Shielding Motherhood: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare
Art Courtesy of Casey Renteria
On December 8th, 2023, my son almost quit breathing.
My baby boy nearly died that night. I was just minutes away from experiencing what is every parent’s worst nightmare. There has never been a more traumatizing event for me in this life, nor will there ever be. Six days later, after we were released from Children’s Hospital with a diagnosis and brand-new education on all things asthma, the very first stop I made upon arriving home was at my local medical marijuana dispensary.
What a bad mother, right?
Most would say “yes.”
But what if I told you that I already make an extra 20 - 30 life-saving decisions for myself on a daily basis? What if I told you I already manually operated an organ that is vital for survival and supposed to function automatically?
What if I told you that the exhaustion fear and pressure of being my own pancreas already weighed on me so heavily that the thought of being responsible for managing my son’s unstable and fragile health felt soul-crushing?
Would you still say “yes”?
The Judgment of Society
Society has a funny way of judging women for how they raise their children; especially the ones who consume cannabis, painting us in “Reefer Madness”-like fashion, endangering the lives of the next generation. And despite the legalization of this plant across the country and any medically-researched statistics being released, the taboo remains.
The instability of my son Sawyer’s health did not end after leaving the hospital. His body was still fighting off the “viral infection” that triggered his asthma and almost stopped his breathing in the first place. His life was compromised another four more times in the month that followed.
I didn’t sleep most nights, as the “attacks” almost always happened in the wee hours of the night. I spent most of every day of the next month in “recommended isolation” at our house obsessing, worrying, and managing his care all while trying to keep my own health “stable” - which was quickly becoming a losing battle.
My glucose levels were fluctuating between unsafe highs and near-critical lows at rates faster than I’ve ever seen in my 20 years of living with juvenile diabetes. Imagine trying to respond and react to a low oxygen level steadily heading to the low 80’s in a child, while experiencing the lethargic “drunk”-like physical and mental symptoms of a blood sugar plummeting below 50… that night takes the number two spot of “worst nights of my life”. Easily.
Where Cannabis Comes In
The consequences of letting the emotional and physical exhaustion I felt could have been devastating, and it became an obsessive fear that played in a constant loop in my head. I HAD to find a way to stay healthy enough for my child because his life, and my own, very much depended on it. I HAD to find a way to ease my worry enough to sleep a few hours at a time, to make myself hungry enough to eat a solid meal, to calm myself for moments enough each day to “recharge” the batteries of my brain that was working in the worst kind of terror-fueled overdrive … so I did the only thing that I knew would work to do just that: I consumed cannabis.
And it worked.
We powered through those moments of fragile health between the two of us, and now, almost 3 months later, I am thankful to say that Sawyer’s health is back to “stable” and we are slowly but successfully figuring out how to manage normality within this diagnosis on a day-to-day basis.
Still judging that dispensary visit now?
Overcoming the Challenges with Cannabis
Cannabis has been crucial in helping me overcome the challenges and adversities I face in my battle with living with a brittle form of diabetes by enhancing the quality of the life that I must endure, both physically and mentally.
The disease that I live with is “terminal” by definition and will likely be the cause of my own fatality. But the life that I live doesn’t have to be one of endless and senseless suffering because of that fact. And this is a humble realization I’ve only been able to gain from the easement of my mind through the consumption of this plant medicine.
Though it’s a burden I’d choose to carry a million times over because I love my children more than anything in this world, to carry the weight of managing his health on top of my own still makes it a burden nonetheless. The weight of motherhood on the shoulders of those of us who choose to carry it can feel like the weight of the world at times and society does a terrible job of passing judgment without offering solace or encouragement.
Raising children while fueled by emotions like fear, guilt, doubt, and shame inevitably becomes a perfect storm equation. To factor in any kind of honesty about marijuana use, or like myself, a career in the marijuana industry only amplifies and heightens the judgment passed down upon us.
Mainstream Society Is Still Anti-Weed
Mainstream society encourages things like the consumption of alcohol by calling it silly names like “mom juice”. Healthcare professionals are more than willing to receive a kickback for prescribing medications that are controlled substances under the pretense that they will make the efforts of motherhood more “manageable”.
But whether it be finding your peace, patience or the will to go on each day through any of these outlets should be the choice of ALL mothers who do this thankless job. Because the work of a mother often requires sleepless nights, days without meals - and that’s just the beginning of the endless list of everything we sacrifice/do for our children. The weight that the role of motherhood calls for should not only be more than enough to command us the respect and right to make these choices on our own accord but also WITHOUT fear of judgment or scrutiny for doing so. But oftentimes, that is not the case.
End the Stigma of Weed Moms
To be a mother and raise tiny human beings in this world is the most rewarding role I’ve fulfilled in my life, while also being the hardest. I would say the same for enduring almost two decades of life with an illness like T1 diabetes.
Every day I find my strength to face each of these challenges head on with cannabis. There is no doubt in the love and care that most mothers have for the well-being of the life that was created within our own bodies.
“...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or the spear,” is one of my favorite quotes by Charles Darwin. I find it to be more than fitting in regards to the evolution of the standard treatment that moms are subjected to by our society.
It’s time that we end the stigma that surrounds the mother who chooses to use cannabis. It is beyond past due that we rally around those of us bringing up the next generation of humanity, and allow us to hold our shields in motherhood high in facing our adversities. After all, I hear it takes a village.
About the Author
Connect with Jamie Lynn Dodd on LinkedIn and learn more about how cannabis has helped her on her journey with juvenile diabetes in the book Courage in Cannabis.