"It was scary, because when I had the strength to stand up and look at myself in the mirror, I looked like somebody out of Auschwitz," Merrick said.

A friend suggested she try smoking marijuana to calm her body. She did - just one puff, she said. Then, she asked her husband for a drink of nut brown beer. He bought some, she said, and poured it into a tiny glass.

"And it stayed down, and it felt good," Merrick said. "It was the first time that I had some kind of relief to my system."

It was illegal. But to her mind, it was a medical necessity.