I thought I knew what Pain was. I have experienced some severe pain at different times of my life. I live in a world of constant pain and have fooled myself into believing I knew the worst. I was wrong.

Being the anti narcotic freak I am I chose not to have pain medicine during the post surgery part of the treatment procedure I went through Tuesday and Wednesday. The surgeon inserted a catheter into my back so I could have injections directly to the damaged area in and around my lower spine. The injections had enzymes that break up scar tissue but don’t affect the nerves. The doctor had told me that they would cause “extreme discomfort” so I translated that to mean they would hurt really bad. I didn’t know the agony they would bring. I was brought to tears yesterday morning. I have never experienced pain so extreme.

Doctor Alexander is kind, helpful and very understanding. Even though she knows my adamant stand against my narcotic intake she still recommended the pain meds. Since they wouldn’t let me smoke my weed up there I told her I wasn’t going to have anything. She tried, so the pain I went through was all my fault. When the first post surgery injection hit I felt like my legs had been dipped into boiling water. The severe screaming pain lasted about 5 minutes.
I considered the meds seriously after that injection. When the pain subsided my stubbornness kicked back in and I opted to go through it with the next injections without drugs. I am not sure if I did the right thing but I paid for it.

I felt great between injections and walked around the hospital freely. Feeling kinda grungy I asked the nurse about a razor and a comb. She disappeared into a closet for a moment and returned with both a comb and an old fashioned safety razor. I combed my long hair and prepped my face for shaving. Having scraped my face with disposable shavers with angled blades for so many years I forgot the old style razors were different. Whacked my cheeks and chin up quite severly. I have many cuts to show for it.

Even though the food was bad….not good doesn’t describe it….it was bad, I had a quite pleasant stay in the hospital. I met an old guy that was in extreme pain. He was waiting for a procedure when I met him and he was just down the hall from me the next morning. When I dropped by his room yesterday he smiled and said, “There’s that nice young man from yesterday”. I haven’t been called “young man” for years but when an 84 year old brother calls me that I know 50 seems quite young to him. I visited with a sweet dietician and some kind student nurses. I had a nice physical therapist stop by with instructions on the exercises I need to do to keep better. The nurses aides were all very nice and the lady who cleaned my room was so wonderful. I was so happy to have so many wonderful folks around to help I feel blessed. They were all great and then there was Valerie.

Early Wednesday morning I went out front to have a smoke. The parking lot was empty so I didn’t have to go far to be isolated and not worry about getting caught. They did tell me to bring any regular pain meds with me so the joints I had were following directions…or so I tell myself. I got a nice little buzz on and wandered back into the hospital to await my next scheduled injection. (turned out that was a couple hours away so I shoulda waited to have the weed) I walked back into the wing my room was in and saw a stunning woman walking down the hall towards me.

“Rocky, I presume.” she said. “I’m Valerie and I’ll be your nurse today. Doctor Alexander will be up shortly but for now is there anything I can do for you?”

Her sincere smile made her even more beautiful. Her friendly attitude and the obvious care for her patients made me feel comfortable and I knew that I would be cared for well. I wasn’t disappointed. Her kindness lasted all day. I’m sure I bugged her but she treated me as if she had nothing else to do except care for me. We all know that nurses do all of the work and the doctors couldn’t even find their own prescription pad without them so we know she was busy but she never let on that I wasn’t the most important patient in her day.

Her smile was unwavering. Her sweetness never faded, even for a frustrated moment. She jumped to help and even took time to chat for a minute here and there. Cheery and happy she made my ordeal much easier. The pain faded quickly because of her presence. I thought when I left…”Damn. If I were only 20 years younger”.
Yeah….she was that special.

All in all it wasn’t a bad experience. The pain was intense but brief. The care was good and even though I had to go to the cafeteria to get Rice Krispies (no way the hospital cooks can screw up cereal) I feel rewarded by the people that came into my life. Even if it was during a short stay in the hospital.

But I am back and I feel ok.

After my years growing up in a fundamentalist preachers home I had a lot of the Christian Bible shoved into my head. Stories and parables still haunt me to this day. Lots of legends passed down through the eons. I believed them as infallible until I realized that any traditional fable will get changed and re-interperted over the years as they are passed down from generation to generation.

One of my favorite was the story of Moses and the “Children Of Israel” wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. Culminating at Mount Sinai with the tablets written by God, a commanding set of rules for mankind to live by, the journey is talked about to this day. I liked that the benevolent god would feed them every morning with food from heaven that was laying around when the sun came up. What a cool idea. Manna, just waiting to be picked up.

