Women Like Me Stories & Business

Elisabeth Mack MBA, BSN, RN: From Trauma To Trailblazer: Wine, Women, And Weed

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 175

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What does it take to rebuild when life burns down everything you love? Julie sits with nurse, author, and founder Elisabeth Mack to trace a path from childhood trauma and family estrangement to a joyful marriage, a thriving wine business, and then the unthinkable: a financial collapse and her husband’s suicide. 

The turning point arrived in a chiropractor’s office, where a cannabis topical eased post-surgery pain and sparked a relentless study of the science. Drawing on decades as an RN and healthcare executive, Elisabeth launched Holistic Caring to translate research into practical cannabis care plans for pain, sleep, cancer symptoms, and autoimmune conditions. 

She shares the nuts and bolts: how to choose products, layer CBD and THC, and avoid trial-and-error by using clear protocols. We also explore the real-world barriers patients face, why dispensaries can’t offer medical guidance, and how CEU programs are training nurses to close that gap.

The conversation takes a tender turn with her mother’s dementia and cancer. Elizabeth offers honest, hard-won counsel on eldercare: tour communities early, choose before a crisis, and protect your options while preserving dignity. 

 Through every chapter, Elisabeth returns to a simple charge: keep the faith, forgive often, and turn survival into service.

If this story lifted you or gave you tools you can use, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a quick review. Your words help others find these conversations.

Holistic Caring & The Green Nurse - https://holisticcaring.com/

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Who Is Julie Fairhurst?

Speaker • Author • Business Strategist • Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a force of nature disguised as a woman with a pen and a business brain built for impact. As the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program, she has opened the door for women around the world to share their truth, heal their past, and rise into their power. Since 2019, she has published more than 30 books and over 350 true-life stories — without charging a single writer a dime! Why? Because women’s stories deserve daylight, not gatekeeping.

With 34 years in sales, marketing, and successful business leadership, Julie knows how to turn storytelling into influence and influence into income.

Her mission is clear and unapologetic: break generational trauma one story at a time and help women elevate both emotionally and financially. She doesn’t just publish books, she builds brands, confidence, and possibility, giving women the tools to rewrite their futures, grow their businesses, and lift their families with them.


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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Women Like Me Stories in Business. I'm your host, Julie Fairhurst. And I have a lady. Oh my goodness, when I was doing my research for our conversation, I'm um, yeah, we got a lot to talk about. So I'm hoping we're able to fit everything in. But let me tell you a little bit about our guest. So some women walk through life and then others walk through a fire and they come out carrying buckets, buckets of water for the rest of us. Well, Elizabeth Mack is one of those women. A childhood shaped by trauma, a marriage to the love of her life that ended in suicide, the collapse of her financial world, and her own health shattered by COVID and the vaccine, and the grief of losing her mother to dementia and cancer. And yet Elizabeth still rose. Elizabeth, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it greatly.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for the invitation, Julie. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Good. So is there anything you'd like to share with the audience before we dive in?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, it's it's a process to write a book. And, you know, people have asked me why I wrote a book. Um, that we'll we'll get to that. But you know, it it's it's something that I believe, you know how some people just feel like there is part of their life that's extraordinary. I've had a lot of extraordinary moments, and you know, sitting in a in a wine bar or something somewhere, talking to people, and people are like, You you need to write a book. Yeah, and that's what I did because uh I just strung together all of what I saw as the extraordinary moments of my life, yeah, and put it together in a in a way that is storytelling and hopefully captivating to others because we're all on this journey of life, and it's just a matter of you know how we express ourselves and carry ourselves and interact with the world. Absolutely. And you know, it for me it's it's it's just about hope and resilience. Um, and you know, you just keep getting up. So that's me.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what we gotta do. We just gotta keep getting up. It's so I always say it's okay to go down for a day or two, but you gotta get back at it. You can't stay down there because that's a dangerous place to be.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, do you have a copy of your book there? Would you like to to show our audience? And and uh and do you want to just tell us what it's about?

