Helen, So High

In Sept. of 2005, my mother-in-law Helen flew to Norfolk from Connecticut to attend the opening night performance of Virginia Stage Company’s production of Crowns. She is a huge fan of theatre and especially the work of her son Chris, who is artistic director of the Virginia Stage Company. She flew in on Thursday and stayed in her "winter home", which happens to be two doors down from our house. On Friday, at about 5:30, I got a call from my husband, Chris asking me to come to DePaul's emergency room, his mother was having a heart attack or a stroke. I drove home and got our son,Jesse and we arrived to find Chris and Helen in the waiting room, Chris worried and tense, Helen slumped in the wheelchair they'd put her in and unable to keep her eyes open. Her speech was slow and she said she just didn't feel like herself, almost like she was outside of her self. I knew fairly quickly what the problem was. I asked her what she had eaten that day. She inventoried her breakfast and lunch and then said, "oh and I found those little brownies you left for me in the freezer and I had THREE!"....Yes, I had left little chocolate cupcakes in Helen's freezer because in her absence, that is where I baked the medicinal marijuana brownies for a friend of mine with brain cancer. I baked at Helen's to avoid Jesse's inevitable "mom, what is that funky smell?" inquiry. It had been several days since I'd made them and I kept reminding myself that I needed to get them out of her freezer. But darnit, I just plain forgot! When I pulled Chris aside and told him what I knew to be the truth he was furious! I doubt many of you have ever seen my husband angry because it just doesn't happen very often...but believe me, he was mad enough that my first question was, "are you going to divorce me? " He said, "No, I'm going to go open my show while you deal with this situation you've created." So he and Jesse said goodbye and I sat down to wait for Helen to be seen by a doctor. By the time we did move back to cubicle three her nausea had passed, and she was beginning to feel a little better. Now, I doubt that many of you have pondered what you'd do in my situation: You've inadvertently gotten your 85 year old mother in law very, very high on the active ingredient in cannabis...THC. You are so very relieved that A., she’s not dying and B., you know what the problem is. But what of the ethical dilemma? In all honesty, you can't make a bad situation worse by adding the cost of unnecessary tests to what is quickly becoming a laughable situation. If you are like me, which is to say somewhat of a coward, you can't even tell her what's going on because it's just too complicated to explain to a very stoned elderly person that your belief in the healing and soothing power of marijuana for medicinal purposes is something you are willing to break the law over. But the real truth is that I'm afraid of being judged and so I cop out and don't tell her what's going on. And then we proceed to have the sweetest, most intimate time of our nearly 20 year relationship. The beautiful thing about Helen is the way she mirrors the love and compassion we are each capable of. She tells me how much I've meant to her, I tell her how much she's been the good mother to me. When she tries to go philosophical she can't make her thoughts connect into sentences, is frustrated and incredulous at her inability to think in a straight line! Over and over I tell her "let it go, it will come back around." Asking Helen Hanna to let go of something she's after, like coherent thought, is tantamount to asking her to give up chocolate. Or brownies for that matter! Finally, about 9pm, 5 or 6 hours after she's ingested enough THC to last a cancer patient about a week, a tall, kind and compassionate doctor arrives and begins to interview her. She is still speaking slowly: and challenged to hold onto a conversational thread but this woman is DETERMINED to be understood and given the God-like status she bestows on male physicians and her almost flirtatious manner toward doctors in general, it is just an awe-inspiring sight to see her engage fully with this man asking her to follow his finger as he creates an arc in the air, her determination to touch that hand when instructed as it moves slowly in front of her, her own ability to count backwards and forwards with her own fingers. In other words, she passes the basic neurological tests with flying colors. And let me tell you, she is darned proud of herself and so am I! When the doctor completes his exam and turns to go order scans and blood work and x-rays and what have you, I follow him out and ask for a private audience. I ask if I may speak off the record, he says, "Yes, of course." "I have a friend with brain cancer and sometimes all she can eat is brownies and sometimes those brownies have THC in them and sometimes they don't and I believe my mother in law has ingested THC. " "Well, that is something we would normally check for." "And I don't want to go to jail." "Well, it won't be because of me". THANK YOU DOCTOR~ THANK YOU SO MUCH! So, blood work is done and ultimately the doctor comes back to privately tell me that THC is "on board" and that given how strong her vitals are and that she is in my care, they would like to release her and send her home. Don't you love that? "In the care of " the daughter in law who left marijuana brownies in her freezer. I wish I could adequately describe the thrill and collective smirk of the emergency room personnel as, one by one, they heard this story. "hey, did you hear about cubicle three?? 85 years old and high as a kite." I took my dear mother in law home, put her to bed, removed the brownies from her freezer and went home gratified and humbled to have dodged a bullet that hours before Chris and Helen had briefly thought might kill her. The next morning she was amazed to feel absolutely wonderful and her old self. The treasure of this entire ordeal/experience was her sincere gratitude at being alive to live one more day. And that she didn't miss Crowns! She saw it Saturday night and loved it~ The story would end here if I hadn’t shared the story with my friend Sonja. She’s a brilliant radiation-oncologist and she said adamantly, “you have to tell her”. And why hadn’t I told Helen that she wasn’t dying? The truth is I was so guilt ridden and ashamed that it took me almost a month to gather my courage to call her and tell her what had really happened that night. My fear was that she would judge me, but no, that would be my own reflection looking back at me. My mother in law, Helen? She laughed out loud and said, “My goodness, I’ve had my first slice of pizza this year, you introduced me to sushi and now I’ve taken marijuana!” Helen Hanna died on April 2, 2008. May she rest in peace with lots of chocolate and brownies and tall handsome doctors.