It’s pitch dark outside at 3:00 in the morning when Andrew gets up to go to work as a clerk on the docks at Long Beach. He won’t have to report in for another five hours, but Andrew is paralyzed from the nipples down, so it takes that long to get ready. No stranger to pain, Andrew initially injured himself while working on the docks with shipping containers, had surgery on his back to fuse two vertebrae and was declared disabled. He could feel the screws moving back then and the pain was near-constant, but morphine and Percocet only made him anxious. Pain medication felt like a Band-Aid, so Andrew got used to pain.
Andrew is a single father of four children and loved tinkering and riding ATVs with them. Two years after his back surgery, while traveling on a country fire road in canyon country with his kids, his vehicle hit a rut, wobbled and then hit a cow fence. The ATV stopped, but he kept going. He was airlifted from the site and learned soon after that he was paralyzed from the nipples down.
“I’m not dead,” Andrew stated, despite the paralysis. His arms still worked, so he went back to work as a clerk. The hours it took to get ready to go to work on the docks were often filled with pain. He had developed digestive problems because of the paralysis and experienced a considerable amount of nausea, pain and anxiety daily. Some days his stomach hurt so much that he had to leave work early. He could barely eat. His back constantly seized up and contracted. If you touched his skin, he might feel nothing, but internally he could feel it as it deflected to his stomach. His kids noticed, winced at his pain, but learned to live with it just as he did.
The doctors prescribed many different medications, but they made him even more depressed and increased his anxiety. He continued to try various prescriptions, determined to be present and a good father for his kids, but the ten medications that he was prescribed, along with probiotics and many OTC medicines, only made him feel worse.
Andrew knew nothing about the medicinal value of cannabis and had even tried Marinol (synthetic THC available with a prescription) with no effect. He was dubious that medical cannabis would do anything for his constant pain and nausea but he decided to try it. It has changed his life. Both inhaling it and taking cannabis edibles have helped to lessen the stomach issues and the anxiety. He reports that he is able to eat, his back spasms are improved and his anxiety has lessened considerably. Cannabis even helps ease the severe and debilitating pain he’s had in his left hip ever since the accident.
Andrew uses his cannabis medicine before work and then later at his lunch break and when he gets home. Far more independent, he is able to stretch every day and perform a series of exercises to keep him strong. His children have noticed. They’ve witnessed his pain and problems and see how much the cannabis helps him. Andrew and his kids have a mission-like intensity about educating the public on the medicinal value of cannabis.
Getting up in the dark hours before dawn, Andrew is determined to be as hard working and independent as he’s ever been. He has had great results and has overcome many obstacles. He wants to change the stigma around cannabis and share how it’s improved the quality of his and his family’s life.