Shouldn’t be an issue

I’m a 38-year-old Christian woman, published author, freelance journalist for biker magazines, and a fashion editor. I am dying of autoimmune diseases. This month marks nine years of the 10-year expiration date I was given. I cannot eat or keep down pills without marijuana. My liver has quit once due to a chemotherapy cyotoxin.

Fifteen months ago, I was unable to obtain marijuana. After a week, I developed a brain infection I couldn’t fight off. I was lying in the floor of the hospital, throwing up blood and antibiotics. Doctors were talking about calling in my pastor at 3 a.m. because I wasn’t going to live until morning. They had given up, had tried everything they knew to do. My baby sister finally persuaded them to let her take me to go smoke one last cigarette before I died, a joint a friend had provided. A couple of hours later, I was sitting up in bed eating a huge breakfast, braiding flowers in my hair. A few hours later, I was well enough to leave.

I am not a doctor and can’t explain this as a doctor would. I can, however, explain it as a Christian. The reason I lived through that night is not the manmade stuff they were trying to put in my veins, it was the God-made stuff I put in my lungs. When I was so sick, I wasn’t praying to get high; I was praying to live to go to church the next day. And I did . . . 10 minutes late, wearing pajamas and with a face like Freddy Krueger, but I lived to walk through that door. I am sick and tired of choosing between being a living outlaw or a dead law-abiding citizen. AMY IRENE WHITE

Sheridan