Yay for pain relief, Hil. Strange how that can happen with meds, but glad it is working in your favor!

I'm not sure what changed for me, but the full body pain I've been in for the last few weeks has hushed up. My foot hurts, but my hip and back aren't screaming at me anymore. I got a massage a couple of weeks ago, Kelly helped me with a couple of stretches, and I have kinda done jack shit lately. Oh, and a week vacation from work and school. I think the last was the big one.

The new pills seem to be stronger, but the effect also wears off more quickly. I'm going to try taking just half of one, and then the other half after a couple hours.

My friend Vic has a soft tissue cancer and after 11 surgeries, her 12th was amputation of her arm below the elbow. As you can imagine she has all kinds of complications and pain, has been taking painkillers, and neurontin for years, and she has said that one of the most helpful things is medicinal marijuana. It helps relieve the pain, it helps her to sleep.

Now that it's legal I've been reading the descriptions of what they do on some of the websites. It's really interesting. Ayelet Waldman wrote a book called a really good day, about her experiences microdosing with lSd, only, she used to be a federal drug prosecutor, the book has stories all through it about the different ways different meds have been used to treat problems, it's not just about the microdosing. Fascinating stuff.

I've read about the microdosing and it's fascinating, but I have no idea how I'd obtain that or know how much I was dosing with or trust the stuff was what it was supposed to be both chemical-wise and concentration-wise...

On a separate note, my work is a bit slow lately (that will be changing soon) but I feel so caught up on things, even if I still have some stuff to do. I have no commute. So I have plenty of time on my hands, but where does it all GO? Why am I still so tired and lazy?

Ugh Hil, rejiggering dosage sounds like a PITA

It has been requested that, when I talk to him, I should see if I can set a good example of "how to be vegan without irritating your coworkers,"

Did the request annoy you? I feel like it would annoy me. Like, thank you, but your feelings regarding my veganism really are your business and yours alone

I wonder the same thing, meara.

I've been watching "Hamilton's Pharmacopeia" and it's all about psychedelic drugs: mushrooms, peyote, toad venom. The one about ketamine interested me because of the therapeutic applications for depression. They showed a doctor appointment in India where a sad lady got an IV bag with a dose of ketamine and she felt better right away. Then they went to an American psychologist who is working with sub psychedelic doses for the depressed, and she made sure to tell the camera that while she loves ketamine, she thinks it is best used in the clinical setting.

I would be scared to try dosing myself with street drugs, but OTOH what I saw seemed a lot less scary than shock therapy. So, food for thought. I think Ayelet is on to something.

When I got hurt in Iceland, the emergency doctor gave me three doses of ketamine in about an hour. It was not scary, it totally ended the pain, and I haven't had an episode of black soul-sucking depression since then. Obviously I don't know how much they gave me in each dose, but given the effects I don't think it was entirely sub-psychedelic... ("Oh, wow, look at the lights! Wait, did we leave my feet in the other room?")

"Wait, did we leave my feet in the other room?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, we had to leave something for the trolls."

Who knew trolls were into feet?