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, this is it, it's about the size of a Bible. Um Wine, Women and Weed, uh a memoir of faith, hope, and love. And um, it is literally you know, the the story of my life winding through wine, women and weed, and you know how to how that plays forward, right? And so um starting from my childhood in Chicago, uh, and you know, growing up with uh a somewhat crazy mother um and all that entails, and then becoming a nurse and uh at the same time losing my father and then becoming a traveling nurse, moving to California, never going back, um, having uh a first girlfriend, uh, and I was thrown out of my family for for having that. Um, you know, I I had tons of boys in in high school and college, but um then you know I I met uh a girl that just captivated me. Um but yeah, I was also ostracized from my family because of that. Wow. That that hole in the heart uh on on how you know you you love your family so much. Uh, how could they dare kick me out? Literally, my my mother threw me out on the street, um, you know, and um uh that that same day we we just got a hotel and then got an apartment real quick. Um, you know, but um and and living with that that hole in my heart. And then eventually that relationship ended, and um I decided I I had that choice back. Um, you know, what what do I want to be? Who do I want to be with? Um and happenstance occurred, and and I I met my my husband to be so so Warren was the most incredible man. Uh, he looked like Warren Beatty, uh, brilliant, um, you know, Harvard MBA. We just jived because I have an MBA in healthcare. And uh, we just had our first blind date where we talked for four hours straight. Um, and I knew that I was gonna marry him. And then we we were lovely married for 15 years, yeah. But um, you know, our our our careers peaked. Um, I stayed in conventional health care uh and he opened wine bars. Um, and so we had five wine bars across San Diego County in California and went to the wine country all the time and had 300 employees, and uh, you know, I I learned everything about wine. So, you know, it was it was interesting. He used to be um he he'd bring wine, you know, to to me and say, tell me, you know, what this is. I I'd have to name the grape, the country, the the approximate year, the varietal. Um, and that was a lot of fun. So I became you know really uh a wine connoisseur. And you know, that that that's the wine, yes, and um, and and then you know that you you mentioned his his death. He um he he lived not long enough. I mean, it was it was absolutely devastating, and and you know, we we opened that last wine bar downtown San Diego in the midst of the recession, and um he put everything we had into it, uh, got all of his investor money, put their money into it, and then ended up taking a home equity line of credit, and then a small business uh uh administration line of credit, um, and then a personal note on our house. And I let him do this, right? And people are always like, Elizabeth, why did you do that? Why did you let your husband take all of the equity out of your house and put it into the business? What could go wrong? Um what could go wrong? I trusted him more than anything, right? And and so he rolled the dice and and and just lost, you know, a$10 million company. Everything, everything went, and he couldn't live with himself. And I knew he was depressed. I got him to the doctor, got him on antidepressants, but you know, men, they don't talk, they don't they they don't have the ability to be vulnerable and and say, Wow, did I fuck up? Um, you know, it's um I I'm always gonna fix it, right? And just it's a shell game, and and you know, just trying to to repair things, but uh he couldn't do that, and so I did lose him to suicide. Luckily, he went to a hotel room and just didn't come back. But it that talk about another hole in my heart, right? Like, so not only losing my husband, but then my home, which was you know, my my womb. This this property was, you know, uh an incredible uh home in San Diego, up on a canyon with beautiful gardens and a pool, and I was supposed to be there forever and ever. Um, and I lost it all. Uh, and and this book walks through the process of all of that. Wow. And then fast forward into weed, you know, what happened was, you know, I ended up crashing my bicycle. I I used to ride all the time, and um, I had surgery on my shoulder. I've had three surgeries on my shoulder. Um, and I was introduced to CBD as and cannabis uh through a therapeutic massage at my chiropractor's office, and I said, What is this? It smells funny, and she goes, It's cannabis. And I'm like, Why are you putting cannabis on me? And and she said, It's anti-inflammatory, it's going to reduce your pain, help you work through physical therapy, get you back to that pre-surgical arm faster. And I said, Okay, sign me up. Uh, tell me more. And literally, I went on the way home to the library and checked out all the books I could find on cannabis. And I started going through all of them. I discovered PubMed, I started doing the research. And at the same time, I ended up I this woman's boyfriend had a dispensary uh back in the early days in San Diego, January of 15. I started interning with him at the dispensary, and then a doctor writing medical card recommendations for people to get be able to access the medical marijuana system. Um, and I said, you know, this is something that is fascinating to me. And I was working still in insurance at the time. Um, but I said, this is something that I can do. Mean meanwhile, I'm trying to save my house because although Warren was gone, I I got a reprieve, a Jubilee from the the banker who said, Elizabeth, go fix your life. Uh, and you know, within seven years, pay me back in full plus interest. And I said, Okay, deal. So I go into cannabis thinking I'm gonna, you know, earn uh a million dollars and buy my house back. Yeah, all I wanted to do was stay home. So I've got this this I've gotta stay home, I've got to stay home message in my heart and my mind constantly as I'm building in medical cannabis, thinking that you know I'm very smart. Um, and all I wanted to do was stay home stay home and save my my life and and what I built because I was in that house for 25 years. Well, how long did it take you to write the book? Uh Wine, Women, and Weed? Yes. Two years. Wow. Two years, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I and and the process is you know, really just sitting down and writing like autobiographical, um as as a memoir and putting in all of the things that I thought are interesting uh in a way of storytelling to get people to understand who I am, but also to see the relevance in in their own lives, yes, of you know, a crazy mother or an absent father, somebody that was detached, and and how we are detached and how connection is is so important to us. Yeah, yeah, and that sort of thing. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, so let me ask you what what moment in your life because because um the research I did and you just confirmed everything, it's a tap your life reads like a tapestry of of of uh uh breaking and then becoming. And so what moment in your life felt you felt like there was no return?

