A Rock & A Hard Place

OK…..

I have not wrote a new blog post in months due to the fact I have been stressed out beyond what I can handle. I am now literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have been in contact with my MP which at first seemed promising but turns out I have been left out in the cold with no clear answer yet again. For those who have not read my past posts and wish to understand the story a little more I would recommend reading my post “Broken Wing” before continuing to read.

As a medicinal cannabis user I am in what is known as a VERY grey area, I am what they like to call “shhh get on with it and don’t tell anyone”. I am trying to work for myself as it seems to be the only way forward as no one else will touch me with a ten foot barge pole, can you imagine me asking my boss “I am in some pain so is it OK to pop out for a quick smoke?”. I am sure every employer in this country would hand me my P45 and get the old bill around (Police for non-Brits) just to check I am not growing for myself. I have been open and honest about this from the start and you know what they say about honesty… It fucks your life right up.
After being promised that my case would be taken to the government and sent to the right departments I actually got a letter back that came in very handy for toilet paper later that day. All I was told was that SATIVEX (Legal spray form of cannabis) is no longer on prescription for even MS patients and the only way I can get access to this is by private label prescription… which is fine as I have to pay out for my medicine now but when a bottle of this stuff costs more than an ounce of weed and it does not even guarantee that it will work in my case it is very hard to live within the current law system. I spent five years on high dosage morphine pills and patches still in agony and yet a simple smoke on the pipe took away the pain.
The MP has said in a roundabout way “You can’t get SATIVEX but carry on and good luck with your business” which to me is no real answer at all. Sure I will be defended in court by my pain Dr and my local GP but do I really have to go to court over something that allows me to get on with life normally when I have already tried most pain killers, muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory and every other drug that my Dr can legally prescribe me without coming close to cutting half the pain. So what am I supposed to do now? When my disability case was looked at again just before Christmas I was completely honest and wrote the only thing I am on… Cannabis, which was funny as they didn’t even send a Dr out to check me like they have done the past five years (twice every year).

So what do they want me to do? do they want to help me get back to work or do they want me doped up on morphine crying out in pain every single fucking day followed shortly by vomiting and headaches (not forgetting the original pain). The only other option I was given was to apply to a private pharmaceutical firm to try and be a test subject which sounds just as much fun as the past twenty-six years of my life being a guinea pig for private firms to make money off by selling the results. Even if I was picked to be a candidate, would that mean after the final results are in I can still carry on smoking quite legally or would it mean I have to give up and go back on the morphine when the government decides yet again to be big brother and tell me how I should live my life just because they don’t have this sort of pain and could never understand what relief this medication gives me? Most of the non-smokers or people like Peter Hitchens would say I smoke it for the “High” but yet a single pipe can keep the pain away for up to ten hours. Anyone who has smoked cannabis will know a “High” does not last for ten hours and it does not effect my working as I am accustomed to the medicine just like my body became accustomed to the morphine. After a few months on morphine you no longer feel the effects but you soon start vomiting, which in turn stresses the stomach muscles more and produces yet more……..PAIN.

Every time I speak to anyone that has some influence they want to help but I always get left out in the cold in the end and told that I should get on with it… Get on with what? I can’t get even a simple job at a shop due to the fact the pain could strike at anytime and I usually just have a small amount to do me until the evening before I have my pipe again. I am also getting it in the neck from the Dr as I smoke it with tobacco, the reason behind this is because I smoke a gentlemens pipe and if I am in public and I need to smoke I go to the most out of range place not to infect people with my smoke and cover the smell of the cannabis with flavored  backy, it’s either that or the following two options:

1. waste TAX payers money by collapsing in pain and an ambulance needs to be called just to pump me full of morphine again at the hospital

Or

2. Get arrested for possession of cannabis and again waste TAX payers money

 

So what do I do? Shall I just revert to morphine and live my life in my bedroom in extreme pain or what the fuck do I do? If I describe the pain it would only be understood as qualia but you yourself or anyone else would never actually feel the pain that I have with my side. The closest I have come to describing this pain is a knife slowly twisting in your side (hunting knife with serrated edge) followed by napalm being chucked over for the fantastic burning pain that it gives me. If I was a masochist I would be in heaven but unfortunately I do not enjoy pain and so am stuck with hating every moment I am in pain with my side.

Is it any wonder that a majority of the population is on anti-depressants when every person we turn to for help turns their back on us and flogs us off with “shhhh”. Right now I am extremely tempted by the pain and suffering as the mental torture this government is putting me through is almost enough to make a man go insane.

There is one more option and that is to fly to the USA and get my case looked at by Johns Hopkins, this however would cost $600 just for them to look at my file, never mind actually do something about it and I can’t see me getting even enough for the plane ticket never mind the cost of an operation or procedure that may cure me (or may not). I have been to the top hospitals in the UK and everything they do to me has ended up making me worse to the point of full disability, I don’t blame the Dr or the NHS but I do blame the government for not looking into this seriously enough. I did not spend five years screaming out in pain and on high dosage drugs for a bit of a laugh just to smoke weed. If I wanted to just smoke weed I would of quite happily done so without having to contact anyone but since this actually sorts my issue I can’t just sit back and let my life get ruined. Hell if you was to pick a illegal drug to pretend to work why not LSD? Why not mushrooms? Why is it that weed seems to work for a majority of pain sufferers and other types and yet we still do not get listened to?

Well I will try not to finish this on a bum note and I will try and write some more posts more often, I am currently writing a book that explains growing up with a rare condition and the condition getting even rarer to the point that I am actually the only one with this condition (you get to see pictures of me in some medical text books now, had photos done and everything!). I am aiming to finish the book in the next month or two and hope to get it out there to show not just how cannabis saved me but also how all the decisions made for me in my life have affected me at this point in life.

So until next time I will say goodbye and here is a lovely little picture of me and my pipe in front of tower bridge to keep you smiling!