The past couple of years seems like a blur as I begin to recall them.
I'll start with when I decided to stop all my meds except for my antidepressants. I was so sick of all the needle sticks and side effects, and this was the early days of the pandemic when doctors' offices were becoming empty and I hadn't had any communication with the doctor for many months.
I can't recall the details at all, but things seemed fine as far as I could tell.
Around [?] the same time Massachusetts legalized cannabis and I started consuming it as an adult recreational consumer. That was when I decided to lose weight. I was around 220 lbs and the extra weight was causing me serious health problems.
I decided to cut out all the junk foods I'd been eating. The chips and diet coke and so many other snacks needed to go. So that's what I did. I limited my 'snacks' to saltine crackers (with natural peanut butter / salsa). Water became my main drink of choice. I started losing weight and it continued until 2021 when my skin started itching all over and I was turning yellow (which I didn't notice for quite a while, then ignored foolishly). An acquaintance finally persuaded me to go to the doctor about it and that's when we discovered that I had a big problem with my liver. It had clogged up so badly that doctors had to insert a couple of stents in my bile ducts so [it] could start draining and we could start eliminating all the bile salts in my skin that were making me itch.
When they did some scans to see what was going on they discovered that I had pancreatic cancer (stage ll). At that point, I was getting close to my weight goal but suddenly dropped another 10+ lbs. I eventually started chemo and continued that for 5-6 2 week cycles. Chemo was rough, the nausea/sweating was overwhelming during the in-hospital chemo sessions and they couldn't fix it with other drugs.
Then one night I woke up to go to the bathroom. At the same time, I was having a stroke but I didn't realize it. I went to call for help later but the wireless pendant I'd been given couldn't connect... I ended up calling for help using my landline. Fortunately, the stroke was on my non-dominant side and 6 mos later I've recovered *most* of my capabilities but I've lost fine motor control of my left hand and also most of my (former) musical abilities, including thought and vocalizing (and of course guitar fingering).
The stroke was evidently caused by a blood clot caused because the lack of pumping strength of my heart which is around 30% of normal and atrial fibrillation (and something about a hole in my heart that should have closed up as I grew but didn't). There's also a possibility that chemo weakened my heart further.
I had stopped chemo because of the side effects and thoughts of long-term damage ruining any quality of life during the 2-5 years I possibly have. I had decided to go ahead with surgery, but because of the stroke that was not possible. It's still not possible because of my heart issues (ongoing treatment to strengthen the heart muscle). So I'm in limbo right now.
A couple of years earlier I'd gotten my medical cannabis certification. Cannabis has helped so much. During the chemo (at-home) I found that I didn't need to take most of the anti-nausea medications I was given. They were successfully replaced by cannabis for easing both nausea and the lack of appetite.
All this happened in the middle of an ongoing pandemic. As far as my former medications go, all the diabetes meds are no longer necessary as my A1c is back to normal. The medication for acid reflux that I'd been taking for 10 years is no longer necessary and the only meds I'm taking now are Lisinopril, Atorvastatin, Ecotrin, and Paxil (and of course dry vaped cannabis).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome but need to be on-topic and civil.