US ARMY

How I found myself in the medical marijuana movement

/ Amanda / 2 Comments
Get ready for some venting and the use of a few passionate words.
My involvement with the medical marijuana movement started from a very dark place, which still makes me angry. I normally don’t share these years with the public, but sometimes the origin story is necessary to understand the premise of the  passion.
As a staunch advocate for punishments for those involved in the illegal drug trade, I’ve had many people ask me, “How did I became a voice for medical marijuana?”
Simple. I was forced to see chronic pain from the other side.
I was forced into a position of chronic pain and I saw what true abuse of power can do to patients who need real help.
Do I still promote strong punishments for illegal drug trade? Oh yes! The people behind the Fentanyl pills, made to look like regular pain pills, which are killing people right now, should be held up as murderers.
*********
Those drug dealers are using the new CDC policies to prey on patients who are in pain and have been let down by their government and by their physicians. The drug dealers doing this are using the nationwide panic to purposely kill people with a medication needed by some people to survive. During the Tylenol scare of the 80s, the perpetrator was held up as the murderer, but when drug dealers are killing people based on new policies created by the CDC, the unsuspecting buyers, (the ones the CDC have hurt worse) are being held up as the guilty parties. In reality, it’s the CDC, who behind closed doors, used their infinite uncontrolled power to create criminals from chronically sick citizens (don’t we have enough people in prison in America without forcing normal citizens to become criminals just to survive?).
********
The people who stand outside of schools to sell drugs to little children or those who get young girls addicted, only to use them for profit, should be put so far under the jail they should never see the light of day again. My position on those situations have never wavered.
When exactly did my position on medical marijuana change?
It happened while I was in the military. Due to many injuries, back issues, and chronic pain diseases, I was left in severe pain on a daily basis. I was allowed to suffer worse than a lost pet in the county kennel. I explained to my medical team what my goals in life were and what I needed to accomplish these goals. My new Physician Assistant (PA) allowed me to take pain medications for my diseases and I was able to function again. I could spend time with my children, I was attending grad school, conducting limited exercise, maintaining my weight, and working at G3 on my Army base. I was hurt and sick, but with the help of my PS, I was still rocking and rolling. I knew I was slowly making a comeback. Even if I wasn’t going to be 100%, I knew I was fighting this mess and my PA knew how to help me.
Then a new physician came in, CPT C. Brill, a total arrogant asshole if I’ve ever seen one. He wanted to become a holistic physician, so he requested and was approved for a large number of holistic classes, then he commenced to use his patients as his guinea pigs. Now let make this clear, we had no choice. We could not leave him as our physician. There was nothing  we, as his patients, could do about his actions, without causing ourselves even more harm. He was the only PA we were allowed to see, so any medical help we had, went through him. Each time someone complained about him, he would use his power to hurt that person even more. No matter how many complaints he received, he was the experimental holistic doctor on our base and his research (he was about to retire) would take him to the next step in his life. He did not care about his patients. His only care was for his career.
********
Let me make it clear, there are some incredibly awesome holistic measures patients can use to help with their diseases; yoga, vitamins, massage, chiropractic medicine, meditation, and more. In fact, I participate in some of these activities when I am able. But when a medical professional forces patients, through lies, intimidation, and abuse of power, to participate in his experiments, then the entire reason for holistic medicine is negated. Bring forced to give up what works for something that doesn’t work (holistic or not) is not healthy for anyone and can cause irreparable harm. I’m not against holistic medication, I’m against the abuse of medical power by medical professionals in any form.
********
The first month he took over for our old PA, he took all pain medications away from his patients, except those with deadly cancer. Even patients who had severe back issues, pins and braces in their body, shrapnel in their body, and men and women who suffered with chronic pain diseases and could barely get out of bed, were subjected to his outrageous claims of holistic practices alone treating these conditions.
