I've been working with next to nothing in the tank for a very long time. And I'm not just talking about setting off this morning for the office up in Fort Collins with 64 miles to empty in the car, determined not to buy gas until I was back here where it's cheap. I mean my coping skills have been stretched to the absolute limit by life for the last year or three, and I've gotten mightily tired of it. And when a Spoonie says "tired," it's not the tired that people experience when they have overworked for a day or a week. Most people can wear themselves out, and assume that a hot bath followed by an extra hour or two in bed will get them back on track. I'm talking about pain that never stops, anxiety that never lets loose, and fatigue that can't be cured by sleeping. I'm talking about being too tired to sleep, too sore to rest. I was desperate.
So yesterday, I finally did what adults in Colorado are allowed to do. I finished up everything around the house and blogged early, and took a honey lemon lozenge with a half a "serving" of THC in it. I waited for hours--and I mean three--to feel any effect. All I wanted was to slow down enough to sleep through the night, something I have not done in months. Well, I got closer to that, but it still wasn't what I would call hitting one out of the park. (Or The Park) I slept in one or two hour bursts, felt sort of funny while I was out (like I remember my dreams being flashy colors more than anything), and I was really numb when I woke in between, like I'd forgotten to thrash in my sleep, so whichever arm I was sleeping on would take a long time to wake up. Once I got a little panicked when I rolled onto my right side and realized I couldn't lift my left arm at all, because it was numb from the middle of my biceps down. But for the first time in eighteen years (let me emphasize that again, EIGHTEEN YEARS), my feet didn't hurt. Even with Mr Slow Hands giving me the greatest massages money can buy, I only got my foot pain down to a three on the pain scale. Last night, I'd be hard pressed to say they were at a one. So even if I only get marginally better sleep (like I did this time), I think this is something I might do again, just to experience no pain in my feet. I doubt I'd do it every night, but I can see coming back to this method again once in a while, when my energy is at zero and my pain is overflowing.
Because of my lupus, I am not allowed to smoke anything, not tobacco, not cloves, not cannabis, and to be honest, I'm not even sure I'm allowed to barbecue meat. So I thought I would escape the unpleasant smell and taste with an edible. Unfortunately, as the honey lozenge melted, the taste of the extract itself came forward, and refused to go away for hours. Yuck. So much for that plan.
You may wonder why I am talking so openly about something that is only legal in a few places in this country (or around the world for that matter). It is legal here, and relatively inexpensive for the experiment I wanted to try. I believe to my core that what Colorado has done is brave, wise, and beneficial to the population at large. Yes, there will be people who behave stupidly with cannabis. There will be people who misuse any substance, up to and including drinking water. But there are people whose lives need these substances to be legal, available, and regulated for safety and purity. It's time for this country (and ROTW) to grow up and take a fact-based approach to this plant and its medicinal and recreational uses. I've believed for a long time that its benefits far outweigh its risks. I'm not saying the risks don't exist. I'm saying that there are ways to minimize and regulate them, and forward thinking people in places like Colorado and Washington have begun to explore them. I'm ready to see the rest of the country follow suit.
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