Why Age 58 to 68 Became My Most Transformative Decade
- Brainz Magazine
- Aug 12
- 11 min read
Written by Debi Wimberley, Medical Cannabis Educator
Debi Wimberley is a TEDx speaker, author, Medical Cannabis educator, and quality health advocate redefining the conversation around wellness. She empowers others through science-backed insights, lived experience, and bold conversations that challenge the status quo.
What if your health journey were a story waiting for a better ending? It was 5:00 AM on June 10, 2025, my 68th birthday. I opened my eyes. The sun peeked through my window as birds sang a symphony that had once been drowned out by the beeping of machines and the shuffle of nurses' shoes. I looked out at the yard, remembering the day I saw a lone bird teetering on the edge of our diving board, fragile, unnoticed, and doing everything it could to hold on. That was me. I felt discarded by the very doctors I once trusted with my life. I wasn't looking for a miracle cure. I just needed something to change. Anything.
No one ever whispered the magic words “Endocannabinoid System” not once in 58 years. This mysterious network that scientists discovered dancing through every mammal on Earth, yet somehow remains the best-kept secret in medicine. Without this secret map to my own body's wisdom, I stayed lost in a maze of medications, tethered to oxygen, endlessly waiting for answers that never came.
This morning, as I sat with my coffee watching the morning birds, my husband, Dave, asked me a question that made me pause: "How does it feel to wake up at 68?"
How do I even begin to answer that? Let me unravel the tapestry of this decade and tell you about the changes that still make us both shake our heads in wonder.
How did this become real?
As I sit here, living a life I was told would be impossible, I still can't quite believe it's real. The fighter in me never gave up, but I never imagined I'd wake up each morning excited to share these life-changing discoveries.
I speak into microphones now instead of breathing through machines. I create content from home, rather than needing constant supervision. I've mastered technology that once terrified me and built bridges to people everywhere who need hope.
The last five years brought some delightful surprises. I launched the Effective Cannabis Newsletter, co-authored a book called "ECHO This: Empowering Conversations of Hope and Opportunity," and launched the ECHO This radio show. But here's the plot twist that still makes me smile: I was invited to give a virtual TEDx talk to high school students on the theme "Dare to Differ." My very first speaking opportunity would be to kids, yet I couldn't even mention the plant that saved my life! So, I found a way to plant seeds of curiosity about their Endocannabinoid System instead.
But how did someone given five years to live become this thriving woman? Let me take you back to witness the impossible.
My body remembered how to balance
In a land where healing seemed impossible, something magical began to whisper through my body.
Picture the moment when my body decided to rewrite its own story, when impossible became possible, and everyone is in awe of the improvement.
There were shock-and-burn attacks that set my nerves on fire for decades in my feet and legs. They finally got tired of the fight and agreed to lay down their weapons. The peace negotiations took years, but oh, what a victory celebration we had! Like the young lady who met the three bears, I found my “just right” relief after decades of suffering.
This enchanted network had been dancing through my body all along, orchestrating harmony between all my systems, whispering, 'I've been here all along, waiting for you to learn how to listen.'
Can you envision this magical transformation? Just like a Butterfly going through metamorphosis, my counter was cluttered with twenty-five prescription bottles like a collection of broken promises, suddenly replaced one by one by a beautiful, healing plant, Cannabis. It was like trading a chaotic orchestra of competing instruments for one perfectly tuned violin that knew exactly how to play my body's song.
I danced myself away from OxyContin through 19 unimaginable steps, each one a little curtsy toward freedom. The doctors had declared it improbable, but Cannabis became my trusted dance partner, teaching me to waltz with my own body's wisdom instead of fighting against it.
Then something truly incredible happened: Nine whole years passed without a single lung infection! Nine years without hospitals becoming my second home! After decades of emergency rooms feeling like revolving doors and ICU visits that felt like dress rehearsals for goodbye, my body simply stopped breaking down. It was as if it had finally remembered the secret recipe for how to function properly.
My MAC lung nodules? They packed their bags and disappeared from my scans, leaving behind only the gentlest scars, like pressed flowers in a book, beautiful reminders of a journey survived.
The mental fog that had wrapped around my thoughts like a heavy winter coat finally lifted on the most glorious spring morning. I could think clearly, focus like a laser beam, create like an artist with a fresh palette, and dream again like a child making wishes on dandelions!
Those breathing machines that once hummed their constant mechanical lullabies around the clock? They now rest quietly most of the day, only joining my symphony for sleep or providing light accompaniment during physical activity.
