Terminal Cancer
By Anonymous

 In October 05’, my mother, a 74 year old elegant lady full of beauty, died due to the effects of liver, lung and breast cancer. She first contracted breast cancer in 1993. They wanted to take both boobs, put her on chemo and some god awful drug I can't recall, but she did neither of the above. Using only natural methods, she beat back the cancer for a dozen years, and back then the survival rate was much lower than it is today. 

This is a lady who never touched a drug or smoked a single cigarette in her life, and exercised in front of the TV starting from Jack LaLanne in the 50's all the way up until 60 days before her passing. Never bigger than a size 9, even on her deathbed the back of her hands looked like the hands of a 38 year old woman due to her diligence in always wearing gloves while driving for as long as I can remember. Growing up as a boy and all the way into her 70's, I constantly heard from others about how pretty my mom was, she was that kind of timeless beauty.  Her mom, my grandmother, died last year of natural causes at age 96. Her passing really stressed my mom out even though I tried to remind her how lucky she was to still have her mom in her 70's, NOBODY still has their mom when they are in their 70’s. The rest of the family said amongst ourselves years ago, "what's our mom going to live to with how well she takes care of herself, 118?"  

She took immaculate care of herself more so than any woman or man I have ever met old or young and still her body betrayed her. Twice. For an 8th month period beginning around June of 04' she started to sound hoarse when she spoke.  When I asked her about it she said it was allergies, kind of blew it off as nothing...but I knew it was something because her voice never got better, as it would when allergies go away, still she insisted she was alright. 

 The world came crashing down in February 05’ when she sat me down and gave me the worst possible news. The cancer had not only returned to her breasts but also spread to her lungs and liver and had 8 months to live, and there was nothing the docs could do.

 On Oct 4th, my 40th birthday, my mom was unable to attend my birthday dinner, which I found curious because even though she was getting thinner, she seemed to breeze right through September, the month she was supposed to die.  On Oct. 7th, the family was convened for a meeting with a social worker from the Hospice. I had no idea what "Hospice" was and was shocked to my foundations when this fellow started talking funeral homes and cremation services for my mom, basically preparing us for her death. I decided I had heard enough and went upstairs to where my mom was lying. She was once this beautiful creature that never seemed to age, and here she was in bed lying in a fetal position, reduced to a wisp, looking miserable and frightened.   There's no feeling more helpless than watching your mom starve to death in front of your eyes knowing there's nothing "modern medicine" can do for her except give her morphine via a convenient IV,  providing the zoned out opiated comfort of lying in a faux warm pool of sensory deprivation as it accelerates and fogs her remaining days on Earth.     

Unbeknownst to the rest of the family Mom had confided in my dad that she wanted to die and wished it wouldn't take so long.  She could not keep food down and was slowly withering away and now her body was shutting down.  They had anti nausea drugs but she did not respond to them, i.e., didn't want to take them; they were either pills or suppositories. For her nausea the best they could do was give her a useless suppository!  Oct. 7th was a Friday and she looked like she would not make it through the weekend.  I told her "I have something in the truck that might help you…" 

I very gingerly asked my dad if I could give mom some mj to try "Do you mind if we try an alternative form of medicine?" a little worried about his reaction, but I was amazed when I got his and the rest of the family's full blessing. All along I'm thinking, "How the hell is everyone gonna take THIS" and "How is everyone else in the family going to think of me when I propose THIS"? It was very uncomfortable because I'm outing myself as a pot smoker, not just to anyone but to the entire family, but at this point, after seeing her lying in bed looking so miserable, my feeling was "What does she have to lose? I can't stand here and do nothing and watch her suffer until she dies."  

She could not draw any vapor herself into the bong, her lungs were too weak to do it herself, so I drew some vapor of a powerful San Diego strain called Bullrider into the bong for her, pulled the stem and let her take her first tiny, gentle breaths of marijuana.

 Only seconds later, she began rubbing her stomach. I asked her how she felt.  "I feel a little woozy but my stomach feels better!" She was eating minutes later and...the woman was literally pulled out of the grave for two weeks before passing peacefully and without pain medication of any kind on Oct 20th. On Oct. 7th she was knocking on death's door, hours to live, then along came...a medication so gentle to her that she never coughed once, not ONCE, it was so easy for her to take, even in her extremely frail condition, but it was very, very powerful and helped her with not just one ailment but six, simultaneously, within seconds of exhaling. 