SPEAKER_00:

Like wow. Um well several, right? When I when I pulled away from Chicago at 24 years old with everything I had in in my my van and I drove west, I knew I wasn't gonna go back. Um, even though you say you're going to, but I I I was no longer gonna stay a Chicagoan. Um another turning point where I knew I couldn't go back was when I left insurance to to pave the way for cannabis. Um I I I went all in. And literally at the time I was running sales for Anthem Blue Cross for the county of San Diego. So I had a big, big job with a carrier. The best in in you know, Anthem Blue Cross is the 800-pound gorilla. Um, and you know, I I didn't want to do what I was doing anymore because I I left at the at the tail end of health care reform. So when Obamacare was implemented, I was the one boots on the ground implementing all of the policy and steering brokers through on how to do this and to take care of their clients in this new environment. Yeah. Um, but nobody was happy, right? The the the brokers had more compliance work and the carriers uh had had raised rates and the premiums went up and the the coverage was trimmed, but now you had all of these essential benefits in there. And there was all of this political muck. Um, and and mind you, I'm sitting there in a fresh suicide for my husband, who I had just lost, you know, two years before that, before I I walked away. And I'm I'm interpreting this every day with this wound, this gaping wound in my heart. Um, meanwhile, everybody's complaining, and that you know, I just saw a movie called Champagne Problems. Yeah, you know, it's the problems of the one percent. Yeah, and so I'm feeling like I'm completely abandoned. Um, and and yet I have to defend, you know, policies that I may not agree with because you know, in my heart, I think I want an NHS, I want all of us to have basic health care. Yes, I want all of us to be able to uh approach a doctor without worrying about how we're gonna pay the premium or go bankrupt or you know the coinsurance and to to have it be a true right. Um, and my politics had shifted. I was a Republican for a long time, and then I became a Democrat. I loved Obama, um, and everybody was bashing him. And it was it was an environment where you I couldn't go back. I just I had to just keep going. Yeah, and so I ended up paving the way in in cannabis and and being that bridge because I've been a nurse, I've I've been in RN for 38 years now. Yeah, um, and I got a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, an MBA in healthcare administration, and I wanted to be the bridge to the cannabis industry and healthcare, and then to to build in the pathways of how to use cannabis and protocols, uh, and then help insurance companies realize how they could help people with chemotherapy, opioid uh addictions and chronic pain, and to wean off of those, um, people with sleep uh using as an anti-inflammatory uh autoimmune conditions, all of the very expensive drugs where we're spending a hundred thousand dollars a year per person at least to take care of these things when cannabis can be something that is so therapeutic we just don't understand, and then the political uh underpinnings and and and prohibition and stigma, and that's all just racism and corporate greed. Yes, uh, and speaking to that truth. So I became a mouthpiece for a completely new life. Wow. Um, and and so I I'm still in that precipice of the this new uh healthcare with cannabis, but it just hasn't really happened yet.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you founded now what did I have? Where are my my notes here? You founded not one but three companies during your life, during your life upheaval. So that must have taken so much resilience. How did you how did what what part of you have the strength to go and do that? The one that wanted to save my house.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's all about having that important why. Well that that that was part of it. It it gave me a purpose to to cling to, but then there were all of the ephemeral types of uh conversations in my own head and heart, and and really what became a conversation with God. And so when I lost Warren, I I felt deeply abandoned. I had to leave the church that I was at uh because he was chair of the board, uh, and I was running a lot of the committees. I chaired a health committee, I was on the fellowship committee and the membership committee, and you know, why did you feel Elizabeth Mack were running the church? Why did you feel that you had to leave? Because I I would always be seen as Warren's wife, and everybody else, yeah, 300 other parishioners had a gaping hole in their heart too, and all they wanted to talk about is how much they missed Warren, and it was it was just crippling. Um, and and I'm feeling like I want to I need to fix my life, and I don't want to still be in that uh that environment. And so I just went to a different church. Um, but what happened was I I also started to meditate and I'd sit in my kitchen chair in the morning every day, and I I'd cry and I would talk to God. And one day I had this holy moment where I just started praying and I tried I tried to meditate and I couldn't quiet my mind. And so I started just talking to God, and then all of a sudden I went into this deep silence and I opened my eyes and I looked over at the microwave, and it was two hours later, and it was just I was with God, and and then it became addicting that I had to sit in my chair every morning in the kitchen table, and I would cross my legs and I would pray and I would meditate, and and then I would get up and I'd work, and I felt literally that everything I was called to do was led by God. And so, and then I'd go and see people because what happened was I I started the company. So holistic caring, I founded. Um, I went to a conference called Women Grow up in in Denver. Uh, I went in January of 16, January of 17, January of 18. But but what came to me is people are making these these cannabis medicines, people are selling these