From Amendment 2 to Mexico, medical marijuana advocacy remains strong for Roark

Dr. Lisa Roark has had an extensive medical journey throughout her life. Beginning her career with a residency in Springfield to opening her own family health clinic in Cassville, Roark has studied various medicines and illnesses. She was one of the first doctors in Missouri to offer telehealth certification for medical marijuana and has done considerable research on the subject to improve the health and wellbeing of her patients.

While her studies are extensive in her medical career, her personal battle with multiple sclerosis crept up after the passage of Amendment 2.

Growing up in the small town of Exeter, Missouri, Roark is proud to represent her home state through her career as a family medicine physician. From small town to big city, she studied at the University of Missouri Kansas City for medical school, after which she married her high school sweetheart, Griff, and began her residency at Cox Family Medicine in Springfield. Later, she and her family would move closer to home in the town of Cassville where she would establish her own medical clinic.

“We moved to Cassville, where I initially worked for one of the large health systems for five years,” Roark said. “Then after my five-year contract, I opened a clinic in 2015, Roark Family Health where we do direct primary care for patients. So, no insurance, no billing.”

Offering membership-based medicine at an affordable price, Roark’s clinic offers no copays or deductibles. Patients are seen as often as they need to be so long as they maintain their membership. At the clinic, she offers a full pharmacy which is all at cost so patients have access to medications that are not insulated in any way. This applies to labs as well, the majority of which only cost three to four dollars.

“For the last five years we’ve been offering affordable health care in a community where we have lots of people who work hard,” Roark continued. “They’re farmers, they’re small business owners, and so on but they don’t happen to qualify for any kind of insurance or government assistance to be able to have their medical care.”

Roark went on to say that she truly does love what she is doing, not only as her profession but for her community as well. This was a major influence in her decision to become an advocate for medical cannabis. With some of her patients failing certain treatments she was asked if she would take into consideration cannabis as a treatment. While she was unaware of medical marijuana as an option at the time she made a promise to do as much research as she could into the subject.

“I had to just be honest this was before the big CBD craze and I said ‘I don’t know anything about CBD but I am willing to become educated and after I do some reading and get some good education I’ll let you know what I think,’” Roark explained. “So I started reading, that was my introduction to cannabis, and the more I read the more I realized, ‘Oh my goodness, as medical providers we’ve been duped into thinking that cannabis is bad.”

The more she read the stronger her conviction became in becoming an advocate for cannabis. It was at that time that Roark decided to host a petition signing at her clinic for New Approach Missouri. With enough signatures legalization of medical marijuana became more of a reality. She expected a lot of support but had a welcome surprise regarding publicity for the event.

“I said (to New Approach), ‘hey, you know what I own my clinic and nobody can say otherwise. Let’s just set up shop and you can do the petitions signing at my clinic,’” Roark said. “Well, I didn’t think much about that and then reporters from the local paper showed up and it ended up on the front page news that a local doctor is supporting medical marijuana. It got such an exciting response, even in our little corner of the state, that then New Approach asked me if I could start doing some town hall meetings or some educational events.”

As Roark’s advocacy for cannabis grew so did the support for her and clinic. According to Roark, many patients are not only looking to try alternative treatments but they are also looking for a provider who is open-minded in regards to them and their needs, medicines, and treatments.

“My clinic has grown by leaps and bounds because there are so many people excited to have a doctor who will be open-minded, listen to their needs, and accept that doctors don’t have all the answers,” Roark said. “Being open-minded or being open to other options makes patients happy and makes them trust me.”

After the legalization of medical marijuana, it only made sense for her to offer certifications for her patients. Thanks to her membership program certifications are affordable for both members and non-members of the clinic.

“Of course, I decided to do physician certification. I was the first doctor in Missouri to offer telehealth certifications,” Roark explained. “From day one, I’ve offered only a $100 certification. If I have a patient who’s not a member and they need a DOT physical, it’s a hundred dollars, if they need a physical for work it’s a hundred dollars. If they are a member it’s free but in order to not price gouge medical marijuana patients I would just continue to stay on that same line and continue it a hundred dollars.”

In addition to certifications, Roark also decided to establish her own dispensary in Cassville. Taking zero financial backers either in or out-of-state, she found the proper way to go about it was to do it by herself. She applied for her dispensary license and was happy to see that she had was awarded a license. However, within a week of sending in her application tragedy struck.

“One week after submitting our licensing application, I woke up and could not see out of my left eye. That was what started my health journey,” Roark explained. “I saw tons of specialists and was diagnosed with optic neuritis, which is basically inflammation of the optic nerve, and in young women, most of the time optic neuritis means multiple sclerosis. I ended up losing vision in my right eye. Not completely but it was a definite change.”

She eventually found herself admitted to Barnes Jewish Hospital where she would receive a lumbar puncture and an MRI showing lesions on her brain consistent with multiple sclerosis. This diagnosis weighed heavy on her and her business, however, that only made it more important to follow up on her treatments. However, that would prove to be a little more difficult than previously believed.

