Can an old dog learn new tricks?

Last week, many of my readers responded very positively to my column concerning pain and pain management. It appears from feedback that severe pain is very common and a real problem to control and treatment and management can be very costly. Our politicians are making some pain drugs much more difficult to obtain for people who are sincerely dependent upon it to carry on a semi-normal life.

For a long time I've made the claim that anyone who challenges me to define what I believe is my friend. It is the easiest path to throw up your hands anytime you don't agree with something and say, "Sorry, but that's the way I see it and I'm not going to change my mind." I want to challenge you with this column and I want you to ruminate on what I am about to assert.

Steve Wold, better known as Seasick Steve wrote these insightful lyrics in the song, Can't teach an old dog new tricks:

"There must be something wrong with me

What it is I can't quite see

I can't seem to do nothing right.

Maybe I need to change my style

Been this way for a long long while

Maybe there's a few things I ought to fix.

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?"

Before you judge me on what you are about to read watch this amazing video and then chew the cud.

In this video, a man with Parkinson's disease is shaking so badly, he couldn't take a drink of water to save himself. He is offered a marijuana solution and he puts ONE drop under the tongue. Within ONE minute, he begins to calm down. In FIVE he sits up with no shakes and comments that his voice is coming back and then sings. The transformation is incredible or miraculous and the man appears healthy.

If after watching what one drop of this plant's extract can do for just one single disease, you cannot see the need to open it up for expansive research, then Steve's got another set of lyrics for you to embrace.

"Maybe I should leave well enough alone
I might not be perfect but I'm me to the bone
I don't need to change my style
Been this way for a long long while
There ain't nothing that I got to fix
You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

At 65 I do not want to be this old dog that simply refuses to adjust my thinking to adjust to science's onward march, especially when the original information was flawed.  Reefer madness is one of the biggest lies ever pushed on the American public, except maybe the need for underarm deodorant. BO as an advertising term was invented by Odo-Ro-No in 1919 (wisely targeting women's critical self-consciousness) to buy deodorant when all they needed was to bath regularly and wear clean clothes. Offensive body odor is caused by a buildup of bacteria and it simply does not grow that fast. However, stinking is not a crime. Maybe it should be. To substantiate my claim, I haven't used deodorant since 1977.

Marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 narcotic in the same category as heroin due to their dangerousness and potential for addiction. What idiot pushed this one past reasoning people? Heroin yes, cannabis, no. I can't substantiate my next statement with cold hard facts, but I am pretty danged sure no one has ever overdosed on marijuana alone. They may have laughed themselves to death, but overdose? Nope.

Now in the early 70's, I smoked this stuff like a chimney every single chance I got, so I am backing up my claims with personal experience. I quit because I turned my life over to Jesus and I felt like it was a bad witness. I haven't smoked it since. However, it is illegal and on top of that and I'll be honest with you here, even if it was legalized - I still will not smoke it again for recreational purposes.

The reason for this is twofold. One, pot or Mary Jane, etcetera, makes a person complacent or lazy, or content to the point that for many, including myself, I become unmotivated. Why go to the beach, when you can go to the beach in your head? Two, it gives you the munchies and that's all I need is to want to eat more than I already am.

But let's look at the hundreds of illnesses, aches and pains that engineered cannabis extracts can cure or remove. I ask those of us who have been led to believe that the medical use of opium derivatives is okay, but marijuana is not, to do a little research. Watch videos of people being given this plant and see for yourself that it is high time to declare medical marijuana legal and pursue it to the nth degree. Remember what I said in my column last week; when putting a gun to your head seems like a viable option to stop pain, you will take whatever you can get, to stop it.

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A real pain in the neck

I'm hesitant to write along these lines this week, but feel that many of my readers will relate. I like to write motivational, inspirational, and sometimes humorous or challenging columns that have a message or make us want to be a better person. Probably too often I pontificate while pointing out injustices or rude social behavior, but not this week.

A couple days ago, I drove my 85 year old mother to see her pain doctor. She has to go each month and sit anywhere from 1 to 3 hours in the waiting room to prove she is not abusing her pain drug, which now thanks to recent regulation changes, hydrocodone is being phased out. This highly effective drug has been the only reason she has lived a semi-normal life and she takes it on schedule.

What she gets now is a form of morphine that doesn't address her numerous joint pains, which she itemized with a chuckle. "My shoulder, neck, back, wrist... even my big toe!" Her doctor earlier had explained to her that she was concerned my mother would become dependent on the hydrocodone. My mother, who is in full control of her mental faculties looked at the doctor like they were out of touch with reality.

As she explained to me in my car, "I am 85 years old and I cannot live with pain. I am fully dependent on that medication to relieve it, regardless if the drug is addictive or not." It didn't matter to the doctor and my mother also had this little gem of inside information. "If they were in pain, they would understand."

This conversation took place last month when we went through three days of her running out of hydrocodone because none of the local pharmacies carried the new pain killer. It got very close to a panic situation for her. At the time she was explaining the issue of pain and meds, I was pain free and have been for years, but what she said sounded logical, although I couldn't really relate. People complaining about health issues falls on deaf ears to the healthy.

Sadly, I was soon to be educated why people choose to end their life rather than live in constant pain.

On March 21st, I awoke with a stiff neck. I drove to the NASA gym to instruct a spin class at 0830 and by the time I left, my right shoulder was numb and I couldn't turn my head.  By noon, I was climbing the walls. I have never felt pain that intense and it was one solid long line of agony. No matter what I did or what position I was in, nothing relieved it.

I doubled up on ALEVE and 2 days later I was at the VA emergency room. I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't think of anything else except the non-stop pain in my shoulder and bicep and at first I thought I was having a stroke, but ruled that out for a pinched or impinged nerve.

They set me up for an MRI in 5 days and gave me a small prescription for a weaker pain med named Tramadol.  I took one every 6 hours as directed and ran out Sunday morning, 3 days later. This was 2 days before my appointment. I am convinced the doctor didn't really bother to calculate how many tablets I needed because he couldn't relate. People living in pain are very aware of how many pills they have. The pain came back with a vengeance and by noon on Sunday I drove the 30 miles to the VA and went back into the emergency room.

Through a miracle, I got an MRI within an hour and a sympathetic doctor who prescribed my 5 meds. He asked me what the level of my pain was and I told him it was the one right below crying.

To make a long story short, I have about 8 inches of vertebra that over the years have sustained enough injury that now through a shrinking of the nerve channel it is impinged. My arm is numb to my finger tips and I've had to curtail not only my spin classes, but all gym time until we can resolve the issue.  Being the competitive individual that I am, this is very difficult for me, but the possibility that the pain will magnify past the place where it can be controlled is so scary that I just backed off.

This brings up another subject of medicinal marijuana for pain management. It has been found so effective, for so many people, only those who cannot relate to pain would object to legalizing it. When a person would take a bullet to the head to stop the pain, what in god's name would be wrong with using something that works?

I am one month into this and still numb to my fingertips on my right hand and close to starting a second 16 day blitz of Prednisone, where it feels like I am on fire internally. I have a pain consultation on the 27th to determine a course and it appears it will be acupuncture. I still remain hopeful about instructing spin class, but as I approach age 65 in June, I simply have to realize I am no longer the young buck that still lives inside of me.