to stop it and no amount of screaming and
shouting was going to prevent it.
"I knew the doctors had tried everything and I
trusted them implicitly but everything they could
offer wasn’t enough.”
At the hospice, the family celebrated Christmas
on December 14th knowing Deryn wouldn’t
make it until December 25th.
“He was so ill by then," says Callie. "He was
being sick, he hadn’t eaten food in seven months,
his mouth was full of blisters, he couldn’t
swallow, his body was covered in sores, he had
an infected hand where he’d caught it in the side
of his bed and he was quite down.
"Throughout everything he’d always said, ‘you
don’t need to worry about me mum, I’m not going
to die'. But now he was saying he was ready to
go. He said he either wanted to be dead or be well
but he was neither and he’d been like that for
years.
"He’s a very spiritual person too and he said he
had dreams about passing and it was beautiful and
peaceful. He wasn’t scared."
In this life though there was only suffering and
anxiety for Deryn - and it was that which made
Callie and Simon decide to give him cannabis
which they’d read online could provide comfort
for people suffering as he was.
"I knew you can’t even produce cells without a
bone marrow," says Callie. ‘It meant he was
getting better. The doctors rushed in and he had
more tests in his bone marrow which showed his
blood count was improving. The do not
resuscitate signs were shredded. Deryn wasn’t
dying anymore."
Over the next few weeks Callie continued to
secretly administer the cannabis - and by altering
the doses could see it was having a direct result
on his blood count.
Within weeks the family had left the hospice and
Deryn was so improved Callie stopped the
cannabis treatment.
Since then he has never had any further
interventions and gone from strength to strength.
In many ways, it seems nothing short of a
miracle. Yet Callie is not so sure
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-gave-
dying-son-cannabis-10103387
Health Minister: our baby girl is dying in front
of us - please help
By Yvonne Cooper Wollongong, Australia
I don’t want to break the law, but I don’t want to bury
my eight-year-old child. I am left with no options -
my 8-year-old daughter Sienna suffers up to 100
epileptic seizures per day, each one life-threatening.
I’m writing this out of desperation. Last night I spent
the evening watching my little girl gasping for air,
unable to breath, another night of thinking I was
about to lose her.
We’ve been through 5 specialist doctors unable to
help her. Right now, she’s on 8 different medications
and still experiencing over 100 seizures per day. I’m
beside myself.
Doctors say they’ve tried everything - the only
option left is medicinal cannabis or her seizures will
continue to cause irreparable damage to her brain and
organs.
But despite it being legalised last year, red tape is
leaving Sienna’s doctors unable to fast track her
lifesaving access to medicinal cannabis. She’s left
with the only option of joining a long list of kids
waiting to get onto clinical trials.
I have had to watch her cognitive ability decline,
going from an IQ of 90-100 to a range from 41-52.
She has been diagnosed with a severe intellectual
disability.
Now every seizure is a step closer to death. Right
now, we are being forced to sit back and watch our
baby girl dying in front of us and not a single doctor
in NSW can help us. This is cruel and devastating.
We need immediate amnesty to give our little girl a
quality of life and a long-lasting life. She has dreams
too, please help her live to follow them.
The Health Minister can’t ignore a dying 8-year-old
- if he delays access much longer, Sienna will die.
Please sign this petition to help Sienna. It’s our only
hope…….
https://www.change.org/p/our-baby-girl-is-dying-
in-front-of-us-please-help