Tag: #Parenting

TSC Talks Special Ed and Covid19 with Mike Robinson

In this powerful episode, Mike Robinson, Founder, Global Cannabinoid Research Center, Cancer Survivor, Cannabis Advocate AND former registered Civil Rights lobbyist and non attorney that represented countless children with disabilities, discusses what’s happened with Special Education services under a provision of the coronavirus relief package and why it’s important to take action.

Under a provision of the coronavirus relief package that passed at the end of March, Betsy DeVos had until Monday to recommend any additional waivers of federal education law to Congress. Already, states have been able to apply for waivers to skip annual tests and change how they spend certain federal education dollars. She issues no waivers.

NO STATE has been given the authority to NOT educate special education individuals in the same manner they would regular education individuals or to make the same allowances, as per the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

https://edsource.org/2020/education-and-coronavirus-whats-the-latest/625119
Education and the coronavirus crisis: What’s the latest?

Under the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, school districts must offer all students an equitable education or they are not supposed to offer it to any of them. Not many school systems have come up with a way to extend online learning and other critical services to the 7 million children with disabilities across the country. And some districts, because they cannot provide special education services at home, aren’t offering online instruction to any student. Now, there is tension between groups that advocate for these students — who each have an Individualized Education Program or IEP — and organizations that represent special education administrators. The advocates are demanding that school districts deliver education equitably, as the law requires, while administrators say they cannot do the same things they did when schools were open and need some flexibility.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos won’t recommend giving school districts the option to bypass major parts of federal special education law, the department announced Monday. The move will be celebrated by disability rights advocates, who had feared that giving districts any wiggle room could pave the way for a more permanent undoing of civil rights for the country’s nearly 7 million students with disabilities.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/4/27/21239124/no-special-education-waivers-betsy-devos-congress-recommendations-idea

To file a complaint with OCR: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/howto.html
Questions: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/qa-complaints.html

Thank you Mike Robinson for your advocacy and education on this crucial action that can and should be taken by any and all for whom special education services have been stymied or non existent.

Mike’s Links:
https://mikesmedicines.com
https://genevievesdream.com
https://globalcannabinoidrc.com
https://carouselchallenge.com

To contact Mike about the MILLION MILLIGRAM CBD GIVEAWAY: 50KREASONS@GMAIL.COM
For more information on “Mike Drops” stay tuned and check out https://tsctalks.com/tsc-talks-new-product/
For The Mike Drop on TSC Talks: https://tsctalks.com/special-contributor-mike-robinson/the-mike-drop/

IF YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS OR NEED HELP COMPLETING A COMPLAINT, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US https://tsctalks.com/contact-us/

TSC Talks The State of Relationships

TSC Talks The State of Relationships and Special Needs

A frank discussion with John D. Brigham, partner/boyfriend of the host of TSC Talks, Jill Woodworth on his experience moving in with our family dealing with extreme circumstances TSC related, trauma-related. How we made it work and how we’re coping now. We will cover TAND, behavior management issues, relationship challenges, and strategies, cannabinoid medicine and coping. All are welcome, participation encouraged. JD Brigham is from way up north in VT, has a background in healthcare IT, has a son from a previous relationship, a long time cannabis enthusiast and one of the most incredible humans I know.

All of our podcasts can be found at https://tsctalks.com/podcast/

 

TSC Talks guest Liz Minda and Mike Robinson Pt 2

TSC Talks guest Liz Minda and Mike Robinson Part 1

In this episode of TSC Talks, I spoke to Liz Minda, RN and Mike Robinson, former TSC Talks guest, drops in for the second half of our conversation. Liz has three children, one of whom has significant special needs and issues related to epileptic seizures. Liz strongly believes her daughter’s issues are pharma injuries and we discuss that and the treatment protocol. Liz had her children later in life; her son was born when she was 48 and her twin daughters were born when she was 50. She had normal uneventful pregnancies and her children were all born healthy. All was well until, at 18 months old, one of her daughters developed a fever after her MMR/DPT vaccine. That was when she had her first seizure.

Liz’s daughter had no further seizures until she was 4. When the seizures came back, they were severe grand mal status epilepticus seizures. Liz hesitated to medicate her daughter because as an RN, she was aware of the difficulty of finding an effective medicine as well as the myriad of side effects anti-seizure meds can cause. When the seizures continued, they eventually started meds which began a cycle of seizures increasing in both frequency and duration. In addition to meds, they put the child on the ketogenic diet. The grueling regimen did not help her seizure activity. Liz was desperate after even the rescue med Diastat began to fail to control the seizures.

