Last night at my house I was honored to host a case conference of sorts. Some moms in our group were struggling with their children’s treatment plans so we called in an extra resource to consult. We are very lucky to have in our local San Diego community a mom who has been using pediatric cannabis for years and is a bold advocate for our children, Kelley Dalby.

I first learned about Kelley and her brilliant child Connor when NBC San Diego covered their story. Connor was born with a SCN2a gene mutation causing him to have a severe form of epilepsy and global developmental delays. The healing that cannabis has brought to Connor and his family is profound. Kelley chronicle’s their miraculous journey here on Facebook.

When I invited Kelley to come she replied, “I’m just a mom.” To which I of course responded, “Don’t make me laugh.” Kelley is nothing short of a true pioneer and inspiration. She is a wealth of information about alternative healing, medical marijuana and local resources. She has used all forms of cannabis to treat Connor and they are having nothing short of miraculous results. I have yet to meet a “professional” who knows more about treating children with cannabis than Kelley.

There is so much to learn about all the different forms, THC/CBD ratios, extraction methods, carrier oils, and potential drug interactions. When is it appropriate and even necessary to wean AEDs? How do you test for quality and trust what your child is taking? And even in a state as legal as CA, where do you find affordable, consistent access to high quality sources of cannabis? Having reliable answers to all these questions undoubtedly impacts outcomes.

With few professionals to advise, how does a parent formulate an appropriate treatment plan? For us, the answer is usually found by consulting within the brave parent community spearheading this treatment. I simply would not have known what to do without hearing and learning from all their experiences.

We definitely need each other. Having a child with special needs is incredibly isolating. So once we connect, the first level of healing is immediate. Just sitting with a mom who knows brings relief. The second level comes in building trust. Trust in the new community of support building around you and trust in a new form of treatment that can offer so much more than hope.

The mothers in our group are fiercely persistent. And what we are learning is that if you have tried one form of cannabis, one brand, one strain, one extraction method, one carrier oil and have not found success there is still so much hope. You have not explored the full potential of this plant. The real healing starts here.

My favorite new story is about another family who relocated to San Diego from an illegal state. Their child was in and out of top So Cal hospitals all winter with violent seizures that refused to stop. They had tried a number of pediatric cannabis products in addition to all available traditional treatments and nothing helped. A medically induced coma was offered. They declined and brought their child home. Within minutes of trying a new brand of THCA, his seizures stopped.

I’m not sure I would have believed their story had I not heard it directly from his mother. I’m not sure this mother would have known what to try had she not been plugged into a wise parent community - a community that is available to support you too.

So “Just a mom?” Perfect.