Yesterday I got to use my MMJ "card" for the first time. I put "card" in quotes because I don't have the actual card yet, just a temporary one sent to me via e-mail. This surprisingly is the first time I've ever used MJ, despite having multiple opportunities to try it starting in high school, through college, and afterwards.
If you haven't heard, I start chemo next Tuesday, so I was very eager to get access to MMJ before hand because it supposedly is very good at treating the side effects. Here is the story of my journey from cancer patient to Cheech and Chong fan.
I asked both oncologists about MMJ. The radiation oncologist thought it might be a good idea, but didn't want to be involved in the process for fear of it affecting his medical license. The medical oncologist was very happy to print out an instruction sheet complete with an ID number I could use to register with the state.
Okay, onto the MA state website to set up an account and go through the process. The instructions said I'd need to upload a photo of my ID (in this case, my driver's license) as well as a photo to be used for the MMJ ID. It had to be a head and shoulders shot with eyes open in front of a white or off white background. After much trial and error, I finally got a decent picture of myself posing in front of our off-white refrigerator. Of course, when I got to the corresponding step in the online registration, they said they had my driver's license photo on file, and recommended that I use that. So much for the kitchen photo shoot.
Fast forward a couple weeks and I get a confirmation e-mail with my temporary ID. Now, normally I'd expect I could just show the temporary ID on my phone screen, but when I called the dispensary to ask if that was sufficient they said no, they wanted a paper printout. Grr. I don't have a printer, so off to the library which turned out to be closed on Mondays. Double Grr.
The next day, after much trial and error in the library involving my laptop not connecting to the printer, and my library card number not working on their computers (it's been years since I checked out a book, so they purged it from their system), and a spontaneous treasure hunt involving me looking for my glasses that I left somewhere at random while all this was going on, I had my printout about 30 minutes later.
So off to the dispensary. I had to show my MMJ ID at the security camera at the door, then got buzzed into a small room where somebody was sitting behind a bullet proof window. They check your ID against another form of ID, and since I hadn't been there before they took a couple minutes to enter me into their system, then I was buzzed into the main area with a number of forms and disclaimers to sign, including a promise that I wouldn't allow any product to be used by anybody but myself, for fear of immediately having my MMJ ID invalidated.
It occurred to me after the fact that all this security wasn't just to keep non-patients out, but also because dispensaries can't take credit cards or checks because the banks don't want to be involved with a business that is illegal at the federal level. Thus, they have a lot of cash on hand, not to mention a valuable product that is not freely available to anybody. A high level of security seems rather appropriate.
After filling out the paperwork, I get a menu and have a talk with one of the assistants that can make recommendations, answer questions, and take my order to get filled by the staff in the back room. I'm a complete newbie at this, and talk about the various strains, THC vs CBD content, etc., just goes over my head. I order a small selection of edibles since I don't want to smoke, and am unsure about vaping at this point. Alright, I am now a MMJ customer!
After driving home while brazenly thumbing my nose at federal laws, I started my journey with half of a THC infused dark chocolate, or about 5mg of actual THC. Now the thing with edibles is that they take a couple hours to have an effect, but then the effect can last for hours and hours. If you don't get an immediate effect, do not continue eating because you might regret it later when they finally kick in.
The experience was interesting. Like an opioid, it did seem to reduce my pain for a while, and any remaining pain I simply didn't care about. It also gave me an odd combination of being both wired and mellow at the same time, as if I was very alert but everything was okay. I lost the ability to filter or apply tact to what I said, so if I thought something in your presence you'd hear it. It also caused some obvious short term memory problems, where I'd be talking about something and go off on a tangent, and then stop talking without ever getting back to what I was talking about in the first place, or even remembering that I was talking about it. And then the munchies came.
Munchies are good because I'm struggling to regain weight lost after my surgery and radiation treatments. I expect to lose more weight during chemo, so anything I can put on between now and then is to my benefit. Munchies, short term memory problems, and an everything is okay attitude are an interesting combination. Let me explain.
I decided to make myself a bologna sandwich. I went to the fridge, proceeded to take the bologna out and put it on the counter, then went looking for white bread. After looking over every shelf twice, I came to the conclusion we didn't have white bread, so took out the wheat and put that on the counter. Now to look for the bologna. I know there were a couple slices left because I'm the only one who eats it, and I really wanted to enjoy these last couple of sandwiches because when it's used up we won't be buying any more. But it was nowhere to be found.
Now, realize that I'm the type of person who turns lights off when leaving a room, turns the faucet off while brushing my teeth, and generally has a high level of disdain for people who leave the fridge door open for an extended time. To paraphrase George Carlin, take a picture, close the door, figure out what you want, then go and get it. So me spending a long time calmly looking for the bologna is very unlike me. Eventually I gave up, put the wheat bread back into the fridge and decided to eat the Chinese leftovers instead. After nuking those I saw the bologna sitting on the counter. Duh.
At bedtime I was really tired and completely unable to sleep, and yet the pain was starting to return, perhaps because I had spent a fair amount of time sitting with bad posture because I simply didn't care if it hurt a little bit. So a couple acetominophen and a melatonin at midnight allowed me to get a few hours of decent sleep.
So that was my first experience with a rather low-ish dose of MMJ. Based on my experience with other psycho-active medications, I expect my body to build up a tolerance and future adventures won't be quite so extreme. I'll also be experimenting with dosing as well as THC vs CBD. It's actually quite a bit like trying to find the right medicine and dose when dealing with anxiety and depression, except I don't need to go to the doctor's office repeatedly to get different prescriptions.
To sum up, my first impression is that it's not a miracle cure, but it is another tool in the toolbox for fighting cancer and the side effects of treatment. I expect it will be very useful on those days where I can't get off the couch, have a general sense of malaise, and tend to slip into a sour mood. It's not really useful for days where I want to get something accomplished, as driving and operating chainsaws while under the influence is a bad idea and generally frowned upon.
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