Celebrating their first Christmas in Fountain, Colo., for the members of the Swann family will be a significant change from their longtime home in northwest Alabama's Haleyville.

Because of the ongoing financial hardships associated with Butch and Mandy Swann's move to Colorado on Sept. 15, there will be fewer presents this year for their children: Allie, 14; Cy, 6, and Carter, 2. They won't have the company of Mandy's numerous family members who live within a half-mile or so of each other back in Haleyville.

And on Christmas, like the other days that followed since first getting the prescription on Nov. 21, the parents plan to administer three oral doses of the marijuana-derived oil known as CBD, or cannabidiol, to Allie in an attempt to control her violent seizures that brain surgery and potent pharmaceuticals haven't affected.

"This has kind of been, I wouldn't say a depressing Christmas because we're trying to make it as good as we can for the children, but it's not like back at home," Butch Swann said in a phone interview from the family's rental home in Fountain on Monday. "It's sad to an extent that we don't have our family, but at the same time we understand what Christmas is about -- that's the birth of Jesus. ... As long as the children are OK, that's all that matters."

Using Colorado's medical marijuana laws, the Swanns have uprooted their family to give their teenage daughter a chance at radically changing her life, an opportunity they don't have in Alabama. They hope the CBD oil, which comes from marijuana but does not produce the drug's intoxicating effects, will help her seizures that started when she was 6 months old and of which doctors don't know the cause.

"Us being out here away from our families, everybody out here calls us Colorado refugees," Butch, a 41-year-old life insurance salesman, said. "We're Colorado prisoners, not because of Colorado but because of the rest of the United States. We can't cross state lines with the medication."

A growing movement is happening in Alabama to get the state Legislature to legalize the use of the marijuana-derived oil for specific medical conditions. Known as Carly's Law, the planned bill is named after a Birmingham-area child who suffers from a rare genetic disorder that causes her frequent, violent seizures.

"To me, it's a parents' right issue. If people are doing it in other states, we should have the right to do it here," said Dustin Chandler, a Pelham police officer who is rallying support for the bill that could help his 2-year-old daughter.

"I'm not saying this is a catchall cure-all for everybody for seizures and all this other stuff. Nobody has ever said this is going to cure everybody 100 percent. But why not give us the option?" Chandler said. "We just want that extra bit of hope that's saying there might be another option."

Since moving to Colorado and using the CBD oil, the Swanns' experience has been a rollercoaster. The process to get a recommendation by two doctors and approval by the state to obtain a "red card" for purchasing the specialty oil from a licensed medical marijuana dispensary took about six weeks.

Haleyville natives Butch and Mandy Swann along with their son Cy talk to CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta during an interview for his ongoing documentary called "Weed" that explores the medical benefits of marijuana, at a home in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Dec. 3, 2013. The Swanns moved to Fountain, Colo., in September so their daughter, Allie, can receive medical marijuana treatment for her severe seizures. (Courtesy / Butch Swann)

Health insurance won't cover it, so out-of-pocket costs for the marijuana oil itself cost $587 the first month and $860 the second month.

The first week of administering the oil, the dose wasn't high enough to affect Allie, who has the mental capacity of a 3- or 4-year-old, but an increased amount the second week made an impact, her father said.

"Her drop-seizures completely went away. That was a win right there," he said, referring to the frequent condition that causes her to suddenly fall to the ground in a seizure and often results in injury. "She would still have other seizures. She noticed her surroundings more. You could tell in her eyes she was more alert, more cognitive. Teachers at school would call us and say she had done this today or that. They were amazed as well."

Allie's mother was shocked by improvements. "Allie was starting to be a normal teenager, and we have not had that in years -- ever," Mandy said. "She shut her door and didn't want her brothers in her room, she was doing that. ... Everyone was seeing a change in her."

Before moving to Colorado, Allie's parents got significant medical treatment for her that included removal of her brain's right frontal lobe in 2006 and a procedure to separate the tissue connection between the two halves of her brain in 2007.

The procedure to remove the right frontal lobe caused Allie "a little bit of a drag on her left side, but she was now picking her feet up going upstairs," the mother said about the change after the CBD treatment. "She was noticing things. She was asking for things she normally would not. She would say the things she saw in the book."

Allie would see a bus and say, "Time to go home," or ask for more food or something to drink, Mandy said.

But as of Sunday, Allie's condition took a turn for the worse. "She was having bad seizures last night and that was the first night since we have been here she has been like that," the father said. "Yesterday was awful. She couldn't move at all."

The extremely violent seizures suffered by Allie prompted the parents to use rescue meds, which are benzodiazepine sedatives. "Last night we had to give her the rescue drugs twice. We have not used the rescue drugs in 10 years," the mother said. "It scared me."

Haleyville natives Butch and Mandy Swann take their children Allie, Cy and Carter to the Garden of the Gods rock-formation nature center in Colorado Springs, Colo., in October. The Swanns moved to Fountain, Colo., in September so their daughter can receive medical marijuana treatment for her severe seizures. (Courtesy / Butch Swann)

The parents believe that removing two prescription drugs from Allie's regimen combined with too high a dose of CBD oil may have caused the downturn in her condition.

"That third week we increased it a third time. This past week we have dropped it back down to that second level dose," Butch said about the CBD level. "At the same time we have discontinued two of the pharmaceutical medicines. That could be causing it as well. ... I wanted to see so much improvement so fast and I wanted to get these other toxic drugs out of her system."

Mandy added: "I think he jumped the gun on taking them off too quick. We had been longing for a miracle for so long."

Like the family has experienced in the past, the Swanns are hoping for progress one day at a time. "Hopefully with each passing day now this gets a little better," Butch said.

He remembered sitting at home last summer when a family member had called to tell him about a CNN documentary by Dr. Sanjay Gupta called "Weed" about the medical benefits of marijuana. He learned about the example of Charlotte Figi, a young girl in Colorado who had suffered 300 seizures a week but dropped to a couple or so a month after using medicinal marijuana.

"This amazed me. I started researching it a little more, and the more research I had done I liked it," Butch said. "My daddy was a Baptist preacher that raised me to be against drugs and against alcohol, and here I am thinking about giving it to my daughter."

Gupta interviewed the Swanns and other similar families earlier in December in Colorado Springs, Colo., as part of his ongoing documentary about medical marijuana.

The Swanns hope to see Alabama lawmakers legalize the use of CBD for medical treatment and allow the state to import the specific marijuana oil from the strain of plant known as Charlotte's Web, named after the Colorado girl who saw tremendous improvement in her seizures.

"Aside from these past few days and aside from last night, if this is all the improvement we see from it, it is totally worth the move," Butch said. "If it was in Seoul, Korea, and it was working, we would move there."

Help the Swanns:

There are various ways to help the Swanns with their expenses. The family has an online donation account set up at www.gofundme.com under the name TeamAllieFundraiser. Also, Listerhill Credit Union locations in the Southeast have an account called "Team Allie" that accepts donations for the Swann family.