medicines in dispensaries, but nobody's interpreting how to use cannabis as a medicine for patients clinically. Like if I said I I want to use it for my pulse shoulder surgery, um, I want to heal inflammation, I've got high blood pressure, I want to drink less, I want to, you know, lower my blood sugars, I want to, you know, whatever. Um, you walk into a dispensary and they're like, well, here's these products, we but we can't tell you how to use them clinically. So then that became my job. And I said, if I can, you know, help myself, I've got to help others. And I started to heal. I I was taking at the time I crashed my bicycle at the end of 2014, like a dozen different pharmaceuticals a day, and they weren't helping me. And so I went on a pathway to to wellness and healing myself. And then, of course, I'm studying all of this in in the scientific literature, and I'm putting together the protocols on how to use cannabis as a medicine, and then I started my own company to do this, and I marketed that to other physicians, a palliative care physician that I I came across um and and started working with him. And so then I needed to hire nurses uh to see patients, and I was training them, and my training manual became my first book, Cannabis for Health. Because yeah, this this I published in April of 2020. Wow. And and this again is is everything that you need to be proficient in how to use cannabis as a medicine. And so So is that for the lay person? Yep. Yep. Perfect. Yep, and and and it it goes through it goes through everything. So, right, like how to use cannabis for cancer, how to use cannabis uh for the symptoms of dementia and Parkinson's and MS and autism and epilepsy, all the side effects, uh, and and then the different products, and and how to understand, you know, what the difference is between the gummies and the tinctures and the soft gills and the topicals and inhalation and how to mix and match all of them. Is that on Amazon? Yes. Ah, perfect. And your and your other books on Amazon as well. Yes, yes, perfect, perfect. Wow. And so, and and so, and I also got my own dispensary in San Diego. So I I I got a uh a prop 215 dispensary license. I filed all the legal paperwork, paid like four thousand dollars to do that. And I was just I'm continuing to invest, just believing that I'm going to build what I call my cannabis HMO. Yes. So I want to I want a cannabis health plan where you know people are able to have the uh the educational materials, the the one-on-one support, the doctors, the nurses, the CBD, the THC, and in varied doses, uh, and to put it all together with uh a plan. Um, instead of just going to the dispensary and and trial and error and and good luck. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that um I think that that is really needed, that book. Absolutely, because there are a lot of people that are going in different directions now uh to try to heal themselves and and to have a guide where they can hopefully get some get some um uh some health that way is amazing. So your mom, uh so she was declining from dementia and she also had cancer. So um, did your experience helping her shape your views a little differently? Or how did that work?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, initially I was treating my mother for chronic pain. She had, you know, severe back pain all the time. Um, and she was just, you know, I'd be with her and she's like, my back is just breaking. I don't know what I'm gonna do. And so I was giving her different tinctures and topicals for the most part. And I lived in San Diego. She had then moved to Tucson, and so I'd make the 400-mile drive from San Diego to Tucson back and forth a couple of times uh a year, and then she'd come out for my birthday. And so I was I was working with her with cannabis, but really what I was working on is healing my relationship with her because you know she's the one that threw me out. And my mother went, you know, and and when I was raised, you know, I I know later, you know, that she had borderline personality disorder, you know, just a very unstable emotional constitution, yeah. Uh, where she was highly erratic, she was violent, uh, she was very abusive to my siblings and I. I got the brunt of it because I was the youngest. She just picked me up, and every time she was angry at my father, she'd hit me. Um, belts and and dog leashes, and you know, just like it, I was tortured as a small child. Um, and so I had a very complicated relationship with this woman. Um, but you you know, like as when when you see a a movie where there's a small child and a mother, you see how they idolize that that parent, regardless of what their behavior is. Yes, and and so I see, you know, people are like, I would have stood up to her, you know. Sherry, she's like, you know, there's no way I would have I I'm like, yes, I I I was very passive, and she taught me how not to speak up. Uh, and then she'd say the hardest thing I ever had to do was to get you to speak up. You know, and I'm like, well, gee, mom, you know, I wasn't able to articulate myself, I wasn't able to defend myself, I had to just do whatever you told me. Yes. In fact, my my first time at a psychiatrist, he told me I had identity disorder, I didn't have one of my own. I was told what to be, what to think, what to do, etc. Yeah. So anyway, and then you know, uh and of course, when I when I met Warren and married him, you know, she's like, Oh, Elizabeth, you're my precious daughter again, you know. And then I, you know, I had all of these years, so uh a good 20 years before she died, um, you know, to rebuild that relationship. And one of the things about me that you'll see in in Wine, Women, and Weed is forgiveness. I always forgive, I always have the heart of God to love no matter what. And that is something that really I think sets me apart from others because I just had to keep forgiveness over and over and out. Jesus said, How many times do you forgive your enemy? Seven times, no, 77. You just keep doing it. And what is what does so?