Over the years in my life I have harvested a lot of mushrooms from cow fields and pine forests. You know the kind. Natures acid. Fun stuff….most of the time. The best time to pick is early morning, just after the sun warms the earth enough for the fungus to start expanding. Where there was nothing the night before a big fluffy shroom would appear.

No wonder the folks wandered around for 4 decades. Hallucinogenics are confusing to those who ingest them. If they can help make a person think they should follow a band, like the Grateful Dead, around the world in todays time searching for that perfect “Promised Land” or “Dark Star” like I did. I’m sure that those on an ancient quest for the promised land had more than one trippy experience that led them to strange paths that they got lost on as well. But that was just my uneducated theory, until today when I found out that Moses could have been tripping when he climbed the mountain and “talked to God”.

Here is an article that explains that theory. Kinda nice to see my theory about trippin’ in ancient times has a little foundation.

Fun and stoney cookies can come from using the weed butter recipe I posted a couple of days ago. Used as medicine these cookies give a whole body high to relieve pain. Follow your medical professionals recomendations.

Cookie Ingredients:

Frosting Ingredients:

Combine 1 cup weed butter, sugar and egg in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add orange juice and vanilla; mix well. Reduce speed to low; add flour and baking powder. Beat until well mixed.

Divide dough into thirds; wrap in plastic food wrap. Refrigerate until firm (2 to 3 hours).

Heat oven to 400°F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface, one-third at a time (keeping remaining dough refrigerated), to 1/8 to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with 3-inch cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 6 to 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool completely.

Combine powdered sugar, 1/3 cup weed butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla in small bowl. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often and adding enough milk for desired spreading consistency. Frost and decorate cooled cookies as desired.

Recipe Tip
If you use a 4 to 5-inch cookie cutter, recipe will yield approximately 2 dozen cookies.

Butter Recipe

First off, wintertime is a good time to cook goodies. The oven heats the house nicely and many memories of gramma’s house come wafting via the smells of chocolate, cinnamon or fruit. So many recipes that taste good can also be medicine. If the ingredients are right.

I advocate the use of marijuana for medicine. Especially if your doctor says so. Smoking isn’t always feasible so when its time for you to take your meds eating it can be a good option. It can be eaten many ways but making butter is the most versatile. It can be used to cook with, spread on toast and drizzled over popcorn.

I have used butter for years in making brownies that seem to be a hit at parties. After my injury in September of 2000 I supplemented the pig drugs the doctors pushed with weed. Mostly smoking but often with food. The butter is a great way to get through the day because eating it gives a body high as well as the good head.

When cooking it is important to remember not to eat too much until you know how you react to the potency. Also it takes more time to effect you than when you smoke so be aware that you don’t eat more than a little and wait about 45 minutes to an hour before you eat more. Never eat a lot if you have something to do later. It might not ever get done.

I mix the butter in any recepie that calls for butter, vegetable oil or margarine. I substitute the oil with melted butter and cakes, brownies and other things come out fine. It is good with salad dressings that use oil. It is good on pancakes and biscuits. heck, it’s good everywhere.

Pot is a fat soluable drug that bonds well with the fats in butter. It can be used in vegetable oils and margerine but doesn’t do well in fat free types of spreads.

Here’s how I make it;

Slowly melt a pound of butter in a nonstick pan over a low heat. Stir it often to prevent scorching.

Take an ounce of good buds and/or leaf. save your sticks and seeds as they also have THC and oils in them that contain other cannibinoids. Grind the weed into a fine powder in a coffee grinder sticks seeds and all.
When the butter is melted stir the powder in. Over a low heat simmer the mixture for at least a half hour stirring often. Longer is much better and you can see the mixture go from yellow to green to an almost black/green. Thats when it is best.

Remove from heat source and let cool. This next step involves handling it and it WILL BE HOT!!! so WAIT TIL IT COOLS TO PROCEED!!!!!!

Place a piece of cheese cloth in a bowl. WHEN THE MIXTURE IS COOLED pour the butter into the bowl. carefully lift the corners of the cloth to form a “Bag” to keep the powder in. Squeeze and resqueeze the cloth straining the butter into the bowl while keeping the powder in the cloth. Throw the greasy cloth and powder away.

Refrigerate the butter. melting small portions for use in recipes or soften it for spreading.

I will post good recipes and tips in the days to come.

Get the butter ready and check back soon. If you just can’t wait go get your favorite brownie mix that uses oil and substitute the amount of oil with the butter.

Enjoy.