    

“I had my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis right after putting in an application for a dispensary and having a clinic that was absolutely booming with our regular patients in addition to medical marijuana certification patients. It was a pretty tough time.”

From October through January, Roark and her family started the treatments her neurologists recommended. She received multiple steroid shots in her eyes and while on her MS medication developed trigeminal neuralgia which is inflammation in the facial nerve on the left side of the face that caused severe pain.

“I couldn’t chew, couldn’t eat, and I’m still trying to work. What they say about autoimmune disease is very, very true. It’s an invisible disease,” Roark continued. “You could look at me and I would look fine. Nobody would know I was sick but meanwhile I had such severe fatigue I could work for a full day. I had days where the alarm went off at 7 A.M. or 8 A.M. for me to go to work and I couldn’t physically get out of bed because I was so exhausted. I did the diet changes, I went gluten-free, sugar-free, artificial everything free, then when I was physically able started doing yoga three days a week and literally did all the things I was told to and still worsening.”

In January, Roark made the decision to go to Clinica Ruiz in Mexico where she would have hematopoietic stem cell therapy (HSTP). The decision to go was influenced by her friend, a nurse practitioner, who went through treatment a couple of years ago for her multiple sclerosis with the same group. At the time they had significant improvement concerning her friend’s condition and while symptoms did not completely recede, they had seen significant improvement.

Arriving for treatment scheduled March 1, Roark handled her first bout of therapy very well. In such a good state, the doctors were able to harvest her own stem cell so they could be placed back in her after the treatment. However, the treatments that came afterward would prove to be much more difficult than she had expected.

“I had the first round of chemotherapy and did pretty well with it. Then they harvested my stem cells, so I was able to get my own stem cells back because with multiple sclerosis the stem cells are healthy, they end up getting mutated along the way so the old ones are the problem,” Roark stated. “Once they harvested those, they hit me with two rounds of chemotherapy and those were much, much, much harder. Four rounds of chemotherapy total and all of my blood counts dropped way down.”

The treatment is supposed to kill off all the white blood cells which are our protective cells but it also knocked down all the cell lines. While the treatment was doing what it was intended to, it was still a rough process for her. Her hemoglobin dropped and she became very anemic with her platelets dropping to the point where they were looking to do a platelet transfusion as well.

Despite this, Roark would continue her journey through chemo very steadily. She took the process in stride and documented her time in chemotherapy on Facebook for anyone else living with multiple sclerosis. Although the physical challenges she faced were still very exhausting.

“I lost all my hair in basically one day. It just started falling out by the handful and if you looked at my Facebook posts, you’ll see that I documented all this as I went. I did that on my own page and shared it with my MS connect group, so that other MS patients understand that this is an option, not necessarily an easy option, but it’s a tolerable option,” Roark said.  “We buzzed off all my hair, had my stem cells put back in me, and then we waited for my blood count to come up. I ended up getting a blood transfusion which helped a lot with my symptoms because I was really getting lightheaded and short of breath. My heart would start beating hard if I would walk at all.”

While she did worry about her health, her doctors made sure that she was well attended to. The staff at the center was very accommodating and did everything that they could to help her progress. They were able to do her blood transfusion at the center where she could be monitored and attended to more closely. She is extremely grateful for their time and assistance.

“The doctors there were very receptive, they heard me, they heard that I felt bad, they brought me in immediately (the same day) to repeat my lab work and discuss my symptoms and evaluate me and we decided together that I needed a blood transfusion,” Roark said. “The doctor, the nurses, and the head of the program all stayed until eight o’clock that evening when they should have been home with their families and took care of me and gave me a transfusion.”

As soon as she finished her last day of treatment, she received the news that her numbers were stable and the doctor gave her the go-ahead to head back home. She was able to fly home early with no delays or traffic, avoiding COVID-19 incidents with the help of the special M95 masks she requested. She was very relieved to get home to their family where her, her husband, and four kids are now all spending time together under quarantine.

Currently, she is doing everything she can to help her business and her employees during this worldwide outbreak. According to Roark, her employees are her family and she wants to continue providing for them the same way she has been for years prior. Roark also plans to move forward during this time marketing to Arkansas as well. She is licensed in the state and, since the global COVID outbreak, Arkansas patients are now allowed to apply for certifications through telehealth.

“I have a pretty large staff and they are my family. They will both get the same paycheck they’ve always gotten and we will continue to do that and do the best we can with what we have,” Roark continued. “I am doing a lot of marketing because I’m also licensed in Arkansas and I knew that medical marijuana certifications for northwest Arkansas patients set previously by Arkansas law they had to be seen in the clinic. But during COVID they’ve lifted that and now they’ll allow telehealth. So now I’m trying to figure out how to reach Arkansas patients and let them know this is an option.”

PHOTOS/FACEBOOK – LISA ROARK