SPEAKER_01:

I had a um a writer um a few books back, uh, and she had a very traumatic experience with a stranger, tried to kill her, and very, very, very bad. And so she decided that she was going to write that story in one of my books um 20 years later. And the title of her story is forgiveness is a word I don't understand. So, what so what does forgiveness mean?

SPEAKER_00:

Being able to uh continue a relationship regardless of the hurt, you know, and and and that's probably a very difficult thing to do for many people. Um for me, I I also see, you know, the the end justifies the means, right? Like I see a relationship of of redemption and and reparation and restoration. Um, and I keep navigating towards building that. Uh, and so there's difficulties along the way. There were many years, like I think my brother didn't speak to my mother for 10 years. But you know, I always did, I always tried, you know, forgiveness. Uh, you know, she wait when she threw me out of the house while I was still living in Chicago, I still went back every Saturday to clean her house, to cut the grass, to be able to sit and have lemonade with my father. Um, regardless of what she did to me, I kept trying. Yes, and that's just my spirit. Not everybody can do that. No, of course.

SPEAKER_01:

No, of course. Uh yeah, but there are people that can. I I grew up in a very dysfunctional family and and uh and I cared for my mother right up until the end. And I I know I had friends say, you know, I don't even know why you do that. Well, because it's my blood, it's my mom, regardless of what she's done in the past.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and then that that's another one of my greatest regrets. I don't I don't remember what chapter it is, but um, you know, it was um where I I went back to uh to my mother, and the thing, you know, the thing was when I when I um so chapter 48. This is this is my mother and I. Um and you can see uh that's Memorial Day, and that was uh just a couple of days before I put her into a care home because and that that is one of the most painful chapters that I wrote. I I loved her so much, um, but the thing is, I I moved to to be with her when I sold my house. So fast forward, I didn't make it in the cannabis industry because everything shifted to recreational use instead of medical use. Uh and so these companies that I started all like were sitting without revenue, right? It's like I yeah, I I made enough to to buy gas, like it's go see patients, but it wasn't what I needed to to really write the ship. Yes, certainly not to sell stay in in my house because Warren put one and a half million dollars in liens on my paid-off property. Um, and so I had to sell the house, pay off all of his debt, and then I was gonna be homeless. And I said, Where do I want to be? I don't have income right now, and my mom was like, Well, you can come here. So I said, Okay, I'll go, I'll go be with you for a while in and Tucson, but this is gonna be very short-lived. And I was working for an Australian company at that time as general manager for this American uh enterprise in cannabis, um, uh just as a contractor, and I was trying to sell holistic caring into their their business. Um, but um none of us were making anything a whole lot at that time. But I knew I was gonna come back to California, so I moved to Tucson in uh August, the the end of August 21. And I'm staying in so my mom has a two-bedroom house, and so she's in a bedroom, I'm in a bedroom, and I'm I couldn't leave, and that was really hard getting there and and discovering, you know, it's like I can't go back to San Diego this time just because she's driving me crazy. And you know, she was insulting me because I wouldn't eat a blueberry muffin, and I'm like, no, mom, I brought some food, I'm going to be you know, eating healthier than you, and then she thinks I'm I'm you know telling her that what she's doing isn't any good and twisting things because she had a very skewered mind. Um, and I said, You can eat whatever you want, I'm gonna eat what I want, uh, and we're gonna coexist. Yeah, but you know, it it was just it, and she watched Fox News all the time. Yeah, she loved President Trump, and I had very different political ideas, lots of friction in the house from politics to berries, yeah. And so I it was funny because I called my therapist. I'm like, I'm gonna kill my mother. And she goes, No, you're not, just take a breath, and realize, you know, that she's 88 years old, just about, and you know, she's not well. And then I just really shifted my thought. I went down the hall. I apologized that I yelled at her. Um, and I, you know, I said, you know, we're gonna have to get along here. And then tell me about your and then I started to realize her short-term memory was completely shocked. Oh, she could not remember what she told me five minutes ago. She didn't remember what she was like, and and so her dementia was accelerating at a pace that I I didn't know. You you can't tell that on Sunday phone calls and driving back and forth for a long weekend twice a year, yes. Um, you know, being in her space um and seeing her in this, and so I started immediately, mom, let's tour some care facilities because I'm not gonna stay here. I know I'm here right now, but I'm not staying here. Um, and I I told her that from the get-go, but you