'I gave my dying son cannabis to ease his cancer symptoms and he made a miracle
recovery' reveals mum
Callie Blackwell woke once more expecting to
find her son Deryn lying dead next to her. The
pair were sleeping just yards apart in the hospice
bedroom where Deryn had been sent to spend his
final few days.
'What have I got to lose?' Callie Blackwell speaks
about secretly giving dying son Deryn cannabis
oil
The couple tracked down a dealer, met him at a
service station, who gave them some cannabis
which they took home and cooked on the family
hob in a pressure cooker following instructions
they’d found online.
From it they created an oil and it was Callie who
placed a tiny amount of it in Deryn’s mouth.
It worked and calmed him immediately.
But what is truly extraordinary happened next.
Because the family’s hospice wait went on and
on. And on. Until very slowly Deryn’s condition
improved. And today he is a happy and healthy
17-year-old studying catering, with friends, a
girlfriend and enjoying everything life has to
offer.
The total transformation in her once so sick son
still seems to bewilder Callie. But it is testament
to the ferocious love and determination of one
extraordinary mother.
He was in extraordinary pain. His frail body was
battered from round after round of chemotherapy
and radiotherapy, he was hooked on the painkiller
morphine, was unable to eat, covered in sores,
nauseous and had lost all his hair.
It was 70 days since his last bone marrow
transplant and it hadn’t worked. The family knew
all too well no transplant had ever grafted after
more than 50 days. There was no hope left. And,
after a relentless four-year battle with a one in a
billion form of cancer, even Deryn was losing his
previously indefatigable spirit.
“The doctors had said there was nothing more
they could do,” says Callie, 37, who lives in a
small Norfolk village near Bury St Edmunds.
“We celebrated Deryn’s 14th birthday in hospital
and then went to the hospice to wait.”
Then, as Deryn hovered between life and death,
Callie and husband Simon took a huge decision.
Unbeknown to medical staff, they decided to give
their son cannabis to ease his pain and anxiety.
"I’m not here to say cannabis can cure cancer or
is a miracle drug", says Callie, a thoughtful and
intelligent woman who was studying to become a
nurse before Deryn’s last illness.
"But it did help Deryn and so I think we need to
ask, ‘could it help others too?'
"I do think there needs to be more research into
what cannabis can do. In some American states
and across Europe it can be used.
"Obviously, it is illegal so I was terrified if
anyone found out what I was doing I could be
stopped from seeing my dying son or lose my
younger son Dylan to social services. But I had to
try it. And it worked."
Deryn’s story
It was the first week of the school summer
holidays and Deryn was 10 when the family’s life
first changed for ever.
"Deryn had always been so incredibly healthy,
he’d never had a cold, never had a day off school,
was training with the local rugby team and was
the strongest, fittest boy in his year. HE loved
that.