My health isn't a perfect fairy tale; it still presents me with daily puzzles to solve. But oh, what a grand adventure this is compared to sitting in a tower waiting for someone else to climb up and rescue me!
Now I'm like an archaeologist, curating better health by discovering what's just right for me, trusting my own inner compass to guide me.
How my transformation freed my family from fear
Once upon a time, healing one person's story began to improve an entire family's future.
You see, my transformation didn't just heal me; it freed my entire family from the constant fear of not being able to help me.
My family received the gift of having "me" back instead of someone fragile. They no longer had to be on high alert, anticipating a crisis. For the first time in decades, they could see my health improving instead of just managing one emergency after another. They were seeing me regain life that they never thought they would see again.
Suddenly, I could spend time with my kids and grandkids where the focus was on celebration and joy, not potential lung crises or medical emergencies. Family gatherings became about laughter and making memories, rather than everyone watching me nervously. Dave was no longer arranging caregivers, and he could leave the house without worry, travel without fear, and sleep through the night without listening for changes in my breathing.
For the first time in years, I could return to taking care of myself; these were simple things that meant everything, like cooking meals for my family instead of being cooked for, washing dishes instead of watching helplessly as others cleaned up after me. These weren't just household duties; they were acts of love I could finally give again.
Perhaps most importantly, I could give hope to others still trapped where I used to be. Through my educational platform, writing, speaking, and even that TEDx talk to high school students, I could plant seeds of curiosity and possibility in minds that needed to know they aren't powerless, because hope and empowerment are magical.
But how did all this magic begin? Journey back with me.
My own best teacher
There was a time when learning meant survival. Out of necessity, I unexpectedly discovered that curiosity could bloom even in the darkest winter of life.
Go back a little further, to when I was 58, facing what seemed like an impossible task: learning to save my own life, which seems fantastical that it would require tech skills to address my multiple chronic conditions.
Miraculously, when you're learning to save your own life, there truly is no limit to what your mind can absorb. Deep within the enchanted treasure chest of my own body, I stumbled upon a secret so ancient and mysterious that most people walk through life without ever knowing it exists. Like a gardener learning to tend to a magical garden, I began cultivating new knowledge. Cannabis education taught me the language of plants and the healing power of nature. Life coaching wisdom showed me how to help others grow their own gardens of possibility. Trauma training revealed how to compost old wounds into fertile ground for new growth. I learned to plant seeds with words and nurture dreams into blooming businesses.
It is an unusual and unlikely tale; this healing approach was anything but traditional. I began weaving myself into new digital tapestries, WordPress threads, Kajabi patterns, Zoom connections, and Google networks. Each new skill became another strand in my creation when I'd never imagined having the strength to build again.
Every single course was an investment in my health. Every certification was me betting on myself when the medical system had given up on me completely. My medical background played a huge role in helping me understand Cannabis research, especially when I discovered that nearly 50,000 studies existed on this magical plant. Yet, somehow, none of my doctors had mentioned even one. But my determination to live and thrive is what drove me.
What sparked this desperate quest for learning, you may ask. Let me turn the pages back.
A time before the magic
In a village where trust had been broken, a woman was learning to trust herself.
Rewind to 2015, the year my medical team abandoned treating my chronic pain, which was no longer part of my medical plan.
For over two decades, I had trusted my doctors to be my sole health advocates. They had prescribed daily OxyContin for my complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Then, during the opioid crisis, everything changed overnight. "Office policy," they announced, as if those two words could erase twenty years of trust. No plan. No tapering schedule. No concern for what would happen to someone with my type of chronic pain.
I was collecting medical diagnoses like unwanted souvenirs: the alphabet soup of chronic conditions that seemed to multiply every few years, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, CRPS, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), osteoporosis, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) lung disease. Born with asthma and thalassemia minor, I had been accumulating this unwelcome collection since 1987, each new diagnosis with another stamp in a passport I never wanted to carry.
Twenty-five prescription bottles crowded my countertop. Each one promising relief. Each one is failing to deliver. I had become a walking apothecary's experiment, trusting that somewhere in all those bottles was the elixir to feeling alive again.
I required a 24-hour caregiver just to survive each day. I was wheelchair-bound because a stubborn ruptured tendon refused to heal. I couldn't breathe without machines humming beside my bed.
I was trapped in that place where so many find themselves. This is where my story could have ended. But here's what I discovered.
I became my own hero
Once upon a time, in a sterile world where hope had nearly drowned, a woman made a choice that would change everything.
