medical marijuana

We Have Offended An Evil Genie

/ momshieb / 20 Comments

I’m sure of it.

Somewhere, somehow, in the past few months, Paul and I have definitely offended some seriously evil force in the universe.

If you saw my last post, where I said “It could be worse“, you know that my usually reliable good luck has kind of evaporated. What with the return of Covid, my strange blood issues and upcoming cancer surgery, a big old hurricane coming along….it’s beginning to feel like this might be a good time to huddle on the bed in the pile of bubble wrap.

Because, you know what?

Stuff just got worse.

Yup.

Last evening it was starting to seem as if things were getting better. Hurricane Henri had slipped to the west of us, and our power had stayed on. All of our kids were safe at their homes, and there wasn’t any damage to the venue where our son’s wedding is set to take place.

So around 7 pm, after cleaning up dinner, I told Paul that I was really, really, REALLY in need of a night of sleep. My pattern for the previous two weeks had been to sleep from about 10 to 12 and then to lie awake like a rigid, frantic, panic stricken heart attack victim until around 4AM, when I’d doze for two more hours.

I was tired.

As in: I was so tired that there were moments when I was starting to wonder if I was real or if I was a badly drawn avatar making my way through a pretend universe.

Yup.

Wicked tired.

But it was Sunday night, with nothing on the agenda for Monday. No pressing issues, no incoming storm surge, nothing. So I decided to take matters into my own aging yet hip hands. Now that I had finally weaned off of the loathesome prednisone, I’d knock myself into sweet, sweet oblivion and FINALLY get a few hours of decent rest.

I scooped up a lovely 1/2 teaspoon of what we lovingly refer to as “Kelly’s Magic Butter”. A tasty, herbal butter loaded with the fabulous weed grown by our dear friends.

Now, I have to explain that I have a medical marijuana card from the state of Massachusetts, and I regularly use a few cannabis gummies to help me to manage pain and insomnia. But over the course of two weeks on prednisone, I had found that my nice little indica candies were doing NOTHING.

It was time for the big guns. The big, non-narcotic, safe, tasty sleepy guns. Kelly’s Butter. Yum. I made my toast, I ate my butter, I felt all relaxed and happy. I went to bed at about 8 with a good book and cup of herb tea. Paul was reading in the living room, happy, well fed and untroubled.

I can’t begin to describe how peaceful and happy I felt as the magic butter did it’s work on my achy muscles. I closed my book, curled up with a sigh of pleasure, and I FELL ASLEEP.

Hahahahahaha.

Yeah.

Roughly 40 minutes after my descent into oblivion, my poor hubby gently shook me awake. “Honey, I need help.”

Poor Paul had spent the past hour and a half fighting an increasing bout of abdominal pain. He had gone from “oh, oh, indigestion” to “I think I’m dying” without ever even bothering me.

A fact which is illustrative on two points. A) the man is a saint and B) when I’m on prednisone, you better be facing imminent death before you bother me.

I tried to rouse, I really did. I got out of the bed. I washed my face. I asked a couple of questions about symptoms. I think. I mean, I tried to ask them.

Maybe I just frowned and mumbled something about getting some rest. I’m not sure. All I know is that I was desperately trying to figure out if I was real, to identify the source of the funny music I was hearing in my left ear and to appear supportive of my clearly suffering beloved partner.

In between his bouts of moaning and vomiting, I got myself into a cold shower. I drank about a gallon of water, and I thought I was thinking clearly.

I wasn’t.

I grabbed my purse and told Paul that I’d get him into the car and drive him the 10 minutes to the emergency room.

Luckily, in spite of his pain and suffering, he knew the sight of a kite-high old woman and overrode my suggestion.

We called our son-in-law, who came by to take us to the hospital.

So.

Things got worse, right? M’hm.

Paul spent last night going through diagnostic testing in our local ER. I was there beside him, in a recliner, with a pillow and blanket. Trying to stay remotely coherent.

Luckily, it’s 2021, and I fessed up to the medical staff.

“I have been having some bad insomnia….blah, blah….prednisone….blah, blah…..medical card…….”

The lovely nurse gave a little chuckle, handed me a big pitcher of ice water and left the room.

So it was a lonnnnnnnnnnnnng night of dozing for ten minutes at a time in a plastic recliner, jerking awake every time the door opened or the lights came on or I dreamed that I was being attacked by a giant polar bear.

I couldn’t relax because my hubs was in pain, because my dogs were outside in the remaining hurricane winds, and my mouth was so dry I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pry my tongue off my palate.

Finally, the sun came up, and I called my daughter for a ride home. Paul was headed for surgery, and I was free to collapse.

Except that when I got home, I was too wound up to sleep. I let the dogs in, fed them, sent a few emails out to let people know what was happening. I managed to doze off around 7.

And the texts started coming in at 7:10.

So I was up for the day by 8, and was too anxious, too wound up and way too tired to know what to do with myself.

Given the past month of medical bullshit, I decided that it would be a good idea to “change the energy” in the house.

Yup.

I cleaned the upholstery, vacuumed the entire upstairs, rearranged the living room furniture, changed all the knicknacks on several shelves and burned sage. At the time, I thought that it made sense to make myself as physically tired as possible. Because…..you know…..sleep.

By around 1pm, I was finished with everything. I had cleaned and organized. I had cancelled Paul’s clients for the next two days, spoken to all the key family and friends and I was waiting for a call from the surgeon.

And I waited. Awake.

And I waited some more.

Finally at about 1:30, I called the hospital to check in on my patient.

“Good news” said the cheery nurse. “He did great! He can come home tonight!”

WHAT?!

My heart beat ramped up to about 220, and my head started to pound.

