She was certain of one thing when Mykayla was diagnosed: The child would use marijuana to defeat cancer.

Purchase and Krenzler took Mykayla to The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation clinic in Southeast Portland, where a doctor looked over a letter from Mykayla’s oncologist stating her diagnosis. The doctor asked about Mykayla’s medications, her symptoms and how Purchase planned to give her daughter the drug. 

Purchase said the physician “was pretty thorough.”

If he had any concerns about Mykayla’s age, Purchase said, he didn’t mention them.

Ten days after her cancer diagnosis, Mykayla was an Oregon medical marijuana patient.

Undergoing treatment

On a recent afternoon, Krenzler placed a baggie of empty pill capsules on the kitchen counter and unwrapped a 10-gram syringe of cannabis oil, known among marijuana patients as Rick Simpson Oil.

Krenzler filled a capsule with a half-gram of the dark sludgy substance that friends had prepared and handed it to Mykayla. The oil smells bad and, says Mykayla, tastes awful. Krenzler got lime-flavored capsules to help mask the drug’s pungent aftertaste.

Test results showed the substance had a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content of 58.6 percent, a much higher concentration than in dried marijuana. THC is the psychoactive property of marijuana that gives users a high.

Mykayla swallowed the pill.

“First you get hungry,” she said. “Then you get really funny, and then you get tired.”

These days, Mykayla lives with her family in a 35-foot RV parked at a friend’s home in Gladstone while she undergoes chemotherapy. Returning to Pendleton is on hold.

Mykayla went into remission within a month of starting chemotherapy. Cancer specialists say such a development is expected, but Purchase and Krenzler credited marijuana.

“She wasn’t responding as well until she got the cannabis,” Purchase said.

Mykayla continues to receive a half-gram of cannabis oil twice a day: once in the morning, and again in the afternoon.

Krenzler said marijuana can relax or energize Mykayla, relieve her pain, stimulate her appetite, ease her nausea or put her to sleep

When she first started using marijuana, it knocked Mykayla out. She’d nap for hours at a time, a sign that Mykayla’s body was adjusting to marijuana, said Krenzler

“Once you get used to it and you gain a tolerance, it doesn’t make you high,” said Krenzler, who is listed with the state as Mykayla’s grower. “You’re functional.”

Sometimes, if Mykayla is feeling especially lousy, Krenzler and Purchase offer her a cookie or slice of banana bread baked with “budder,” made by slow-cooking butter and marijuana buds. Krenzler said she’s had up to 1.2 grams of cannabis oil in 24 hours, the rough equivalent of smoking 10 joints.

Purchase has an associate’s degree in medical office assistance but is out of work. Krenzler, 27,  is also unemployed. The family lives on Mykayla’s Supplemental Security Income and food stamps. 

The couple home-schools Mykayla for now. She loves sculpting clay and reading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” Her favorite book is “It’s Just a Plant,” a children’s book about marijuana illustrated by the artist whose work includes the blockbuster parody, “Go the **** to Sleep.”