Mykayla disappeared into the bedroom of a friend’s home one recent evening and emerged in a pistachio-colored gown. Someone she’d never met had sent her 1,000 paper cranes that, according to Japanese tradition, offer a wish for healing.

The tiny cranes, fastened to strings dangling from a belt, rose as Mykayla twirled.

“When you get married,” her mom told her, “you can wear it with your wedding dress.”

Mykayla took a seat at the kitchen counter, where she eagerly pored over a stack of letters from her classmates at Sherwood Heights Elementary in Pendleton, closely examining their crayon illustrations.

“Dear Mykayla,” she read aloud. “I hope you feel better. Do you like cats?”

Snacking on kiwi, she remembered the fun she had playing with friends and visiting the Pendleton Roundup before she got sick.

Mykayla will be the one to choose when to stop using marijuana, her mother said.

For now, Purchase hopes other parents won’t judge her for decisions she made when her daughter was “walking a line between life and death.”

“As a mother,” she said, “I am going to try anything before she can potentially fall on the other side.”

Mykayla’s mother maintains a Facebook page dedicated to her daughter’s health and use of medical marijuana.

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- Noelle Crombie