Saving Sophie | Marijuana

A mother’s love extends beyond finding a cure for her daughter to healing the world

“There’s not a Mother’s Day that goes by that I don’t find myself in tears. I could have lost my child. This could have ended up being a more malignant tumor, she could have died before she was two, her brain surgery could have gone bad, the staph infection she had at one point could have spread to quickly and could have killed her. My child could be feeling around in the dark right now, she could be completely blind, she could have onset puberty, there are so many things that could have happened to my baby,” an emotional Tracy Ryan, 42, recounts with a catch in her voice as she lists off just a few of the medical maladies her four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Sophie, has endured. 

IT BEGINS

Tracy Ryan’s nearly five-year journey of hospitals, doctors and cancer treatments began on June 23, 2013 when an 8-1/2-month-old Sophie was diagnosed with a low-grade, Optic Pathway Glioma brain tumor. The first clue something was amiss had only happened three days earlier when Sophie had an MRI scan after nystagmus, or shaking of the eyeball, presented in her left eye.

Sophie’s…