"What Are You In For?": Pump off yesterday, concluding the fifth treatment. I don't feel so bad today; little nausea or stomach upset, so I haven't dipped into what I call my "stoner kit" since Tuesday. Toyed with the idea of going for a walk this morning but lethargy and drizzly weather have put that idea to rest.

"You're doing very well with what we have to give you." Or so my oncologist said to me on Monday. I'd asked him about the recent news stories concerning a University of Pennsylvania clinical trial using "reprogrammed" T-cells in the treatment of cancer. His answer was that something like that for diseases other than leukemia was a long way off (much more is known about leukemia, for example, than most other cancers). Still...thought I'd ask. Also mentioned to him my experience over the weekend with the marijuana cookies I made (more on that below) and we shared a good laugh. He respond to my goofy story with a serious discussion what he knew about research currently being done in the U.K. and Europe about using cannabis to fight cancer cells and mentioned that the brain is equipped with receptors for the drug. His view was that something like that is a long way off in the U.S., for obvious reasons.

I tend to avoid talking with other patients about disease, treatment, side effects, etc., but sometimes I'm pinned down in the waiting area by a fellow patient. It can be tricky to deal with another person's fears and issues, as witness my dealings with another patient during the time I was going to the support group. Approaching the subject with a bit of humor helps, though (the title of this post was what I was asked by another patient on Monday, as if we were in the holding cell of a local jail).

All right...trying not to turn this into "Tom's Pot Blog", but here's more salacious details about those infernal cookies. A couple of months ago, I'd been given what amounted to a stick of laced butter with the idea of using it in some recipe; it'd been languishing in the back of the top drawer of the refrigerator since then but thought that I'd try to do something with it this past weekend. I ended up making chocolate chip cookies using the whole stick and ended up with innocent-looking sugar bombs that would make Cheech & Chong proud. They took awhile to kick in, almost two hours, but I was out of it for much of the weekend, sleeping a good portion of the time. The effect was so overwhelming that I think I was still feeling it on Monday morning. (That talk with the doc seemed to go on for half an hour...a big tip-off that I was still blitzed.) The cookies are currently hidden in a vault for the time being; I can't see "using" them to help with my nausea or stomach discomfort, at least as casually as my other methods. An interesting lesson, you might say.

Still miss my hair. Drat.