City of Chance

I went to Las Vegas last week with two of my colleagues to teach a seminar about starting a home health agency. If you hate Vegas and want to stop reading now--- don't! This is a good one. Not so much good as extraordinary.

During a break prior to the start of my portion of the session on Thursday morning I was approached by a gentleman who had a question regarding something one of my colleagues had said. He prefaced his question by sharing his motivation for wanting to enter the home health field. He told me he had a disabled daughter who received home care but he knew that it could and SHOULD be better. I don't know why---- I don't often share with strangers--- certainly not in a professional seminar, but I told him I have a son with intractable epilepsy. "So does my daughter" he replied.

In whispered tones in the front of the classroom he related his family's struggles over the previous 13 years. Countless medications, the diagnosis of LGS, the plummet into seizure and pharmaceutical hell. The physicians who recently told him there was nothing more they could do. The recommendation to place his beloved 13 year old daughter in hospice care. The desperation to find something to help. I was at once transfixed and horrified. My mind jumped to Charlotte and Zaki--- also placed in that hopeless, heartbreaking, hellhole of modern medicine's failures.

We whisperered breathlessly then.  Me asking if he had considered Charlotte's Web CBD oil. He saying he knew about it. He was willing to move his family to Colorado. ( he shared he lived in Southern California.) He had made contact with RoC Colorado but was unclear what his wait list status was. I told him there was no need to go. Realm of Caring CA was up and running. He was unaware. Last he knew was when the center was shut down. By then I was in the I'm on a mission mode. "I will put you in touch by the end of the day!" Finally he told me that his daughter's Orange County physicians were against CBD even saying that it had done harm in some cases. No need for
me to name the hospital--- anyone in the know...knows. I said simply " you must go elsewhere".

The next hour was a flurry of activity. I did my portion of the presentation of course and then proceeded to text and email Cindy Mitchell and Ray Mirzabegian. I just had to be sure that this desperate father was thrown a life preserver. A life preserver----- a potential life SAVER for his dear daughter. It didn't take long. The preserver was tossed. A chance for healing and ultimately, perhaps saving, offered and accepted. Chris (Dad) is, so to speak, on the way to ROCCA.

Chris said he almost didn't make it to the seminar. He'd never been away from home that long and he vacillated about attending until the last moment. I texted Cindy," he came for a reason----- he just didn't know what it was".

I went to Vegas for a reason. I just didn't know what it was until I was there.