In January 2016, there was no magic; there were no miracles. I found myself drowning in the sterile seas of the hospital, gasping for air, I couldn't draw on my own, waves of forced opioid withdrawal crashing over me while COPD, MAC, and the flu pulled me deeper under.
By May of that same year, I was sitting in my wheelchair, tethered to oxygen, facing a scene that felt like déjà vu. Once again, my doctors were telling me their system could not help me. This was a medical system that simply quit when it thought there were no more options. They fancy themselves as the miracle workers in this realm; if they can’t perform one with you, they discard you.
"There's nothing more we can do about your MAC," they said with that tone of finality I'd heard before. Five years to live, maybe. And those years were going to be "really hard and tough" since my body rejected all available treatments.
There I sat, watching the same pattern repeat itself. When doctors reached the last page of their playbook, they didn't turn to blank pages to write something new; they just closed it and walked away. This time, I was ready with a different response.
That's when I asked myself the question that would change everything: "Who is advocating for your health?
The answer was crystal clear now: It had to be me, and I was going to have to be my own hero.
How I discovered my body's hidden healing network
In a garden where most people never learn to tend their own flowers, I discovered the secret to making impossible things bloom.
Many people are bewildered to find themselves where I did.
Buried under prescriptions that don't work. Waiting for doctors who've run out of options. Trusting others to advocate for their health while feeling increasingly abandoned and hopeless.
You might be sitting there right now, feeling like that lone bird on the diving board, fragile, unnoticed, doing everything you can just to hold on.
But here's the truth I learned: You don't have to stay there.
The seeds of better health are always yours to plant, you just need to learn what helps them grow and believe that they can. The garden of wellness is always yours to tend - you just need the right tools.
This is the new Debi, not the woman who was given five years to live ten years ago. Today, I am more alive and passionate than ever because I made a choice. I chose to stop waiting for someone else to save me and started learning to save myself. A choice available to you, too. Right now. Today. You only get one body and one precious life. Shouldn't you be in charge?
What's coming next
In my next story, I'll take you by the hand into a magical adventure where finding what's just right becomes a quest, and your body whispers so you can turn it into a beautiful symphony that finally makes perfect sense.
This article is the first in an 11-part series weaving classic fairy tales with real science, soulful advocacy, and the magical wisdom of your Endocannabinoid System. Each story invites you to see health through a new lens, one where you're the hero, the healer, and the architect of your own happily-ever-after. Because sometimes the most powerful medicine comes wrapped in the language of wonder.
Think of it like unlocking a hidden door tucked behind a dusty old bookshelf, except instead of leading to Narnia, it leads to you. A version of you that’s informed, empowered, and unapologetically on fire. Transformation isn’t just a dream; here, it’s your next step, your magic spell, your personal plot twist. So, grab your curiosity and a cup of tea (or tincture), because in this series, I’m sharing the hard-won gems I picked up on my wild healing quest. This isn’t just info, it’s your map, your compass, and maybe even your cloak of invisibility when you need to hide from outdated health advice. Welcome to the realm where the mind, body, and spirit get to play and thrive.
Are you curious enough to discover what your body has been trying to tell you all along?
Ready to begin your own transformation tale?
Subscribe to the Effective Cannabis Newsletter, where fairy-tale endings meet real science, and every issue plants new seeds of possibility in minds ready to grow.
For the truly curious adventurers: Follow my personal journey on Instagram for daily inspiration and transformation tips, or explore EC Newsletter Instagram for medical Cannabis education highlights. Connect with me on LinkedIn for professional insights or follow the EC Newsletter LinkedIn for Cannabis community discussions.
Want to dive deeper into the rabbit holes? Discover Effective Cannabis, where I shine light on the magical benefits of cannabinoids through medical research and stories. Ready to bring this education to your organization? Discover where magic meets the microphone, let's plant seeds of transformation in your audience's hearts.
Happy 68th Birthday to me and to everyone ready to unwrap the magic they've been carrying all along.
Read more from Debi Wimberley
Debi Wimberley, Medical Cannabis Educator
Debi Wimberley is a trailblazer in the Medical Cannabis space, blending lived experience with clinical insight. After surviving decades of chronic pain and lung disease, she transformed her journey into a mission to educate and empower. With a background in medical technology and oncology and certifications in Cannabis applications and patient care, she brings science and compassion together with a focus on health and improving quality of life. As founder of Effective Cannabis and the global EC Newsletter, Debi unites certified educators, coaches, and professionals to deliver fact-based, stigma-free education that inspires real change.
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