know, she wouldn't every time we'd go somewhere, she's like, No, I just can't see myself in one of those places, and I said, I know, I understand, but we're gonna find you the best place because you can't stay here alone, right? Um, and she just wouldn't deal with it. And so, you know, at the end of um uh March, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so I was there six, seven months, uh, and I said, Mom, I actually had just signed a lease to go back to California, like the the week before she was diagnosed. Um, and the Australian company was was developing uh was some properties here in California, and I was gonna be running things, and I really needed to be here, and I was traveling all the time, so I I was constantly on the move anyway. Um, and you know, so what we tried to make home care work. I came back to California uh and then I would go there for uh a week or two at a time, and my sister was local to Tucson and she would be there for a while, and then my brother was up the road in in um north of Phoenix, and he would he would come down for a little while, but it wasn't working because she and then we got caregivers to come in as she was needing more care, uh, and she was threatening to them. And then the the last weekend where I took that shot in Memorial Day weekend, um, she was going out into the cul de sac at 110 degrees and telling people that you know we're stealing from her and told the police, and I couldn't get her back in the house, and it was, and mind you, I'm on Zooms trying to figure out the these cutters, and I was working, you know, 12 hours a day. What a lot of stress, yeah. And and so I had to put her into a care home, and it was one that the social worker at hospice chose, it wasn't the one that I would have put her in, and I wasn't thinking at the time, yeah. You know, it's like, what do I do? Um we're in a crisis, and it's like that is I put that in the book. Uh, every single family needs to address it before it's a crisis, yes, because you want the best for them, and when you are in crisis, you don't get it. Yes, and and that broke my heart, and I had guilt like you wouldn't believe for years until I got sick, and I got sick. Um, uh dealing with all of that the weight of putting my mom in that home and and going to to the to the home and her telling me you are gonna regret this for the for the rest of your life. Oh dear, you know, and and oh dear, I did, and so every day I would see her telling me that how dare you, how dare you do this to me? You are always gonna regret this. Oh and it was one of the most painful things I've ever done. And so, fast forward to me getting COVID, so so I got COVID in October of 23, and um, and then in November of 23, um, I got an email from CVS, come get your COVID vaccine. And I was well again, I didn't realize that I couldn't have COVID. Uh um, you know, basically now I know that if you have COVID, you need to abstain from getting a vaccine for at least three months. Um, but I went a month later and got my fifth vaccine. So basically, they gave me long COVID. Um, I within a month, um, I had tachycardia. So uh everything I did caused a high heart rate. Um, and so, and of course, I'm in cannabis and I I would partake a little once in a while. I'd smoke a little bit after dinner, like we'd have dinner, and I have like one puff, and then I'd be like, okay, now I can watch a movie and just disconnect from the day, etc. Right? Well, I took one puff and my heart rate would go on the 150s, 160s, 170s, 180s. Um, you know, and I'm I'm laying on the floor uh where my heart is pounding like a freight train, my blood pressure pulse points in my entire body are pounding, and I'm like, I can't have cannabis anymore. And since I haven't had cannabis now for almost two years, wow, I cannot use anything with THC. Of course, I still take CBD every day. Yeah, yeah, but um, I couldn't have THC. And so mind you, so uh while I'm laying there feeling like I'm dying, I'm talking to my mother. Please let me go, please let me go, let me let take away this guilt. I am so sorry I put you in that home. I'm so sorry that we didn't find a way to get you into somewhere where you could have aged in place and had the care that you wanted because I didn't like where they put her. In fact, two days before she died, I moved her from one facility to a new one because it was just a bad place. That first thing. And she was in, you know, total of 60 days, but you know, and then I moved her to another one where she had a bright sunlight, she was next to the nursing station, they weren't just uh ignoring her. Uh, and um then two days later she died. Oh, I'm sorry. You know, it was it was so hard, but like losing your parents, and of course, I lost my father when I was just 24. He died of of lung cancer um from smoking. He smoked 40 years. Yes, he died at 62 years old, yeah, and then she was 88. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think you know, I I I love what you said earlier in our conversation about about that chapter about your mom that you wrote where you say that you're advising people like, don't wait until you're in a crisis mode. Because I because I think when you get to that crisis mode, you you you can't possibly be making the correct rational decisions because everybody's in this crisis mode. Nobody you're not necessarily thinking clearly.

