STORM CHASING IN THE CANCER WARD

Storm chasing without a tornado on the horizon?

The storm in the cancer ward is chemo therapy that runs through everything in your body sweeping out the good and the bad cells.

It shakes you down to your core hoping the good cells prevail.

Not everyone is built for this particular battle.

But some are. (Hey Abby)

There are worse things, but I can’t think of them, than young people starting a family with a new baby confronted by a deadly condition.

When you read about medical statistics it’s all black and white at arm’s length; when it’s close to home it’s terrifying.

The good news is that younger people have more resilience than us olds.

A doctor said about a young man who faced his own demise, “He’s lucky it happened now. Ten years older and he wouldn’t here, and if he did survive he wouldn’t be cognitively present.”

Cognitively present? It’s another way of saying diminished mental capacity.

Here’s to being cognitively present. (Hey Dylan)

 

Storm Chasing In Cancer Isolation

When you get jacked up on chemo and radiation, it’s a waiting game to see who breaks first.

During the wait, and it seems endless, you have time to think, like how things might shake out if you don’t make it, if you do make it but feel lost, if you make it and you don’t know why.

Young adults need to focus on their future and how they want to present to their children.

Once they get the all-clear sign the real work begins, but getting there is the hard part.

Ask me how I know.

When I was spinning down I got an ultimatum from my loved ones: cut the bullshit and do what the doctor says or else get shipped out to a hospital room or nursing home.

They were storm chasing for me.

It wasn’t an idle threat from my wife and kids, it was a love reaction to my failing health.

Was I really failing? I was failing at failing, that’s how bad I was failing.

So I made my last request.

Me: Go to the freezer and there’s a big bag of weed brownies. Bring me one with a cup of hot tea.

Loved Ones: Oh, great. Like a weed brownie will do anything.

Me: They say it can be medicinal. Let’s find out. If it doesn’t work, take me away.

Color me shocked when it actually did do something. It took my mind off my imminent death.

I didn’t have a death wish, but my wife found a picture of my dad and said she didn’t realize how much we looked alike.

It was a picture taken about a week before he died and I was certain we’d have that in common, too.

Like I said, I didn’t have a death wish but I was feeling so low it seemed like death was next step because people couldn’t possibly live the way I felt.

I accepted my fate, but not my wife and kids and they were right to kick my ass with their family intervention.

All along I’d heard about The Nadir of cancer treatment.

And brushed it off as weakness. And I was wrong.

Nadir is a term that basically means low point. When a person with cancer reaches their “nadir” following each chemotherapy cycle, it means that the person’s blood cell counts are the lowest they will be during that treatment cycle.

 

Weed Brownies vs The Nadir

Medical marijuana is a real thing. I’m here to tell you it’s a real thing.

What the medical professionals neglect to say is how chemo can warp our brains into feeling at the nadir for the rest of our lives.

I’ve met those folks and it’s a real thing. Would I be one? Most likely.

The guys I talked to related their experience with feeding tube infections. So I skipped the feeding tube hole in my gut.

And regretted it.

My doctor said if I couldn’t eat more he’d need to install a feeding tube in my nose.

Me: That sounds pretty good. Stick a hose in there when I’m hungry and take it out when I’m done.

Doctor: No.

Me: No what? No put it in and take it out?

Doctor: I’ll put it in and leave it in until you are capable of swallowing.

So I’d be a hose-nose? That was a downer, which lead to a further dip in my survival attitude.

In other words I was fucked, but that’s not as medical sounding as The Nadir.

After that visit, and more wallowing, I got the message and dialed up a brownie in the morning, brownie at noon, and a brownie at supper time.

Did I overdo the brownies? Maybe, but I was adamant about not overdoing the oxy and liquid oxy.

Every hear of liquid oxy? Me neither, but there it is.

My cancer goals, storm chasing goals, were to kick it without infections and a monkey on by back.

If I were to give any advice, and I am, a weed brownie can make a huge difference over time.

They help dig me out of the nadir hole I found myself in.

Me: Why don’t I feel high or buzzed or anything weed related?

Industry Pro: Because the effects of the weed go to the source of the problem.

 

The feeling of isolation is an absolute fact with chemo; the weed brownie cuts that down to manageable emotions.

Whether you’re on the urban hospital cancer floor bed hooked up to chemo, an infusion clinic with a lounge chair with a warm blanket, or after you’re all done with chemo and surgery and whatever else tags along, weed brownie therapy is an able assist.

Me: You should tell your other patients about the benefits of medical marijuana.

Doctor: I can’t tell them that. Do you use it?

Me: Yes. I had a weed brownie about an hour ago.

Doctor: You don’t seem distracted or confused.

Me: Thank you. Neither do you.

The nurse behind the doctor gave me a big wink and a thumbs up.

On the way out she said she’d heard my weed story from others, that it was effective with nausea and despair.

Me: I only felt pukey after taking the anti-nausea pills.

Nurse: Not with the brownies?

Me: Never.

Nurse: You need to do what it takes to get through this. You can do it. We see lots of people here and can tell who will make a full recovery.

Me: How’m I doin’?

Nurse: They should all be like you.

Me: We have you and your staff to thank. Thank you.

 

After my last visit three nurses waved me over to their station and sang a song:

Hit The Road, Jack, and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more.

I joined in for storm chasing harmony.

“What you say?”