I explained the situation to the nice nurse. I tried to convey the fact that I am an old lady with a bad temper who has slept for about 15 seconds in the past week. “I can’t do it, ” I tried to tell her. “I can’t take care of him. It won’t be safe for either of us.”

Pshaw.

They assured me I’d be fine. They had great faith in me!!!

“Come get him in an hour!”

So. I hung up the phone.

I sobbed. I cried. I swore a little bit.

I put the dogs out so I could get Paul in the house safely. I washed my face. I put some ice cubes in my armpits. I drank some Tulsi tea.

Then I sat down to wait for the call from the hospital, telling me that the patient was ready for the world’s oldest, crabbiest, most exhausted nurse to come get him.

I only had a couple of minutes to feel sorry for myself. Then my phone sent out a shriek, and the TV started to bleat out an alarm.

“A tornado warning has been issued for our area.”

Are.

You.

Kidding.

Me.

I don’t know when or how it happened, but there it is.

We have rather obviously offended a very evil genie.

Nonni Hits the Dispensary

/ momshieb / 11 Comments

Back in the olden days, when I was young and we called it “grass”, I rarely indulged in recreational marijuana.

But times have changed, and Nonni has joined the growing list of aging potheads.

Thanks to a few conflicting but minor ailments, I am now a fibromyalgia patient who can’t take any over the counter pain medications. Nor can I drink alcohol (hello there, aging liver!). I am trying to cut down on the medication that helps me to manage the fibromyalgia discomfort, which means that at the moment the only part of me that doesn’t hurt is my right earlobe.

Enter the magical joy of the Medical Marijuana Card!! Ta, da! Safe and happy pain relief (I hope!)

For the past few years I’ve been the lucky beneficiary of weed guidance from my kids. My sons and son-in-law have helped me to find relief from insomnia by providing me with cannabis infused butter. They’ve introduced me to the new version of smoked weed, which smells like a dead skunk, burns like a forest fire and can make you melt into your sofa cushions like hot wax.

Not exactly perfect for this old lady….

Anyway, the other day I had a telehealth visit with a lovely young (as in, probably a sixth grader) Nurse Practitioner. I didn’t even need any medical records. I just self reported all of my ouchie booboos, and presto! She certified me!

(No, not that kind of “certified”, although many have told me that I am definitely certifiable.)

She approved me for a Massachusetts Medical Marijuana Card, good for one year.

I then spent about an hour maneuvering the state’s website and paperwork, and printed out my temporary card. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Off to the local dispensary I went!

Well, holy confusion.

Luckily for me, the kind, patient young people behind the counter were more than willing to explain things to their gray haired befuddled patient/customer. They barely even snickered.

The young man who was helping me explained the differences between the strains of weed. Did I want to be energized and given pain relief? “Yes, please.” OK! Sativa it is!!!! But he warned me that in some people it can increase anxiety. “No, please.” OK, then Indica it is! But that would make me sleepy and sedated.

Eventually he advised a hybrid.

But then we had to talk about THC to CBD ratio. Pain relief and anti-inflammatory versus pain relief and high. Or something like that. And don’t forget, there are many other cannabinoids that are helpful for other issues, like inflammation and appetite suppression. We looked at charts. We looked at graphs. We looked at printouts and glossy images. He talked. I bit my lip behind my mask and hoped my eyes looked intelligent.

Eventually, he seemed to feel like he knew exactly the right potion for granny here and jotted down a few notes. All was good. I had pretty much stayed with him so far, and was feeling fairly hip.

Until he started to talk about terpines.

Which sound to me like some type of fire accelerant but are actually related to smell (I think?) and to various types of high but also (maybe) have different health effects. Anyway, we had to consider our terpine preferences.

By now I was just nodding and sweating. There was a line of people waiting outside, six feet apart from each other, but looking a little surly. I just wanted to get my goodies and go home.

But my young and enthusiastic pharmacy major friend wasn’t done yet. Now I had to think about how to take my weed. I could choose lozenges, infused edibles, gummies, sublingual drops, topical rubs, roll on oil, vape, flower or something that was either wax or oil. Oh, and there was even a choice of various “sauces”!

Now I don’t know about you, but when I go to the doctor for a backache, I just want him to write something down on paper and send me to the pharmacy. I do not want to have to decide on my dosage, my route of ingestion or the flavor of the drug.

My little brain was awhirl. I did NOT want to look stupid. I was NOT ready for the teenagers to laugh at me.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were other “mature” people in the place, but most of them looked like they had been using weed every single day since Woodstock. Some of them were apparently using it to help cut down on their meth use.

I kept nodding my head, and saying, “Sure, whatever you recommend.” I kept trying to repeat, “Just make the ouchie booboos go away.”

Finally I thought I was ready to order. I wanted a topical cream, some sublingual drops and one vape for sleep. I pulled out the vape I’ve been using, and told the young man that when I had gotten a new cartridge recently, it just wasn’t staying in the device. Something was wrong.

The 13 year old working beside him looked at me over her flowered mask. She frowned. “You did remember to unscrew the magnet from the old cartridge and put it on the new one, didn’t you?”

The room filled with giggles and chortles as my face turned purple. I looked around at the experts, several of whom already appeared high, and shrugged my shoulders.

“Who knew?”, I laughed, getting into my role as the funny old lady butt of the joke. “You know, we should write a show for Netflix about this situation. We could call it Nonni at the Dispensary.”

Now the laughs were real, and kind and good natured. “Welcome, Nonni!” my young man barista said. “Here’s your product.”

Thanks to a “first time customer” offer, Nonni went home with two vape cartridges, lozenges, sub-lingual tincture, cream and ointment. As of right now, everything still hurts.

I just don’t care as much!