He did not titrate his patients down, as an ethical PA should. No. He told his patients flat out they would follow his way, period. He came to our unit with an agenda and used that agenda to conduct painful procedures on the Soldiers assigned to his office. There was no reasoning with him at all. On top of his experiments, he also ignored and did not follow orders from real medical doctors, such as specialty physicians, from RA offices or Pain Management offices. Soldiers would come to him with records from capable, respected, Medical Doctors, but due to his position, he could ignore the orders. CPT Brill was an entity by himself, allowed to treat his patients as he wanted, even unethically. He was the epitome of abuse of power and an shining example of how military medical care is handled. The lack of voice Soldiers have concerning experiments that harm them and the military carrying out medical practices contrary to their medical needs is exactly why the Feres Doctrine has outlived it’s usefulness.
We were used as his study patients, no matter how much it negatively affected our lives.
The month he took my medication away I was in incredible pain. I started feeling the difference right away. My joints swelled up, I used my cane more, I dropped out of school, and I could barely get out of bed. My brain could not process the amount of pain I was feeling and started shutting down parts of my body to handle the pain in my vital organs.
My blood pressure soared, my blood tests results were scrambled, my face turned bright white many times, and I was dizzy from pain more often than I admitted in public. I honestly think the damage he inflicted on my body will never fully recover. Severe pain changes your DNA and how your brain processes pain and pain memory. I truly believe CPT Brill ruined any chance I had of making a decent recovery.
It was at that very moment, June 2013, I swore I would never allow a flipping arrogant asshole to have that much control over my life ever again. My life means too much to me, for myself and my children, to allow someone I barely knew, whom I did not approve of, to ever control my life 100% and to put me in a position where I could die and the trusted person would not care. I refuse to be just another number to some jerk who only cares about himself. I owed it to my children to fight for my life against someone who didn’t care about out future, but only his own.
How dare that asshole think he could experiment on me (and other Soldiers, some of whom wanted to take their lives due to the pain they were forced to experience) and think I would go quietly in the night. I may not have been able to move from his care, but I made my anger and dissatisfaction well known.
The problem was, no matter how many complaints Soldiers or I filed (or my family filed) our physical well being was not as important as the experiments the Army was allowing CPT Brill to do to us.
My pain became so grave, my right foot swelled up with CRPS (the most painful disease known to humans) and became paralyzed. The day before my daughter’s 25th birthday, another Doctor on FT Campbell took over my pain care and I was put in the ICU on a Ketamin drip. I missed my daughter’s 25th birthday because an arrogant CPT decided his career and his belief was more important than my life. Well, that would not do for me.
While he was on leave, April 2014, I made an appointment to see another Doctor, a real Doctor on post. She wasn’t the best, but one thing we both had in common, we both disliked CPT BRILL, so I was able to really talk to her about my pain and my right foot. Before my PA came back from leave, she arranged to have me as one of her experimental patients. Yes, I was again an experiment, but this was an experiment I had to agree to and I needed to agree to (at least I was given the choice this time). We had to move fast. We had to get approval, my agreement, and a secured bed before he returned. We did.
I was the very first Ketamin patient on our post. Within 3 days my pain had decreased, my foot was working again, the swelling had gone down, and blood flow returned. If it had not been for her I don’t know where I would be now. That three days of “pain vacation” was what I need to keep going just a few more months. I knew I could survive just long enough to escape his torture.
With all my medical paperwork and my retirement very quickly approaching, I was able to get a referral to a pain clinic to get help in the form of correct pain management, such as shots in my back, an upgraded TENS unit, and yes, medications.
I tell this story because, my fight for medical marijuana did not come to me because I was looking for something to do or because I want to get high (I have still never used MJ at all, even though I could pop over to CO or Washington), or because i want people to be able to get high with no consequences, even alcohol and cigarettes have consequences and they are legal.
I became involved in the movement because I saw how medical professionals can use their positions to harm patients in the worst way possible, they are allowed to watch them suffer and force the patients to beg for help which never comes. Some medical professionals, use their positions and attitudes towards something they are scared of and don’t understand, to justify treating patients as second class citizens and puppets in their own screwed up play.
