This post is about medicinal marijuana. A few disclaimers:

1. I have a license from the State of Illinois to purchase and consume cannabis for medicinal purposes.
2. I went to The University of Colorado at Boulder and was literally the only student out of 25,000 to not smoke weed. It just wasn’t my thing. I never handled it well (foreshadowing).
3. I have never been much of a drinker. Sure, I got wasted in college, but as a grown-up, I drink very little. Maybe 3 glasses of some kind of alcohol a month.
4. I have been using a vaporizer to ingest the cannabis so far throughout chemo and it has helped tremendously. The vape allows me to take the tiny hits that I need.
5. I had also been using an oil (remember on the jellybeans?). This particular oil had virtually no THC, which is the psychotropic player in the marijuana game. The oil gave me no high at all. It was purely for the purpose of hopefully, maybe, weakening cancer cells with CBD. This oil is commonly known as Rick Simpson Oil. Google it.
6. At this juncture in the cancer process, my main goal is to find something to help me sleep. I want to get as close to a coma during the week after chemo as possible. If I can unconsciously get through that week, I win. Plus, I am a crappy sleeper to begin with so I’m always game for a natural remedy.

I have been noticing that it has been taking more and more vape to get me comfortable. Remember that I have taken a lot of prescription drugs to cope with all the surgeries I have had. So my sweet, innocent little body has been highly corrupted.

Yesterday I went to my friendly dispensary and voiced my concerns to the extremely helpful and knowledgeable staff. We all speculated that perhaps my tolerance has gone up due to all of the post-surgical meds and I probably just need a higher dose of a strain more potent. I left with a strain of oil called “Grape God” that has 64% THC. I was told if anything would make me sleep, this would be it.

8pm- Place ‘half a grain of rice’-sized dab of the oil on a Swedish Fish. Make it into a Swedish Fish + marijuana sandwich. Eat.

9:15pm- Starting to feel real wacky, but still happy and making rational decisions. Turn on Difficult People on Hulu. (I highly suggest you watch this show. It is HIGH-larious. See what I did there?)

I laughed my face off throughout the half hour. I could not tell you one thing that happened in that show. It has been erased from my memory.

The show ends and I am feeling really screwy. I get up to use the lavatory and this is when shit hits the fan. Standing up must have jolted my equilibrium. I had to hold onto the wall to get the 10 feet to the toilet. Once safely planted on the toilet, I started to laugh hysterically and, without reason, sob hysterically.  I am on the toilet and beside myself in wailing tears that are also sort of laughter. I couldn’t get up.

10pm-This is when I started to get scared. My husband thinks this is the funniest clown show he has ever seen and it probably was. To me, though, it was tweaking out at defcon level XI. I somehow got back in bed and insisted all TV and media go off so I could try and sleep this nightmare high off. Within minutes I am so disoriented and panicked I am telling the huz that I need an ambulance. (Please feel free to laugh, as no Grancers were ultimately harmed in the making of this blog).

Huz puts the TV back on for me to have something to focus on. He also shoves a prescription anti-anxiety pill down my throat. He turns on Key and Peele. I cannot handle it. Crying again. Need Key and Peele OFF. He tries The Jim Gaffigan Show. I don’t immediately start crying so we go with it.

Next, I start to shiver. Like, teeth chattering, body shaking the whole bed, shivering. I somehow manage to stand up and put on my footie & hoodie sock money pajamas, as well as a bathrobe and get back in bed. Any time I try to speak to the huz, he says I am unable to get 2 thoughts together and am speaking utter nonsense.  I literally cannot remember what I was saying or thinking 2 seconds ago. I am wondering what planet I am on.

Dry mouth is at Terror Alert Level Red. I am chugging water in a reclined position and pouring it all over my sock monkey/robe combo outfit. I have to get up to pee 3 more times and need the wall to get me there each time. Sometimes I cry on the toilet. Sometimes I make it through unscathed.

12:30pm- Still awake and still tweaking out. Jim Gaffigan and the anti-anxiety work in tandem to chill me out to the point where I stop shivering and can take off one protective layer (robe). Spend the next hour wondering what would happen if I went to the ER and told them that I have cancer and a legal cannabis card and can’t stop crying on the toilet.

The woman at the dispensary told me worst case scenario with taking too much Grape God was passing out hard. That was the desired goal, so why 5 hours after consumption am I dressed as a sock monkey and clutching my dog for dear life?

You know those kids who you give Benadryl, in the hopes that they will pass out on a flight and they end up bouncing off the walls of the airplane? I think I am that kid. It is the only logical explanation. Uppers take me down and downers take me to sock monkey, toilet sobbing, crazy town.

I can tell you with utter certainty that I will never bow to the Grape God again.

Moral of the story: Grancer + THC + toilets + sock monkeys + Key & Peele = nightmare, 911 clown show.