A week after his eighth birthday, Forrest Smelser was diagnosed with epilepsy. On bad days he would seize every 15 minutes.
"If he has a seizure that lasts longer than three minutes, we're venturing into brain damage territory," his mother Tanesha said.
After numerous trips to the emergency room and the doctor's office, Forrest was prescribed the anti-seizure drug Trileptal. Tanesha said that's when things went from bad to worse.
"He would scream, he would fight, he would punch himself," said Tanesha.
She said the family reached a breaking point when Forrest became suicidal, something she believes was a side effect of the pharmaceuticals.That's when she decided to explore more unconventional methods to treat Forrest's seizures."Oil infused with CBD, medical marijuana," she said as she held a jar of medical cannabis pills from TJ's Organic Gardens, a Eugene-based medical marijuana farm with indoor operations in Oregon and Washington.
"I have my son again. He's not this fog of a child. He's not this angry child. He's my child exactly," said Tanesha.