I have seen first hand what physicians can do when they have full control of a patient’s health care. The bad ones do acquire the “god complex” so deeply ingrained, they can justify anything to force their way on their patients. I have seen first hand the suffering they inflict when only their limited knowledge on a subject is allowed to take control of their treatment of patients. This is especially true when the physician has knowledge that his patients have no options
I’m older, educated, I have confidence, and I’m very vocal about my health care and yet, I was still experimented on, against my will, and there was very little I could do about it. I was a prisoner and victim of abuse of medical power. So, what about the Soldiers and civilian patients who have no voice. What about the constant amount of patients, who are so afraid of breaking the law, they are killing themselves everyday instead of risk being arrested and making it worse for their family members. What about them? How can anyone say those patients, who are in severe pain, don’t deserve at least the same care and dignity we offer to dogs in a pound? Why are patients allowed to suffer with chronic pain and this seems to be an accepted course of action by the CDC and some physicians, when a pet in pain is allowed pain medication because to allow the pet to suffer would be inhumane? How does any of this make sense to any government agency?
When I left the military, I did end up with some really fantastic physicians. I worked hard to build the team I need to work with me as I go through this medical journey. I was once more accomplishing a few things normal people would just call living. I call it having a good day. With each passing month, I was slowly having a few more good days. Not only did I have to fight my diseases, but I also had to drag myself up from the damage inflicted on me by my “trusted” medical professional (unfortunately, he was not the first nor the last to let me down, but the most trusted one who damaged me more greatly than all the others).
It has been exactly 2 years since I was in the ICU and I’m finally gaining back what I lost through underhanded practices. I’m finally (again) on the road back to some sort of normal I can live with. It hasn’t been easy and I’ve worked hard to get here, fighting the some really stupid people every step of the way. This year, I actually danced for the first time in 5 years. That wasn’t because of some holistic treatment given to me by some arrogant physician assistant, trying to boaster his career, no that came from real medical help, in the form of a muti-specialty approach, including the correct and controlled application of various medications.
But, now, the CDC and the FDA have decided they wish to punish all patients and do a sweep of all pain medications from every patient, no matter what the condition of the patient or the judicial background of each patient. We patients are not treated as humans, we are treated with contempt and hatred that we dared survive and we dared to want a life worth living.
Again, I fight for medical marijuana because the CDC and the FDA do not put my life nor my family first in their decision. In fact, they even ignored some of the top rated physicians and made policies behind closed doors, to take control away from the patient and their physician, and give it directly to the CDC. My physician is a top rated physician, who works hard with his patients to allow them the best life they can live with the diseases they must face each and every day. Now he must turn control of his work over to whom ever the CDC deems appropriate for their goals. Not only does this put an extra burden on the patients but, when more physicians are added to the mix ( especially those directed by the CDC and not by the patient), the clear standard of care is lost between a Doctor and a patient. These new policies are doing nothing to punish criminals, but will do so much harm to patients. The CDC is allowed to approve some of the biggest discrimination policies in our nation. As chronic pain patients, we deserve treatment with dignity and respect, not abuse and suspicion.
Why am I a huge advocate of marijuana (all marijuana, even recreational), because I’m tired of government agencies (the CDC, the Army, the FDA) thinking my life, my family, and my future is a flipping game. I’m not a number. I’m a human who also happens to be a patient. I may live in constant pain, but by GOD, the more pain you leave me in with your stupid, outrageous policies, the louder I will get. There are millions of patients just like me. They suffer daily because of the games played with their lives. They sit in dark corners, they lie in bed, they hide from society, and some of them wish they could die. They are the chronic pain patients of our nation and they have rights too.
I’m not a number and I’m not a toy to be played with. The more pain you force on me the more I will fight you until my last breath. CDC, it’s been a long 2 years coming back from what CPT Brill did to me and I won’t give my life up again without a fight.
I have a voice and I’m not afraid to use it.
#patientsnotaddicts  @patientsnotaddicts 

