Imagine.............

By Raewynn

You have leukaemia, and you are undertaking extensive chemotherapy.

Poisons are entering your body that no one touches, the nursing staff are covered from head to toe with protective gear so this poison does not touch them.

This poison eats your flesh if it comes in direct contact with your skin; now just imagine what this is doing to you internally and how it makes you feel. You get nausea that is totally impossible to eliminate, if you are real lucky you get the burning vomiting also from the drug.�

The nursing staff tries to offer alternatives, pump you full of anti-nausea drugs full of more chemicals to try to counteract the effects of the chemotherapy. Your body is shaking internally, your heart feels like it is beating too fast and your body feels like it will shake itself to pieces.

The anti-nausea drugs they pump into you take just a minute edge off the nausea and vomiting, you feel extremely weak, the last thing you need is to be trying to move those aching parts of your body to the toilet and you become dependant on a care-giver (be it a family member or whatever), a bowl and a lot of why me and self pity..........

Can you imagine yet??

Your skin feels like it is being attacked by millions of invisible crawly things that make you itch and crazy, everything is continual, no let up with the nausea, the shakes, the taste in your mouth that you just can�t get rid of, wanting to eat and then feeling sick...... it goes on and on and on for days and days until finally you start to feel a little better when you realise its time for another dose............. It doesn�t matter what they give you for the nausea and vomiting, it just doesn�t go away, the foods you once loved to eat and enjoy become major problems with reflux and horrid tasting burps or heaves.

The drugs are just another poison that your body has to cope with, they make you hot then cold, they make you itch and they make you feel as if life would be better off not surviving but dying.

Nothing helps, you feel totally miserable for days, no energy nothing but feeling like death warmed up.

Then a good friend comes along and suggests that you could try cannabis after the chemotherapy to see if that will help one if not more of your after affects from this vicious drug. You are at a point where nothing matters other than the need to feel a little human, you try a few puffs of this medicine and you find yourself nausea free for the first time in days, your skin stops itching and you feel almost like a human!!

Goodness what a difference an illegal natural herb makes to your sense of well being, you feel like you can get up and enjoy the sunshine, it doesn�t hurt your eyes, it feels warm on that skin that you never felt would feel warmth again, you are not running off to the toilet because you think you are going to be sick, you can eat and actually taste food for the first time in days, you feel like perhaps you just may be able to survive the next 6 months of two weekly visits to the hospital to be �cured�. You tell your specialist just what you have done, you smoked some cannabis you say and you tell the medical staff what it did for you, you are excited because you have found the cure to the after effects.

What do the medical staff tell you, well some will be very shocked and will give you the �that�s illegal� lecture, and others will tell you that they agree and that it does make the after effects easier to cope with by eliminating many of the effects of the chemo, but they can�t recommend to you to use cannabis as it is an illegal substance. Yet cannabis is far less harmful to your body than the anti-nausea drugs are, it is soothing and relaxing and that on its own is a great feeling when one is in the depth of chemotherapy and all it entails.

Let us find a solution for those who are in these situations of �the living dead� and let us offer them all the alternatives, whether it be herbal drugs, cannabis or pharmaceutically produced drugs, let us find a way to make ALL medication available to those in need before this story is about you or one of your loved ones.

From one who has experienced exactly this.

Love & Compassion

Raewynn.