals.
There was a lengthy period in between where marijuana wasn’t in my life, a few hippie moments where I took a puff at a concert or smoked a little with a friend, but for the most part, it left my life.
Getting my medical card was one year+ after ALL of marijuana was legalized in my state of Maine. Ironically it was my ex who crippled me, that encouraged me to get my medical card. In part, because he wanted to be able to buy some to smoke. I had no issue with that. I’m pretty accepting of people. He was more abusive drinking, than smoking. Same with my ex husband.
Initially using it as medicine was strange for me. I donated my belly dance time, to ‘kids with cancer’ events, that were all about educating people on the benefits of the MEDICINE that is marijuana. I donated my time in 2016 & 2017. Well before I used it as medicine for myself. I believed in the cause and knew its benefits.
By 2018 I am getting a medicinal card with my ex, next to me.
Him harming me very badly one week before my first shoulder surgery, I had a labrum tear, he caused for me to need two extra surgeries. All three took place in one year.
Even my therapist had to help me come up with mantra to say, to feel comfortable in using it as medicine for myself. I was Accepting of others, but societies taboos about weed, did impact me as an adult, whereas as a young woman, I really didn’t care.
By the end of the third surgery for my shoulder-which included two bicep tendons being cut (they were hanging by a thread because of my ex, body slamming me off the bed one week at about 11pm, before that first labrum tear surgery) and reattached; I had such a huge amount of opioid pills in my bathroom, unused and with free refills. They didn’t whisper to me to take them through the day or the night, there was no sidelong glances as I passed by, trying to restrain myself. There was no difference than if Aleve were sitting there on a shelf. Though because my exes daughter was there, those opioids were kept on a higher shelf. They sat there unused until handing them in to Belfast PD for proper disposal December 2020.
I used Tylenol pm mostly after my shoulder surgeries. That bicep tendon repair though, whoa! That was super painful.
I started to finally use medical marijuana and accepted it in April of 2020. I had spent February to then, attempting to integrate it and really feeling its benefit. I was happy to find something that allowed use of my right arm without it being numb…..bicep tendons cut and reattached need about two years to heal.
May 10, 2020 hit in the spine by my ex. Whoa. I just increase the dose of medical marijuana in an attempt to heal. I was hurt real bad though. I used a walking stick anytime I went outside other than around the block, where I walked like a t-Rex, sloth, or pirate, or like a robot. All locked up-military style posture. He knew how bad he crippled me and so did I. I have posted a lot about all of that…..unfortunately him and his lawyer decided to mislead police and others about the nature of my injury, to help him get away with it. Disgusting.
Using ambulatory devices before my bicep tendons were healed was really detrimental.
I finally got my ex away from me after he tormented me all summer. September 23, 2020. I got him away from me and I did something I never thought I would. I filed a charge against him for crippling me.
In court his lawyer said he wanted to pay my rent for 6 months to a year, this is after he offered me $10,000 to not say anything about what he did. I said NO! His money was no good to me and I said I wanted him to tell the truth and to get help at a batterers of women’s program. I was awarded a temporary protection from abuse, against him until mid April 2021.
I wanted to work. I had been out since summer of 2018!
I had an interview with a job I would have gotten in April/May of 2020-even with coronavirus, and then he crippled me.
I was ready to move on from life.
While the entire country received $300 a week from unemployment for doing nothing, just because of coronavirus, I was working in a daycare for minimum wage with an ambulatory spinal cord injury.
I loved those kids and I loved the job. The only issue was that being crippled, I couldn’t do the job required of a partially state funded and state outlined daycare. A Montessori school or daycare, would have been better for my physically crippled body.
As I continued to lose consciousness from autonomic dysreflexia and yet, kept trying to do each day, I used medical marijuana conservatively, with breaks in between. Important to gauge how the healing is going in your body. I NEVER had withdrawals. Not of ANY kind. Ever.
Medical marijuana was keeping me ambulatory.
In society and community it was scrutinized with mixed results and caused a commotion in some ways, people unsure how they felt about a daycare provider using weed as medicine. They knew I had a spine injury, I did not share details. Interestingly enough, if someone else was medicated off big pharma meds, nobody would bat an eyelash.