Open letter to the stranger (a man), who called me a “loud-mouthed feminist bitch.” — Thank you. That is the sweetest insult I have received in a very long time.

/ Amanda / 1 Comment

This is an open letter to the stranger, a man, who called me a “loud-mouthed feminist bitch.” I wish to thank you. Not only is your insult one of the nicest I have ever received, but you have shown yourself to be a little bitty man in a much bigger world then you can comprehend. If you think your off-the-cuff, over-used, outdated insult would affect me or silence me, you are gravely mistaken and you are way out of your league.

Not only are you not the first person who has insulted me, you are not even the first person to insult me today. I have been insulted by much classier, wealthier, and more powerful men then you could ever hope to be. In a world full of bricks being thrown at me and so many other women, you are nothing but a bug bite on my arm. You are not even worthy of being considered a bug bite on my behind, because that might actually cause me to be upset, and your words were actually an awesome compliment.

There have been many wonderful and fantastic times I have received wonderful compliments from those who love me, but since you, a total stranger, tried to bring me down with your pitiful little insult, let me give you an insight into the person you are trying to tear apart and silence.

As a child of less than 9, I was called:

Poor dirt farmer’s daughter, ugly, fat, wild, loud, untalented, crazy, strange, weird, spacey, bratty, slow, too short, roach girl (because my home had roaches), and an  “N-lover” (because I had a black friend in first grade and stood up for her on the playground). At 9 years old, I was called a slut and a whore by a female adult, because many of my friends were boys. These were not the only harsh words I faced, they are only a sampling of what created the person you tried to insult.

As a child in the fourth through sixth grades, I was sent to a “Christian” school to try to “fix me.” There, I was called by students and also teachers:

Dumb, wild, uncontrollable, loose, crazy, spacey (because I was shy and an introvert), weird (because I dreamed of being an astronaut, when women could not be astronauts), bratty, chatty, hyper, and a male student even called me a bitch because I would not allow him to kiss me and I slapped him (yep, standing up for yourself at 11 gets you called a bitch, but, guess what, he didn’t get to kiss me). See, your lazy insult of “bitch” has been used for many years against females, and we haven’t stopped winning yet.

From seventh grade through eighth grade, I was called:

Slut (because I would not allow a male to slap my butt), I was called strange and weird (again, because I told a teacher I wanted to be an astronaut), I was picked on, picked at, and bullied in middle school because I refused to conform to the “gangs” of little mean girls who only had each other as back up and would never make it alone in life. I was called an outcast, a Salvation Army baby, and because I refused to meet the boys in the eighth grade bathrooms for some “play time,” I was called slut, bitch, fat, and a whore. Yet, I still progressed, where others were slowly fading away to pre-teen pregnancy, drugs, gangs, and sadly, random deaths, and yes, even suicide.

As a teen, I was called:

Bitch, slut, whore, cunt, and pussy. See a pattern? Come on. Can’t people come up with more creative insults? I was harassed with words such as, “Baby you look fine, I wish to fuck you in the bathroom,” or my all time favorite, “I had your mom last night, I want a little of you today.” I have had bigger breasts since tenth grade, so that opened the door for more slang words, harassment, and “tear downs” of my spirit and my soul. I had teachers who told me to find more appropriate goals in life. I even had a teacher look at me when I entered her class for the first time, and say, “Oh, it’s you. I have already heard about you.” This is the same teacher who, in 1980-something, was having kids perform dissections on real cats. I tried to persuade her to hold a fundraiser to purchase fake cats instead. Her response was to joke about the cats being found behind the dumpsters and say they didn’t matter. Yet, she made me feel bad about being in her class.

I started a long distance track team, and teachers said I was too short to run. I ran anyway. I was told I was too fat to be a cheerleader. I cheered anyway. I was told I was too poor to be in band. I joined anyway. I wasn’t popular. I joined popular clubs anyway. I was bullied. I did not change my path to class. I walk down the same path everyday, anyway. So, you see, your insults don’t even bother me, they push me to do better and be much louder about it.

By students and teachers alike, I was made to feel bad about my body, my brains, and my outrageous goals in life. Yet, I still progressed forward, and the people who bullied and harassed me fell to the wayside in depths of drugs, drinking, and despair.

I was married a few times, and from those “kind gentlemen,” I received such “lovely” words as:

You are dumb. The house is a mess. You suck as a wife. You are nothing to me. You are looking fat. Why can’t you look like so-and-so? You can’t cook. Your thighs are fat. Your hair isn’t the right color. Oh, why did you change your hair. Gain weight. Lose weight. You don’t make me happy. You don’t deserve what you have.  You will never amount to anything. I cheated on you because you work too hard (I made more money than my ex). You make me look bad when you talk about your degree, job, and income, but you will never be better than me. Of course, there are many more, but I am sure you get the gist of my wonderful time with my ex-husbands.

I spent over 20 years in the Army, and I was called and told by my male leadership and my co-workers:

That I was a bitch, slut, whore, cunt, and pussy. Constantly. I figured I would get those out of the way, since males have no imagination when it comes to insults.