Liz got her daughter into the Epidiolex study at Mass General and her daughter’s seizures diminished for a few months, but they returned. When the seizures started again, doctors increased her pharmaceuticals which restarted the med, seizure pattern. Liz grew frustrated with the medical establishment who seemed determined to throw prescription after prescription at them at great financial, physical and emotional cost. She found a neuro-epileptologist who helped her begin weaning her daughter from some of the prescription meds and helped her transition to Charlotte’s Web.

Liz connected with Mike Robinson online and Mike and others in the Compassionate Cannabis world assisted Liz in finding a balanced cannabinoid medicine that worked for her daughter. Mike and Liz discuss Epidiolex and the pharmaceutical interactions which do not seem to be compensated for when using that med. Liver issues can be serious when Epidiolex or any type of CBD is combined with certain medications. Mike shares, “Even though we were using the Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte’s Web wasn’t enough to help us get off. We needed something stronger. We needed the Rick Simpson oil or full extract cannabis oil to get her off. Because we only had you know, once you get down to the minuscule doses of the pharmaceuticals, now you’re really up against you know, fighting seizures, because you go with a really slow business and that’s pretty much where we’ve stepped in, you know, it’s right with the actual compassion provision.”

Both Mike and Liz believe vaccine injury is real. We ask you to keep an open mind while listening. Before you form an opinion, walk a mile with Liz and Mike, hear their stories and then decide. Liz comments, “and then people say, vaccines don’t cause autism? Yes, they do, and here’s why. When the brain heats up and you get a fever, you’ve got brain on fire” and she believes that “brain on fire” condition causes both seizures and autism.

TSC Talks is presenting this narrative and these views do not necessarily represent the views of TSC Talks. We are encouraging you as listeners, to “walk a mile” in Liz’s shoes and understand the vast variability in the human genome which calls for a far more personalized approach to medicine than is currently the status quo.

Liz’s Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_on_Fire
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-minda-98b9b1126/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011148612874
https://www.mikesmedicines.com/medical-marijuana/liz-minda-and-her-fight-for-jadyn-cannabis-for-epilepsy/
https://herb.co/news/health/rhode-island-cbd-school-minda/
https://digboston.com/medical-cannabis-special-treating-yourself/
https://www.wpri.com/news/special-reports/family-fights-to-change-law-says-medical-cannabis-should-be-administered-in-school/

Mike’s Links:
https://mikesmedicines.com
https://globalcannabinoidrc.com/
https://carouselchallenge.com
https://genevievesdream.com
https://nanobles.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-robinson-~-cannabis-heals-256b3192/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MikesEpilepsy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cannabismymedicine/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MikeRob47354384, https://twitter.com/MikeRob23307223
https://hightimes.com/culture/genevieves-journey-how-cannabis-helped-save-life-create-family/
https://www.imedpub.com/proceedings/cbn-the-cancer-fighting-cannabinoid-5528.html

Thank you Liz and Mike for this valuable discussion.  You can find all of our podcasts at https://tsctalks.com/podcast/

 

TSC Talks Guest Marissa Fratoni

TSC Talks guest Marissa Fratoni, Holistic RN – Cannabis Therapeutics – Maternal Health – Writer – Public Speaker, is a wealth of information and insight on cannabinoid therapeutics holistic medicine and integrative health. I met Marissa through Jessie Gill, Marijuana Mommy, when discussing our medical cannabis project, wondering if she knew of any local to MA cannabis nurses so I was thrilled when she agreed to have a chat.

We started off talking about how she went from traditional nursing in a very demanding operating room at a local hospital to becoming a visiting nurse, then “on a whim” taking a job in a local dispensary, she says,

“Working in the dispensary just completely opened, changed my entire perception of the plant. I was in interacting with people who were very chronically ill and seeing miraculous changes in their overall quality of life with the use of cannabis. And these are things as a visiting nurse, I didn’t see you know, my patients were always you know, very a lot of them were very compliant with their pharmaceutical regimens and whatever their doctors were telling them, but they weren’t healing and what I saw in the dispensary was cannabis patients consistently coming in and saying, this is helping me it’s improved my entire life. It’s changed my life. I mean, those are things that I’m was not hearing as a visiting nurse”

She ended up engaging with a lot of people looking for support and she started to offer consultations to women; mainly weight loss, wellness consultations in the realm of motherhood. But then, she started working at the dispensary and had patients who found her that way too when her name was coming up as a cannabis nurse.

“It was a game-changer for them, you know they were looking for people who could help them build a bridge between what they weren’t receiving in the medical community and what they were getting in the medical cannabis community. For a lot of patients, they’re stuck navigating all of this on their own. And that’s essentially where cannabis nurses come in”

We also discuss her role interacting with the traditional medical community, she states, “my goal as a nurse is to not to get them to just completely transfer off of medications. I think there’s a lot of poor information out there and a lot of people think that it’s either-or, and it shouldn’t be. There’s a lot of great things available through modern medicine. There’s also a lot of great things available through holistic and integrative medicine and practices. And I think my goal as a holistic nurse is to help to again, bridge that gap.”