 After eating her first food in a while, she regained some strength and instead of needing help to get to the bathroom, got up under her own power and began walking herself. Her voice started sounding better, the change in her was nothing short of a miracle. With just a few breaths of MJ vapor every four or six hours, she eliminated her nausea, increased her appetite, was able to keep the food she ate down as a result, turned back on her will to live, made whatever pain she was feeling go away for awhile naturally, not a single contra-indication or harmful side effect to the body, and most importantly of all, every bit of anxiety she was feeling about this whole cancer ordeal was gone, GONE. What pill can Glaxo possibly create in a lab that effectively treats so many things at once, within seconds of taking, while being so gentle to the body?   When her friends came by to visit she would say "I'm on pot and it's GREAT!"

 When she came "off" the vape, she was just left feeling normal and happy, no harsh comedown or physical dependency craving of any kind. A lot of drugs make you feel like you got run over by a bus the day after you take them, but there was nothing like that in moms case.  In fact, the next day she noticed that she was waking up feeling better with more energy, just another check in the "plus" column for vaping mj over and ingestion method we've used since the 19th century (pills). Mom used to believe pot smokers talked like Jeff Spicoli when they were smoking pot or were "high" on pot, but when I asked her if she felt "out of it" when she was high she said, "not at all, this is wonderful!  Thank you for knowing about this!".  My father, equally chemical free his whole life, told me after seeing what MJ did for his wife of 52 years “Thank you for your wayward youth”. They both tried it together and got a huge laugh out of it “I can’t believe we waited 52 years to do this!” This was no hippie chick mind you. Mom got every piece of information about the world from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, much to the chagrin of most of the family, but she didn't need convincing to come to the conclusion that everything she's ever been told about marijuana during the course of her life has been a long succession of smokescreens designed to veil its true worth to humanity.  So at ease now with her cancer she actually  begins talking of having “vape arounds” with the girls during their bunko night. She was talking coherently up until the final day. We joked with her that if she could beat back the cancer she will end up moving to OB with dad to a house with a south facing yard where she could grow her own pot, and nobody disagreed, that would have been completely in character for her.  Even my mom's 81 year old sister, suffering from migraines her entire life, tried a vape and it reduced the effects of her migraine as well as her medicine. She instantly became a fan.  

 Others in the family began asking me questions I never thought I'd hear, like from my uncle, my dad's brother, the straightest arrow you'll ever meet and a member of Self Realization Fellowship "Can I give you some money to get your Mom some more pot?" I was beyond blown away. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but whatever opinions on MJ he and the others had before, did a 180 degree turn after seeing what it did for Mom. Walking through the house with a pocketful of stinky weed, carrying a bong filled with ice up the stairs to my moms room in full view of the entire family was on the list of something I never thought I’d experience, or having my mom look up at me when I was standing next to her bed and say”I think I need another hit", making my older sister roll her eyes and say "I'll let you bond with your son now Mom"

 When I would show up at the house with my vape kit, someone would say to Mom "The doctor will see you now". Everyone knew what it was doing for our mother, it’s happening right in front of our faces and undeniable in its effectiveness. The whole family was convening every night at mom and dads place preparing for an eminent death, but after seeing the phenomenal results of the the first week of mom's MJ treatment we said to each other "This could go on for months"  

For the family it was a great relief to have that extra peace and comfort knowing that she died an elegant, beautiful, graceful death instead of a morphine drip,"out of it" dirty death. She was always totally lucid, and never once was "out of it", even when she was “high” right after vaping. She was happy, joking around and holding court like she always did. Her turnaround was a bonafide miracle happening right in front of the whole family’s eyes.  I've had Vicodin and morphine after surgery. They are a treatment that is required sometimes, providing  the illusion of being pain free for a few hours, buy they are poisonous and extremely addictive and millions have terrible addictions to both, most unnecessarily so if they had open access to MJ.  

 

 Back to Shared Stories Index