Crossing Borders and Boundaries for Cannabis and Health
The Lintons were poised to raise the perfect, all-American family. Courtney and Kenneth Linton were high school sweethearts and newlyweds living in their home state of Iowa, where they lived near family and friends and had two smart and energetic boys. Their oldest son, KC, sometimes experienced what they called a “shivershake,” where his arm would jolt abruptly or his head would jerk back, but they considered it a minor quirk. When they realized that these shivers were not going away, however, and were in fact becoming far more frequent and severe, everything changed for the Linton family.
“KC was failed by medication after medication,” Courtney Linton explained in an exclusive interview with CULTURE. “When we knew he had epilepsy we felt confident things would get better, but it just got worse. We painfully saw KC slip away into a zombielike state. His eyes were vacant, his learning stopped. He lived in a world revolving around medicines, blood draws and EEGs. He withdrew and developed autistic traits.”
“When we knew he had epilepsy we felt confident things would get better, but it just got worse. We painfully saw KC slip away into a zombielike state. His eyes were vacant, his learning stopped. He lived in a world revolving around medicines, blood draws and EEGs.”
From there, things only got more unmanageable. KC could not get a clear diagnosis—doctors claimed he had intractable epilepsy, or “encephalopathy of unknown etiology,” epilepsy with no known cause. The Linton’s were told that KC had a 50/50 chance of SUDEP, Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy, and they were in fear for his life all the time. They also tried all kinds of extreme treatments, including the ketogenic diet, a very low-carb diet designed to make the brain use fat instead of glucose as an energy source. No medications were working for him, and KC was having up to hundreds of seizures per day. Doctors recommended a surgery that would sever the connection between the left and right hemispheres of KC’s brain.
The severity of their situation drove the family to consider cannabis as an option for treatment. They began watching videos of known success stories like Charlotte Figi and Zaki Johnson, and saw hope on the horizon. As a physician assistant, Courtney was well-versed in medical lingo, and started reading up on studies to support the validity of these feel-good stories. The information she found clearly showed her that cannabis has a lot of medical capabilities that aren’t being explored by mainstream medicine. They began to plan a trip to Colorado, where they could try the medicine and see if it helped KC.
However, just before they left, the Linton family was visited by a social worker concerned with the bruises found on KC at school. Confused, Courtney responded that the bruises were from the seizing and playing, but it was soon revealed that the social worker had been tipped off that the Linton’s wanted to try cannabis as a treatment.
“He talked about how KC could be taken away if we even gave this a try,” Courtney revealed about their visit from social services. “I was in shock. My husband and I had devoted everything we had to our son. We then had to painfully go through an interrogation where our love for our child and our parenting skills were held in question; it felt like we were on trial. He left us in a state of extreme fear and we developed a severe distrust of others. It was honestly one of the worst days of my life.”
Spurred to action by this, the Linton family fled to Colorado to live temporarily and try the medicine. KC immediately began showing improvement with Charlotte’s Web oil. The seizures did not magically go away, but KC began having up to five days in a row seizure-free, and also stopped being depressive and withdrawn. He began to hike, run around, play, joke and make comments about the mountains, snow and nature surrounding him.
The Linton family then returned to Iowa to be with their family. They have a medical card and are using the strain known as Haleigh’s Hope. Although Iowa limits the potency of the medicine to three percent, and forces families to get the product and bring it across state lines in order to medicate, KC continues to improve and have far fewer seizures than before he began treatment, and he much prefers swallowing a few drops of oil to taking the multitude of harsh medications he was using before. Because of their great success with cannabis, the family tries to advocate for its use whenever possible. They are trying to help encourage senators to vote “yes” on the CARERs Act that would allow for better access to medical cannabis on a national level.
“Marijuana and cannabis are common words in our household,” Courtney explains. “We try to educate whomever will listen. I am certain that with continued education, public support will only continue to grow. In turn, this will fuel government change and research. It’s not easy speak out in small town America where mindsets are slow to change and you have some people looking at you like you’re a drug addict or pothead for speaking the ‘m’ word.”
“We continue to battle epilepsy daily but life has become much more manageable,” she adds. “KC’s seizures are now occurring only during his sleep a few nights per week. Currently, KC has been living a relatively normal life. He has missed barely any school since starting cannabis oil whereas he was absent more than present previously. He is a good kid. He loves his family, pets and home. He has good days and bad, but the runs we have of good days are amazing.”