I was busting my back fixing a tire, while a male soldier was sitting whining about how lazy women are in the Army. I have been touched, jeered at, harassed, physically hit by my own commander in the face with a book, physically hit in my injured back by a male PA trying to prove I was not injured, called stupid, insubordinate when standing up for myself, a liar,  lazy, crazy, strange (that I had dreams of doing things females were not allowed to), weird, and a bitch, more times than I can count. I added bitch in there twice, because that is a running theme of females in the Army. If a female isn’t happy just taking orders from the “god like” males and succumbing to their ever wants and needs, then, those females are “bitches.”

I have also been called a dyke, lesbo, homo, twat waffle, pie muncher, and many homosexual slurs. I am not a homosexual, I just happen to be a very strong woman in the Army, who did her job very well. If they were referring to the take they believe a homosexual female is tough, smart, strong, and hard working, then I take their thinly veiled attempt at an insult, and I take it as a compliment.

I have been told to shut-up, sit-down, be quiet, don’t make waves, be more lady-like, be less lady-like, be this, be that, be something else all together. Yet. I am still here, progressing every day, while others fall in their own tracks of misery.

I have been told my huge accomplishments were only gained by sleeping my way to the top. I was told my awards were given to me only because it was determined by the government a certain amount of females receive certain awards. It could, in no way, be because I worked night and day to earn every recognition I was awarded. All of my accomplishments have been gravely diminished by the males in my life and my command. Not because I did not, in reality, truly earn them, but because the males were eaten up inside by jealousy, intimidation, and the hatred of anyone who out shined them (especially females). The only way for them to feel powerful wasn’t for them to work harder and meet the new standard a female had set, but to try to belittle and tear down the accomplishments of the females around them to make themselves feel better.

And yet, I still progressed. Day by day. Week by week. Pulling the hatred of men behind me like ankles weights on a prisoner sentenced to life. Every time I tried to escape the low standard men set, they would harass me, insult me, and try to tear me down by adding another weight to my ankles to keep me in my place. And yet, slowly, ever so slowly, I worked harder and became stronger than they ever could imagine and I continued to progress. One thing people forget: when you put weights on someone who is willing to work hard to get what they want, the weights do not hold that person back, but makes the person stronger, meaner, and more accomplished than the haters could ever imagine.

I am 47 years old and I have had many years and many late night crying sessions to contemplate ugly, pathetic, uneducated, underlings like yourself, and I have come up with a few rules for people like you:

  1. Come up with new and better insults. Your insults are tired, worn out, and old, like you. I have been insulted by Generals, physically hit by a combat Soldier, and even had a Senator send me an email to request I move out of his district. So, please, if I can survive the insults from those people, you are nothing to me but a pesky bug to smash.
  2. You bore me. Your old, outdated, stupid, idiotic, backward-thinking and raised-in-a-barn upbringing really bore me to death. I hate discussing serious topics with someone like you, who does not present any research to back your claims and relies solely on shoving their own personal agenda down people’s throats in a failed attempt to change the minds of those around them. I am bored with you and people like you. People of all sexes, races, and even dis/abilities have proven over and over they are worthy to occupy a seat at the “grown-up table of only men.” Please, you can’t hold those seats open for your friends forever. Your friends are not keeping up. Instead of insulting and putting down females, who are slowly taking those seats by storm, you need to talk to your male friends and tell them the world is changing, the rules are changing, the standards are higher, and they need to learn to keep up.
  3. Go to school. You sound like an idiot when you argue with me. If I am going to waste my time on people, like yourself, I really wish to have an equal brain to argue with. Trust me, a woman’s brain can multitask, find information quickly to bring to an argument, and immediately remember what you said after you yourself have long forgotten. You, on the other hand, must retreat in an argument, because you can’t keep up. So, please, go to school. At least the information you learn in school might make up for your old, broken record arguments toward females. At that point, I will gladly have an intelligent discussion with you concerning your issues of women working in “male only” positions.

So, let’s re-cap: I have been insulted, harassed, abused, stepped on, pulled apart, kept down by men around me, and so many other things you will never understand, and you expect me to “shut-up” my feminist talk, all just because you called me a “loud-mouthed feminist bitch?” Oh honey, you have a lot to learn about who I am. I don’t shut up, I don’t sit down, I don’t take crap from anyone, especially not the likes of you. I am better, stronger, faster, smarter, and more determined than you will ever fathom.

Again, thank you. I take your insult and accept it as a compliment, because, honey, that’s how I fucking roll.