DISPENSING CARE
West View woman wants to assist other families after medical marijuana helped her daughter
Days before Solevo Wellness is scheduled to open its Squirrel Hill medical marijuana dispensary, patient care consultant Annie Corbin and her colleagues are logging long hours to make sure everything is ready for its first customers.
More than most, though, Ms. Corbin has an appreciation for what legal, public access to medical marijuana will mean for families dealing with serious, chronic and possibly life-threatening medical conditions.
For her, the proof sits across the dinner table each evening at the family’s West View home.
It was nearly a decade ago that Ms. Corbin’s daughter, Arianne, inexplicably started having seizures at age 8 due to a rare birth defect. The seizures typically would be of short duration, her mother recalled, but some were strong enough to knock her to the floor.
Her doctors prescribed levetiracetam, a powerful drug for controlling seizures that can also come with serious side effects, including mood changes and slurred speech. Arianne dealt with both.
“She wouldn’t talk to anyone. She was just there, someone I didn’t even recognize,” Ms. Corbin said during a break earlier this week. “I felt like it had taken my child away.”
Arianne began failing in school, while at home she would lash out at younger brother Darius, hitting and slapping him.
That description contrasts sharply with the 17-year-old Arianne who visited her mom’s work this week to preview a promotional video for Solevo in which she is featured.
This Arianne is quiet, and she smiles as she reports that “seizures are less of a problem” now, having gone nearly four years without a single one. She and her brother are now “like best friends,” Ms. Corbin reports.
Arianne is also an honor roll student at North Hills High School, with aspirations to attend college and open her own flower shop someday.
“She’s been doing so well it’s like it never happened,” her mother
said. “That’s amazing to me. I’ve gotten my daughter back. She’s happy, she jokes. And she’s a fantastic artist.”
Thedramatic change cameafter Ms. Corbin — facedwith the unacceptable alternatives of not treating Arianne’sseizure or losing herin a medicated fog — chosea third option.
In late 2013, the family movedto Colorado so Ariannecould begin treatment withmedical marijuana, initiallywith a nonpsychoactivecannabinoid. Within a week,her condition had noticeablyimproved although shestill experienced a few seizuresuntil they upped the THC— the psychoactive ingredientin cannabis — in hermedicine.
Forthe next 3½ years, Arianneattended Colorado schoolsas she and her mother,who got a job in a local dispensary, tried to pinpointthe right level of THC for her.
Withboth medical and recreationaluse of marijuanalegal in Colorado, Arianneviewed the liquid she tookby eyedropper twice dailyas a vitamin supplementrather than a drug, her mothersaid. The medication costabout $40 a month.
“Shegets no high from it. Shedoesn’t feel any psychoactive effect.” Best of all, Ms. Corbinadded, “there really haven’tbeen any side effects.”
Ariannesaid she enjoyed ColoradoSprings, where she andher mother loved hiking inthe mountains, but the pull of family ties also left themhomesick. Asked whereshe’d prefer to live, she said,“probably somewhere inbetween so I could visit themboth.”
Criticalto their return was Gov.Tom Wolf’s signing the lawestablishing Pennsylvania’smedical marijuana programin April 2016.
A year later, the Corbin family was back, with Arianne using less effective legal hemp oil to treat her condition until they — and others who hold a qualifying certificatefrom the state — can purchase medical marijuana when Solevo Wellness starts selling products. A price list for those products has not beenreleased.
Beginning Wednesday, the dispensary is hosting an open house for the public each weekday from 2 to 4 p.m. until it formally opens Feb. 15.Feb. 15 also marks the start of Ms. Corbin’s duties helping other local families — a task she considers more amission than a full-time job.
“I understand the parents’ side of suffering and their fear, and I feel I’m able to give them my heart and understanding,”she said.
“I want to give other families the same chance we had.”