No, life is not normal
I haven’t had the heart to write in a while. Instead of adding on where I left off, in adjusting to a new normal, I’ll start this by saying my husband’s cancer battle was short. We went from the first suspicion of this in August, to him dying peacefully at home on Nov. 5. He was under Hospice care and they were wonderful. The lung cancer was so far advanced, and had spread to so many places, that there was no hope of it being cured. His oncologist said if he wanted to do chemo she would order it. But she also said it would only buy a little bit of time and he would be very sick for a lot of that time. She said at that point, a dose of chemo could kill him before the cancer. Why even put him through something like that? We opted for quality of life rather than quantity. Turns out even without the chemo, there wasn’t a lot of quality time left. He was just so defeated.
We had always talked about the possibility of one of us getting cancer and if it happened, we’d pack up and move to a progressive state like Colorado. South Dakota JUST finally got on board with medical cannabis. We have a fucking idiot for a governor who has done everything she can to block the will of the voters, but I don’t want to waste energy thinking about that corrupt individual. Fucking idiot is about the nicest name I can think of for her.
Turns out there wasn’t time or energy to even get started on something like that. He spent most of October in a bed in the living room. But, I did manage to get a medical cannabis card for myself. (I have neurofibromatosis and arthritis) through what might be a little shady (but legal) transaction online and was able to purchase some smokables and edibles from a dispensary on an Indian reservation. This was more for him, but he was not physically able to even do the online interview with Dr. “Jones” from California. Trying to use the actual weed was almost comical. Even though we grew up in the 70s, neither of us had rolled a joint in our lives. Yeah, back in the day we may or may not have taken a toke at a party, but we were pretty passive about the whole thing. Vaping it worked a little better for him. He didn’t care for the edibles. (They just made me sleepy.) But, damn, it was worth a try. The doctors who were not yet cleared to prescribe it, said “Good,” when I told them and expressed regret that they still had a lot of hoops to jump through to prescribe it. I was happy I was able to obtain this legally, even if it only provided brief relief, but I was totally prepared to do whatever I had to if it would help him. Me, the squeaky clean great-grandmother whose only brush with the law has been a speeding ticket for going 70 in a 65mph zone. And I will take a tiny piece of gummy before I go to bed sometimes to help with the back and knee pain. I’m not going to drive high or anything like that. I just find it so ridiculous that a PA was able to prescribe morphine that I could administer at home, but an oncologist was not able to prescribe a plant.
Hopefully this is going to change for the better for people in South Dakota.
Got through the fucking holidays fairly unscathed. Now on to see what fresh hell 2022 is going to bring.
