As a cannabis compassion provider on the road, one can't stop and concentrate on any individual, situation, or place for any period of meaningful time. The long and winding train tracks to the next patient were always a life and death venture with who knows what waiting on the other side. As Cancer plagued me and caused continual lethargy, the need for patients outweighed my own as my time was nil, and patients in need had the rest of their lives to live if they could get the necessary plant extracts.
Although the road of compassion was very lonely, many actions were far more significant than anything else done in life, and it was all without thought. Then came Genevieve, and the tale of how a severely Autistic child would lead a Cancer Patient into recovery through her specific cannabinoid needs began. We now call this the Cannabis Love Story.
After a run through multiple states bringing oils to groups and individual patients, rest was necessary and some time to regroup. While in Los Angeles doing precisely that and preparing late at night for a trip up the California Coast the following day, my phone buzzed. A call from the Heavens to let me know an Angel was about to save my life went down, but most will look at it as a compassion provider bringing life-changing oils to a patient in need who can't afford them.
Anne Mari, Genevieve's mother, messaged me after finding out information on social media about who to contact and told me of her daughter's condition. Genbug had just turned 13 years old and had spent most of the summer in and out of the hospital. She'd been sick with pharmaceutical side effects, nonstop grand seizures plagued her, and she was deep in the world of severe Autism with very few ways to communicate. She could not feed herself and had the cognitive age of a toddler.
When I first encountered Genevieve, she was in peril and needed a rescue dose of cannabis oil to stop seizing. Fighting multiple cancers allowed me to have oils on hand when I traveled as I needed them for myself - I also have seizures and a severe form of Epilepsy. That means I kept a gram or two in my front pocket 24/7 or by my bedside.
With severe Epilepsy, a rescue can stop a trip in an ambulance to the ER, and with the Cancer battle in full swing, it was essential to ensure the cannabinoids continually flowed through my veins.
Genevieve responded well to highly concentrated THC oil with nearly 5% CBN. The cannabinoid combo that works well for many adults was adequate for her, making her doctors excited about how quickly Genevieve rebounded and began living life within the first 24 hours of getting that initial dose. Her mom tried a few items left with her to use that had CBD, but the reports were not always that great. After that initial day with Genevieve which allowed her to stop seizing, start making utterances, and gain momentum in learning again, I joined the ranks of wanting her to use CBD.
The decision to give her doses in person was made, and zoom the Amtrak train flew to the destination, Santa Barbara. There was an urgent need to see the dose-response up close and personal; by this time, her mom and I had gone on our first date. It's fair to say that by the end of September 2016, love was in the air, and the family was forming a passion for the Cannabis plant surrounding the healing of Genevieve.
Her mom reported that she didn't do well on Cannabidiol (CBD) despite the product type and leaned towards the oils I used for Cancers to treat her Severe Autism and Epilepsy. The whole scene was perplexing as so many kids were responding to full spectrum CBD oil and used THC for rescue doses to stop active seizing in the cases of Autism and Epilepsy - but not with Genevieve.
Personally, administering the CBD allowed me to see the dose response, which was far from favorable for someone with seizures - as she had one within several minutes of a dose. I used THC concentrated to stop the seizure and considered various stimuli that could have caused her seizure - this was way back in 2016 and her mom and I had just started dating. She had discontinued pharmaceuticals that weren't working, so the thought of a withdrawal seizure was there.
3 months into her mom and I dating we got serious, and for the first time, I spent the night - but for the entire Christmas Break of 2016. Perplexed about what to do in not only her case but my own, the search for different cannabinoids that would help her began. With a history of making a CBD:CBG mix for compassion as well as another that included CBN, it seemed as if we had quite a bit to work within the tool chest, far more advanced than the industry that was moving towards full bore commercialization, that's for sure.
Regardless of what I used, Genevieve continued to favor the THC:CBN combo, which can't be used nonstop or ultimately the continued multi daily doses will saturate an Endocannabinoid system - an answer had to be found. I was already going through issues with my red blood count and was just diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia, here I was in a beautiful new relationship with a woman that had 3 girls all needing a real father figure. Thought bubbles poured through my mind, and while on the road I was in a panic thinking of how I needed to beat the cancers running through my body so I could maybe have a future with this beautiful new family that marveled over my presence.
I was always confident while traveling on the road of compassion - from Amtrak to Greyhound and even the occasional Uber back then - I knew what I was doing and where to go, but when it came to finding an answer for this beautiful young teen that needed my help, I was baffled. How do I help Genevieve?
On a fateful sunny afternoon, a group of healers met with me, and we discussed how to harvest CBGa from THC plants, something none of them had ever done before. With no history of growing Cannabis, talking this small crowd into hacking down THC plants that weren't quite ready wasn't easy. Thankfully, one of the hippies in the group was once a partner in a small analytical lab and spoke up, "Listen to him, I think he's onto something important."
It was like an Angel had whispered a sweet something into my ear to give me another year of life, another day to breathe, and a truckload more gratitude to use as fuel. As a formulation was made, archaically from the first extraction done in that manner, someone had to test it out. Being a human guinea pig is part of cannabinoid medicine research or any medical research done by groundbreakers - it's the risk we take.
The first bottle was like ingesting some type of rocket fuel "This stuff reminds me of a Monster condensed in a tiny bottle, I'm pumped" I remember saying. With severe epilepsy, addiction to pharma opioids, and multiple cancers rarely did I feel ready to take on the world. A reformulation occurred rather quickly to reduce its effects, but I didn't consider I'd drank 30 doses instead of one, this was the wild wild west days of cannabis and compassion.
The next day two more formulations were made that included some other minor cannabinoids, but I took things much slower and took double doses 5 times that day, I'll never forget the productivity that occurred due to that. But, by that time, I had lost the crowd and was working alone with one gal that was doing the extractions as I'd formulate. Ultimately, nobody much cared about the creation as it was with cannabinoids they didn't understand (or did I that much), and it didn't get you high.
This was the first time I'd ever used a cannabinoid concoction that made me feel the THC I was using far more than I did just the day before. Within 2 weeks of using what I made for Genevieve, and before ever even getting it to her, the dose of FECO (or RSO Cannabis Oil as many know it) was drastically reduced naturally. The desire for it started backing off, I was able to get far more relief from pain so the strong Fentanyl and Oxycodone doses I was using also backed off.
This wasn't a plan, it wasn't an accident, it was as if Mother Earth had created a path to walk down. There was no botanical knowledge nor much science as teaching myself along the way was the name of the game until I got the 'Do Not Pass Go' card. I never figured I'd live to tell this story, to have a beautiful family, or to be healing in a way that has allowed physical activity and more.
Genevieve was only 13 back then, time has flown as she'll be 19 in 2 days.
By creating something that Genevieve could use, the cannabinoid also started fueling her compassion provider turned Daddy. Jump ahead six years to 2022, and CBGa has taken center stage as the Major Mother Cannabinoid that so many desire to use. It fuels our home, it helped me quit 24 years of opioid addiction to pharmaceuticals, momma uses it, sister Sydney does, and without a doubt, it helped create what truly is Genevieve's Dream.
Back in late 2016, when I didn't know what to do and had a whole new life waiting for me, I truly was afraid and that's hard for me to admit.
But,
An Angel whispered into my ear,
and in turn,
I still scream from the rooftops...
Cannabis Is My Medicine!!
A historical article by Mike Robinson, originally Published in CannabisLoveStory.com Blog August 4, 2022