SPEAKER_00:

No, and and you know, it's like so Sherry's going through the same thing now with her mother. Um, you know, it's they they don't want to address the their frailty, uh and the inability to to stay independent and stay in a house that they you know know and love for 20, 40, 50, 60 years. Yes, they can't imagine being anywhere else, they can't imagine one of those places. But um, if you choose right, there are beautiful places.

SPEAKER_01:

There are beautiful places, absolutely. Yes, they're yes, we we have them in my area as well. And um, my husband's got a lot of uh longevity in his family. They all his all his grandparents, great-grandparents that are into their 90s before, you know, late 90s before they pass, but they all have have been in wonderful, wonderful. Um, I hate to call them facilities, but but wonderful, where they're just uh they were happy. They didn't want to go, but when they got there, and a week or two afterwards, all they could say is, Oh, I'm so glad I'm here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they they do. But you know, at the same time I moved to Tucson to to be with my mom and and to to spend some time there, I met Sherry, so that's the other part. You know, it's like after 10 years of losing Warren, I I fell in love again. And and the crazy part of this that's also in the book, Wine, Women, and Weed, you know, is that I fell in love with my business partner. Oh, and so that's that's like it was absolutely, you know, I know that God led me to find my my next great love. Yeah, um, and what happened was we were introduced through the American Cannabis Nursing Association. Um, I was in San Diego, she was in Boston doing very similar things. Yeah, I became more of a writer, she became a podcaster. Uh, and when she wanted to white label my programs so that she could train nurses, I said, Well, why don't we just come together and and we'll do this together because I don't want to work alone and you don't need to be alone. Uh, and so we started to work on Zoom every day for six months. Uh, and and so we became very close. Uh, and then I met her in person at a conference in October of 2021. And um, I I this was in Albuquerque, and I drove up from Tucson, and she drove, uh, she flew from Boston. Um, and so I I saw her in person and I said, Oh wow. I I just you know, like everything that was dormant in me woke up, uh, and and my heart leapt. Uh, and the and the rest of that weekend, we're walking, we're going through, you know, all of the activities, and I'm like, Sherry has shotgun, she's with me, and my other partner in the business at that time, Tasha was writing programs with me. She's an educator, uh, and and she got in the backseat, uh, you know, and and so and then we went from uh Albuquerque to Las Vegas for the MJ BizCon conference, um, and then from there over to Sedona, and we went hiking for a couple of days, and then I brought her back to San Diego where I had a dispensary open open uh because I I found it a nonprofit. So we wanted to raise money so that patients could get free nursing care so that we could help them on using cannabis as a medicine and not have to pay because you have to pay for the products, but how about the guidance? You have to pay for that too.

