Her favorite flowers were lilies, so I couldn’t comprehend why she cried when I reached up to the elevated bed and clumsily handed her a fresh white bouquet. Was it the tubes? The needles? The doctors?
I thought you said Grandma liked lilies.
She does, Son.
Then why was she crying?
She was just really happy to see you.
I didn’t understand. Grandma cried when her hair fell out as salt and pepper clumps in her hands, when she’d try on her wig in front of her bathroom mirror, when the hummingbirds visited outside her kitchen window – when she thought no one was looking. Why the lilies? Why wasn’t she hiding it now?
What’s chemotherapy?
My grandma had a fascination with dream catchers. Her collection – if you could call it one – consisted of the handful she bartered for during her trips through Native American reservations. My favorite was the plain one with a single brown feather tied to the sinew center. She told me it was made by the wife of a great but reclusive Seminole warrior. My grandfather hung it on the ceiling fan above his bed in Vero Beach after she died. He passed away beneath it not long after.
I thought you said Granddad was asleep.
He is, Son.
Then why are you crying?
Because I’m going to miss him.
A few months back, I stumbled upon my granddad’s journal, hidden in his old 1989 Macintosh now stowed away in my mom’s garage. He’d started to write it once the last of the lilies began to wilt, once she couldn’t take the pain any longer. Maybe someone had told him it would help.
The memory he had of her on their wedding day was as clear as crystal.
He focused on her hair. A deep auburn, he described, adorning the most precious woman he’d ever laid eyes on. He stood waiting for her as she floated down the aisle toward him. I saw her deep auburn curls cascade against her cheek with each silent step.
Why is Grandma losing her hair?
It’s the chemotherapy.
What’s chemotherapy?
Hopefully, it’s a thing of the past.
According to this month’s journal of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, researchers at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute are reporting that the non-psychoactive cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD) limits the spread of breast cancer and could potentially moderate or even inhibit the spread of other common forms of cancer like colon and prostate cancer. CBD is initially believed to be more combative toward these cancer cells than previous studies found using the cannabinoids THC, cannibigerol and even cannabinol.
The project’s lead researcher, Sean McCallister, told BBC News that the CBD findings “offer hope of a nontoxic therapy that could achieve the same results [as chemotherapy] without any of the painful side effects.”
The San Francisco-based medical center is one of many worldwide research institutes currently exploring the possibilities that cannabinoids may have in fighting certain cancers, as well as brain tumors and other tumoral cell lines like lung carcinoma. With worldwide support, maybe this is a battle that can actually be won.
It’s time to find better options, more solutions. It’s time to avoid preconceived misconceptions. We should be exploring all the possibilities that nature has to offer. And maybe one day kids won’t have to ask their parents why their grandparents can no longer fight the pain.
Today I have my grandma’s dream catcher above my bed in I.V. It’s hanging beside my Under the Table and Dreaming poster. Dream on, everyone. Dream on.