We discuss the CBD craze, her concerns with product safety and labeling, emphasizing that every company that has a quality CBD product on the market will be backed up by functional lab testing, where they’re able to tell you the cannabinoid profile and if it’s tested positive or negative for any contaminants. If it’s tested positive experiment, it shouldn’t be on the shelf but they should be able to tell you what is in that product within that bottle.”

Marissa also has some experience working with patients in recovery using cannabis as a “harm reduction” tool and has some really relevant insights on working with those struggling with heroin addiction and how cannabis can be a useful but cautions that medical supervision and support are needed when detoxing, etc.

It was a pleasure to pick Marissa’s brain on her broad offerings and wide array of lived experiences she’s developed into a fabulous platform. Check out her links and thanks for listening!

Links:
Website: https://holisticnursemama.blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marissa.fratoni
Instagram: @holisticnursemama
Twitter: @Marissa_Fratoni
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissa-fratoni-94b62429/
Central MA Yoga: https://centralmassyoga.com/marissa-fratoni/
Medium: https://medium.com/@marissafratoni
https://cannamommy.org/about

TSC Talks Guests Joyce Gerber and Amie Searles of The Canna Mom Show

https://tsctalks.com/podcast/

 

TSC Talks guests Joyce Gerber & Amie Searles are The Canna Moms who started the local-to-MA podcast called The Canna Mom Show!  Referred to as The Click and Clack of Cannabis, while also aspiring to be the Terry Gross of Cannabis Talk, these ladies were awesome. Funny, smart and actually visionaries who want to get the word out that Canna Moms are not lazy, good for nothing slackers who are a burden to society but exactly the opposite! Inspirational visionaries out to change the world, one canna story at a time!

We talk initially about cannabis and parenting and our observations that cannabis has helped us all, in many instances be better parents, or at least more able to engage in the now and connect with our offspring. Making the connection with the TSC community, I will share personally that using cannabis helped me greatly slow down the frequent crises long enough to observe my son’s TSC/TAND behaviors, my own role in perpetuating patterns, and start to break the cycle. One small example of how the potential of cannabis as medicine can positively impact the entire family.

Their pitch is as follows: ‘Are you interested in hearing inspiring cannabis stories told by real cannabis moms? This is the show for you! Former family law attorney and mother of two, Joyce Gerber, and her canna-sister, Amie Searles, a 420 Realtor, talk with women from coast to coast who are leaders in the revolution of cannabis and caregiving and crushing the cannabis stigma, one canna story at a time.”

While an overall lighthearted conversation, we dipped down into the weeds a bit to get some of the deeper motivations for their willingness to step away from more traditional careers and launch a podcast. Not just any podcast, but one on cannabis. Joyce discusses some life challenges with juggling career and parenthood and coming back to a career in her 50s and how that pushed her to try something different. Amie relates how her own experience being diagnosed with breast cancer and using cannabis as part of her treatment regimen gave her the impetus to speak out about her positive experiences instead of holding on to the many years of shame, guilt and confusion so many from our generation felt and continue to feel for using something that can actually contribute to improved mental and physical health.

“But the truth is everybody has a cannabis story. You know, even myself, I’m very active in my temple and in our synagogue, I’m having a doctor come in, and we’re going to do a talk on cannabis, Friday night, pre-service. You know, these are older women a little older than me. And we are the fastest growing population of users”

We discuss the local cannabis industry in MA, challenges with legislation in cities such as Cambridge, MA, some of the fun events these ladies have attended to engage with the local community and promote their work, such as a Cannabis Wedding Expo.  Also discussed are the CBD market, CBD safety and Cannabis interactions with medications, the over-medicating of America with pharmaceuticals, and much more. This one will make you laugh, cry, giggle, inspire you & broaden your vision in regards to the potential of cannabis as medicine, as a recreational substance, and more. Also, how podcasters as communicators speaking out about this sometimes controversial subject matter have the power to truly affect change, at a local and national level. Go Canna Moms!

Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecannamomshow
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecannamomshow/
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-canna-mom-show
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-canna-mom-show-with-joyce-and-amie/id1485037386
Tune In: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health–Wellness-Podcasts/The-Canna-Mom-Show-p1245811/
LinkedIn, Joyce: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyce-gerber/
LinkedIn, Amie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amie-searles-79329373/
YouTube Promotion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSeN5j1pWlo

Thanks for listening! Reviews on ITunes are much appreciated.

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