SPEAKER_01:

So can you tell us the because on the screen it's the green nurse? So is that the company that you started?

SPEAKER_00:

So holistic caring was my company, the green nurse was was Sherry's company. And we we came together and founded Holistic Caring and the Green Nurse. Oh, I see. So we're co-founders now of the company. Yes, yes. Um, and so Holistic Caring and the Green Nurses are our education and coaching and case management. Uh, and and that's where we have all of our professional programs to train nurses, yes, other healthcare providers. I became a certified provider for the Board of Registered Nursing here in California to give nursing uh continuing education units so people come to our programs, they can get CEUs to renew their license. Um, and so that's all running. And then we do patient coaching so that if somebody gets diagnosed with cancer and they want to use cannabis, they what they don't have to do all the research themselves. We hand hold them for a month, it's only$250. We give them all the research, we give them a program, we give them uh all the coaching, we give them menu uh options to buy what we give them all of the dosing and etc. What a wonderful service, yeah. And and and that's that's Helic Karen and the Green Nurse. And then uh right after my mother died, I had a small inheritance and I put that into Bloom Hemp. So uh we bought Bloom Hemp CBD. Uh and this is a CBD company now. We have eight tinctures and six topicals and three soft gels and three gummies and three isolates. Wow. And at Bloomhemp.com, uh, we also run a free nurse line and free email care plans. So somebody can go to bloomhemp.com, fill out uh uh the service tab, uh, an intake uh that comes to to Sherry and I, um, and then we reply back with a free care plan using our products on on exactly what to take, how to take it, um, and then how to intersperse that with everything else they're doing. And that's no cost because they're using our products.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Um, so we'll make sure. So, so just so everyone knows, um, we will have all of Elizabeth's details in the show notes. So you will be able to uh uh find out where you can access her services. And my goodness, to be able to have this lady for a month for only$250 when you're dealing with a serious illness, my goodness, that is that is that is amazing, an amazing service. I uh that is just wonderful. Well, Elizabeth, we have to go. I know. You know, I know too. Okay, but I want to ask you one last thing before we close, okay? So I'm wondering if every woman listening could walk away with one message about surviving devastation and rebuilding their life, what could you tell them?

SPEAKER_00:

Have faith. Just just keep the faith and and keep going back to your faith, whatever that is, whatever religion you come from, whatever it looks like, don't lose faith because you know I didn't know I was gonna write a book, let alone two books, uh, and and to to found three three companies, uh, and to to be married to the most beautiful man and the most beautiful woman, you know, and it and and to be able to reinvent myself. But I'll tell you, when I when I lost Warren, you know, I wanted to follow him. I wanted to, you know, take my own life, and and you know, all I could think about was ending the pain. Um, so but because I got into that chair and I had my morning conversations with God, and I kept saying, I'm not going to give up my faith because it's truly all we have. You know, the the the money can come and go, the health can come and go, yeah, you know, the relationships come and go, but our faith keeps us in play, and then it also turns into service, right? Like I'm living my life as a testimony to heal myself from everything that I've gone through, yes, and then help heal the world. Yeah, and I invite other people to go do the same thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you. I got shivers uh when you were talking, and uh and I agree, faith, whatever that is for you, is so important to have, and um, it keeps us going. Well, Elizabeth, I appreciate you so much for being here, and uh I would love to do this again with you sometime, you know, just to follow up on you've you've had an amazing life and um and and uh and you've come out of it. And and that's a light for a lot of people in the world. They sometimes that light's gone and and they struggle to find it. And and um I appreciate you sharing it with everybody. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

I just turned 60 and you know, I I just want to, you know, never give up. Right. Like yes, I'm healing from the long COVID, I'm healing from you know the bankruptcy, I'm healing from everything. So just just keep the faith and never give up, and you too will shine.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. Thank you so much. Okay, everyone. Well, that's it. So thank you for watching and listening. And remember, go into the show notes. You're gonna want to gather up that information so you know how to reach out to Elizabeth. And if you're interested in finding her books, you could have a look at those on Amazon, but we're gonna have links to everything for you. So thank you so much for being here, and we will see you on another episode. Take care, everyone. Bye bye.