Alexis Bortell on MaryJane.com
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After numerous tests and visiting a wide range of doctors, Stenuf was administered a medical discharge and ultimately prescribed nearly thirteen medications. Under constant pressure to be compliant with military regulations for veteran patients, she felt unable to challenge any of her doctors’ opinions.
“It was kind of a forced med. It was either take the pills and be compliant or don’t and be a liability, which came with consequences,” Stenuf explains.
It started off with one or two and then those had side effects or weren’t strong enough, and then you build up tolerance or symptoms and then those pills don’t work anymore, and then more symptoms come. It was a downward spiral. By the time I met my wife, I was at a dual diagnosis program – for PTSD and substance abuse – ‘cause I was using alcohol and drugs just to get by, to feel “normal”. The cocaine made me happy and with the alcohol I went to sleep. The pills [from the Veterans Affairs doctors] just didn’t do that… They made me often suicidal, or
homicidal. So I often stayed home and isolated myself. Vitamin D deficiency, bone muscle issues, constant tremors, eyesight problems, everything just started to unwinding and become out of control. I even went up to close to 150 pounds at one point just from all the meds.
It seemed none of the Army’s doctors or psychiatrists were conferring on Stenuf’s medications, determining their possible side effects or how they interacted with each other. Many of the prescription drugs, she reveals, had seizures listed as a side effect and actually caused her epilepsy to worsen. She needed to find another path to recovery.
Sarah Stenuf, of Auburn, a retired combat veteran, runs Happy Healing 420 to reduce the stigma of marijuana use.
Kevin Rivoli, The Citizen