At one time I tried gabapentin in October of 2020, in the lowest dose for Thorocolumbar radioculopathy, right side body numbness from the thoracic spine hit down the whole side of my body. Ribs to toes. In that few weeks I felt more ‘dreamy’ like mentally, than I ever did from weed.
With gabapentin it felt like I was in a dream I couldn’t wake up from, muted.
With weed, I never felt high, or ‘out of it.’ I was using it as medicine. For a spine injury.
What is so funny is that if I was able bodied, that job would have been perfect and I would have been teaching dance and yoga on the side, but because I was crippled, I wasn’t a good fit.
The only reason I used marijuana is that I was crippled. Able bodied I wouldn’t have been using it, unless a random occasion, very rare.
I didn’t drink or smoke regularly from my early 20s. It was so rare it hardly is even worth mentioning. The last time I even had any alcohol being 2018. One day that year, I had a few delicious beers on Monhegan.
So I quit the daycare that summer. Sped home to get to my dog. MY child.
The daycare was not going to work with this injury. I went to my old job at a bar I worked at, Cuzzys, though before I only worked upstairs 2011-end of 2013. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, while working at my waitressing job the rest of the week at Long Grain. I initially went for a reference and he offered me a few shifts. I said I would try it out and told him about my spine injury, PTSD and that I would try my best. It was clear that the judgement from some, for using medical marijuana then, even at a bar, was occurring, the web traps did excellent with their rumors to downplay the abuse I endured. Oddly enough, some of the most judgmental, being women in other drug trades…..covered by their cop daddies or husbands.
I quit the bar September of 2021.
At first I was going to leave the country right away for medical refuge, my Sufi mentor recommended I instead apply for our countries system I paid in for 22 years, SSD.
That system is broken!!!
What I thought I could do as a job was something in the medical marijuana industry. Given the fact no one would be judging me for using it as medicine, it typically doesn’t require the same physical strength as a daycare or bar/waitressing or even bank job, and I thought I could help people with what I learned. SSD seriously failed me. Or the people operating the system.
In a World where big pharma mafia is the ruling force, how are we ever going to move forward, not only in medicine, but also in community.
I heard comments from web traps like ‘it’s cancer patient medicine’ and NO.
It is medicine.
Cancer patients use 1ML a day. I used 1ML over the course of 2 to 3 months!!! I was asked by one of the shop owners to do a video on it, to attempt to subdue the hype about it being this insane medicine. It isn’t. I have a VERY low tolerance. I use it conservatively. I wanted to help people with what I learned. Not only spinal cord, but medical marijuana, bicep tendon and shoulder surgery, PTSD and domestic assault survival too.
Many people from my sci walkers group, worldwide, have benefited the same from this medicine as I have. Yet-it’s still scrutinized!!
Society here cut me out and cut me down. Thanks to those small town rumors, intentionally created by the web traps and do you know the outcome?
Instead of steps forward with medical marijuana and medicine advancement, there are about several steps back.
Irreversible for now.
What would have happened if the right people were involved in this process instead?
If instead of web traps, people with honor and integrity were the ones to be navigating this with me?
We would have made great change.
I use medical marijuana as medicine for a LIFE THREATENING spinal cord injury caused by blunt force trauma.
I use it conservatively and take regular breaks.
I LOVED my life before a man ruined my body with abuse.
I could have loved it still, but web traps were the ones tampering with the situation, instead of those with honor.
I am glad to have worked in a daycare during the pandemic. I will always love those kids! Always. They were part of what kept me waking up every day in the hardest time of my life.
If anyone who ever knew me, saw me in that time, they would have known how bad he hurt me. Guess no one who knew, cared or noticed.
All I know now, is future, Future. Leaving behind every single person who stayed silent or contributed to this, looking forward to logical miracles occurring and finally being around people who are supportive instead of isolating and web trapping.
I took a lot of EdX courses on medical marijuana and took many notes, plus there’s my amazing memory, so I know someday, when in the right place, I will be able to contribute. To help. To have a life again.
