Hi, I’m Chris from Nj. I’m a 43yrs male. I’ve been plagued by stomach pain and diarrhea for most of my life but my real journey started When I got attacked in 2010 while working as a correction officer. Totally wrecked my back, herniated disc in cervical and lumbar areas in spine. Also broke my hand. I had to retire due to my injuries. But I fought on. A week into retirement, I got hand foot and mouth virus bad. It was such an odd case it was printed in medical journals by university of penn. But I fought on. Then in 2012 I was diagnosed with stage 4b thymoma cancer. I fought hard despite the grim outlook. Then in 2013 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called myasthenia gravis. The docs don’t think mg is painful but trust me they are wrong. My legs hurt really bad. I get about 2hrs of sleep and then I’m awoken by the pain in my legs. I need to rub my legs and turn to my other side so the leg can recover. I do that all night, every night. The fight is getting hard now but I fight on for my wife and kids. Then in 2014 I needed to get a colostomy bag. My gastro problems are now @ the top of my list for all my pains. The colostomy was more than I could handle. Both physically and emotionally. I lost my will to fight. I wanted to tap out. Because my gastro problems, pain killers are not an option for me. I was on a medication called marinol whiched helped with my pain and my gastro issue. It helped me fight but Nj got a new prescription company called optumRx. So after 5yrs of being on marinol, optumRx stopped it because I was using it off label(it’s a very expensive med). OptumRx could care less that the docs originally gave me 10 yrs to live. Immediately I was back in the er scene. Extreme stomach pain. As of yet, I still don’t have a real stomach diagnosis. The pain got so loud in my head that I couldn’t function. I stopped caring about everything. I stopped showering. I stopped hanging out with my friends. A nurse suggested medical marijuana. I was initially against it because my entire life was devoted to law enforcement. But chronic pain is the hardest fight of my life. I was down over 30lbs in just a few months. I felt like I was dying. So I finally gave in. It was the best decision that I ever made. It helped me with my back. It helped me with my mg, it helped me with my sleep, it helped me with my appetite, it helped me with my mood, it helped me with all my pain. My wife said she got her husband back. I know some of my law enforcement friends think marijuana is just for getting high and people pretend to be sick to get a prescription. Yes, people do but I’m not one of those people. Marijuana has saved my life and I’ll argue that point to anyone. Marijuana needs to be explored much more and we need the federal government to ease the restrictions so that the great docs can conduct research. I’m alive because of marijuana. I use the marijuana oils so I don’t harm my lungs. I happy to say that I’m still in the fight and I’m fighting on.

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