My Dinner With Marijuana (boing boing)
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/23/my-dinner-with-marijuana-chem.htmlThis is a photo essay, for the most part - you have to follow the link for this one.
My feelings about marijuana have changed a lot since I was diagnosed with cancer. And specifically, since I started chemotherapy in January. For me, medical cannabis has been an important part of getting through chemo. My oncologist wrote a recommendation letter for me, and I have a card that makes it legal for me to purchase pot.
It helps me more than many of the pharmaceuticals my cancer docs prescribe for chemo side effects. It eases nausea and stops vomiting, it helps me sleep when the steroids accompanying chemo keep me up, it acts as a gentle analgesic against the excruciating bone pain that certain chemo drugs bring, and it stimulates appetite in those awful days after infusions when food is repulsive.
These things are important. If you can't eat or sleep, your body can't heal in time to be strong enough for the next infusion.
Earlier on the same day of the cannabis dinner, I'd gone in for an MRI to see how the chemo had progressed in shrinking my tumor. Medical imaging is a stressful thing when you have cancer, because of the ever-present fear that a scan may reveal very bad news. MRIs in particular are loud and claustrophobia-triggering for many people, including me.
I prepared an by taking a nice big bite of a chocolate-chip pot cookie hour before the scan. So I wouldn't panic inside, and so the technician could capture a good image of my insides.
= new reply since forum marked as read
which of course is NOT the case.
Mr Tran's dishes look MARVELOUS
again
Thanks for the post 
and Rec.
We always smoked recreationally. When he was diagnosed he informed his doctor. After living with HIV for several years, his doc told him Cannabis is probably what was keeping him alive. Unfortunately, we were unable to give him anything when he finally was admitted to the hospital. He couldn't keep anything down food or medication. He was given Marinol, however, since he couldn't keep anything down it was worthless to him.
If only we could have provided him with a joint it would have been helpful. He would not have survived his meningitis-encephalitis that finally killed him, but it could have helped relieve his pain.
Our medical system is so f'd up and we can all thank our congresscriters for playing doctors by passing these insane laws, and providing us with the propaganda that comes with it.
........ and ......... 
edit: typos
Still looking for the best word or phrase that adequately describes the inhumanity withholding relief from a suffering person.
Those recipes look so delicious! 
I'm sending good vibes your way. Unfortunately, my husband's cancer was not curable, but I know for a fact that his marijauna use is the only thing that made the chemo bearable. I made sure he toked up on the way to his treatments, and always had joints rolled for the trip home. Hang in there...treatment is getting better every day. As his oncologist once told us, it's an every expanding field and researchers are learning more and more literally every day.
Thanks for the thread, RainDog.
hope you're doing well! 
you're doing well as well, Raindog.
sadly, so many of us don't.
then there's the added anxiety of worrying about breaking the law - of course, some people in mmj legal states have also been jailed for using mmj for cancer side effects, so, until this nation decides to stop hurting those who are already hurting - that's the nation we live in. It's immoral, imo.
Here's a link to a science-based medical marijuana advocacy group's forum.
http://www.medicalcannabis.com/
The Drug Policy Forum group here has a lot of links - some include different articles about people who have come out in support of medical mj after their own successful use for side effects. There are two pages with a lot of earlier links about various studies.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1170
Let us know how you are faring. Best wishes to you.
