Testimonial of Chris M., Dagsboro, Delaware
In the early 90's, I was a victim of random violence. On the side of a Delaware road, I was hit with a baseball bat in the back of the neck, crushing three vertebrae, rupturing three discs, and lodging bone spurs into my spinal cord. My doctors have told me that I'm lucky to be able to walk — and that the injury is inoperable. Around the same time, I also suffered another serious accident. I was walking on a boat dock and the dock collapsed on me, rupturing two discs in my lower back. As a result, I have also developed fibromyalgia and Ryder's Syndrome, a painful autoimmune arthritic disease where my joints swell up with liquid and must be drained.
These conditions cause me extreme pain all of the time. My lower back pain is sharp and constant and it shoots down my legs forcing my legs to involuntarily contract. The pain sometimes extends to my neckand I must keep my head in certain positions in order to avoid it. When the neck pain comes, it feels like someone is sticking a knife in the back of my neck. The pain prevents me from driving for long periods of time, and from using a computer for more than fifteen minutes.
Originally, in order to treat this pain, I was prescribed Percocet for occasional pain relief, but my pain remained constant. I tried marijuana and found that it was very effective in managing my pain. However, I was forced to reduce my use of it in 2003 when I applied for disability and was put on SSI. I've been to many doctors to help with my various problems but none were able to truly help me. I was placed in a pain management clinic, and as the urine testing has become more frequent, I have had to quit using medical marijuana completely and instead use high doses of opiate narcotics, including OxyContin, Dilaudid, and methadone. I also unsuccessfully tried steroid injections for my pain.
From 2003 until early 2009, I was on heavy doses of opiates. On March 3, 2009, I ended up in the emergency room at Beebe Hospital thinking I was having a heart attack. Instead, what had happened was my whole digestive system had shut down. My neurosurgeon and my gastroenterologist believe that my long-term use of heavy narcotics and steroids played a significant role in my digestive system problems. Thus, I worked with a doctor to wean myself off the opiates, down to the smallest amount possible given my digestive condition. It was an excruciating process, and I have now exhausted all options for pain relief open to me by Medicaid. Since that emergency room visit, because my digestive system has shut down, I have also been forced to use laxatives on a daily basis in order to live and have been basically rendered homebound. In the past year, because I am unable to eat normally due to my daily nausea, I have lost over 45 lbs., and, as my condition worsens, my weight loss has increased to about 3 lbs. a week.
In the early days of my pain, my medical marijuana use kept it to a very manageable level. The pain generally was less severe, and my quality of life was still pretty good. The marijuana dulled the pain and relaxed the surrounding muscles. It is only since I have been forced to completely cease my medical marijuana use that the pain has gotten exponentially worse and my quality of life has gotten very poor. Medical marijuana could specifically reduce my pain, and could reduce my nausea and restore my appetite, which would hopefully stem my alarming weight loss. Medical marijuana works, and it gives me another option to try. Please pass medical marijuana legislation in Delaware.
