Let’s get right to it: I had cancer, and I would love to legalize marijuana.
Specifically, I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, stage II. People told me that I had a “good” kind of cancer. That I’d been blessed. In a way, they were right. I only had to undergo six months of chemotherapy before my scans came back clean. Now I get to say I had cancer, rather than my cancer is in remission. Although the threat of recurrence is real, it looms much larger in my head than in reality.
Getting to a post-cancer reality was a much harder process than I just described.
I was diagnosed at 21, in the same month that I graduated from college. My world swung from planning to move to a new city for an exciting job, to moving back home with my parents, shaving my head, and buying crates of Ensure.
I also had to manage anxiety and depression. A counselor first diagnosed me with both when I was 18. I always thought that after graduation, they would just disappear, like dorm living or student org recruitment emails, but my diagnosis only worsened my depression. Cancer treatment seemed specifically tailored to my individual phobias: needles, and surgery in my neck, where my tumors were first biopsied, and in my chest, where my port was placed. Side effects that came with treatment included nausea, insomnia, and migraines with auras that would leave me unable to read or see well for thirty minutes to an hour.
I worried constantly. Would my port detach? Would it rip open my jugular? Would I get married and have kids? Then I felt guilty for worrying. My situation was so good compared to everyone else in the chemo ward. I was able to work from home, sleep as much as I needed, and I had no responsibilities besides keeping my lunch down. My friends in the chemo ward had multiple conditions and diseases. They had young families, jobs they had to go to, hours-long commutes to the hospital, and bills to pay.
One of my friends from college introduced me to her friend, a fellow survivor, who lived in Colorado. She swore that marijuana was a huge reason that she was able to get through chemo, and she kindly offered to send me some, suggesting either edibles or CDB oil. I thanked her but declined. I wanted to stick to drugs whose interactions with chemo had been studied. As I continued through treatment, I read articles and heard personal stories of how marijuana helped cancer survivors through their treatment, and I wondered if I had made the right choice.
The American Cancer Society notes that some benefits of using marijuana include combating nausea that can lead to vomiting, a common side effect from chemotherapy. The National Cancer Institute reports that CBD can have positive effects on anxiety and insomnia in cancer patients. Preclinical studies showed that marijuana may slow the growth of, or even shrink, tumors. The benefits seemed endless. Articles touting the many uses of marijuana popped up on my social media feeds. I could not imagine bringing up the topic of medical marijuana with my conservative parents and doctor, so who were these cancer patients who used marijuana for their pain management?
My new friend who offered to send me CBD oil was in good company. According to a 2017 study, about 25% of cancer patients use marijuana to manage their symptoms in some way. Half of the group mentioned that they would be more likely to use marijuana if it were decriminalized. I lived in Georgia during my treatment, where things were a little fuzzy. The state had had allowed private citizens with certain conditions, including cancer, to own up to 20 ounces of cannabis oil since 2015, although it was still illegal to own the plant itself. In 2017, the law was expanded to include more patients with varied conditions. Families still had to travel out-of-state to purchase the oil.
During treatment, I knew little about CBD oil Now, I know much more, and I wish I had at least tried some to manage my symptoms. Although my treatment team knew about my anxiety, depression, and nausea, no one suggested CBD oil for me to use. Instead, I was given Zofran, a common anti-nausea drug for cancer patients. Also called ondansetron, the drug works by blocking serotonin, the same neurotransmitter that regulates mood. Many scientists believe that a serotonin imbalance either creates or worsens depression. Although it was a highly-effective anti-nausea treatment, I often wonder how this drug affected my depression.
The rest of my treatment was textbook. Halfway through, my treatment team stopped the drug that was building toxicity in my lungs. My port settled into place and let me sleep for more than four hours at a time. My tumors shrunk. My mood remained low. I made plans to go to a different graduate school, to live slower and quieter than I had before my diagnosis.
There’s this big bell hung on the wall at our chemo ward. It’s engraved with a poem, and after your last chemo, your head nurse reads you the poem before you ring the bell three times. When I rang the bell, I was glad to finally be done with my treatments. I really was blessed. Any benefit that CBD oil could have brought to me would have gone tenfold for any other patient in the ward: the young mother whose wig I helped pick out, the grandfather who talked to me about M*A*S*H*, or the wife who held my hands and always told me how healthy I looked.
It baffles me that full access to and acceptance of CBD oil and marijuana seem so far away. Legalizing marijuana would allow cancer patients easier access to CBD oil, and researchers would be able to study the benefits and drug interactions of marijuana and chemotherapy, which would go a long way in soothing the worries of doctors and patients alike.
-Stubborn Survivor
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