By Jay Jay O'Brien Certified Cannabis Wellness Coach and Educator

As I mentioned in my last article, as an ECN Advocate, I’m here shining light on the benefits of Cannabis for cancer. I’m doing so because of the tremendous success I’ve had on my own cancer healing journey, one that continues 4 years after a Stage 4 terminal lung cancer diagnosis.

For months leading up to the diagnosis, I was in and out of hospital with pain that presented in various areas of my body, mainly my lower back, shoulder blades, legs, and hip. Multiple X-rays couldn’t pinpoint what I later explained to the doctors, must be cancer. They confirmed my diagnosis as Stage 4 Non-small cell lung cancer with metastasis to my bones and lymph nodes. After the diagnosis, the oncologist called me to confirm once more and informed me that this cancer was “inoperable, incurable, and terminal” offering me six months to a year to live. 

I immediately began looking for an alternative to the death sentence that was offered. What kept coming up was Cannabis. Everywhere I asked and everywhere I looked made a mention of Cannabis. The case for it was strong and I had a lot of experience recreationally in the past smoking Cannabis, so I dove right in.

Discovering The Path

The pain I had been suffering from kept me immobile. It hurt to move. My only movement was to tears. Due to the pain and my symptoms at the time, I had begun building a life around what was expected of cancer. I bought a king-sized bed, a vaporizer, a neck massager, and a heating pad. When I was feeling strong I prepared meals for the times I wouldn’t be and made no future plans outside of how I was getting to my next doctor appointment.

Not living, barely surviving, and preparing for a conclusion filled with pain and suffering. Within one month of learning about and starting with Cannabis as my medicine, the two tumors in my lungs (6mm and 3mm) shrunk away to nothing, the metastasis in my bones showed ‘scarring’, (which I attributed to healing), and most of my symptoms; the pain, wheezing, and shortness of breath, subsided.

A month later, I started on a targeted therapy (Alectinib) after finding out about a gene mutation that presents in only about 5% of lung cancer patients. (1) Doctors suggested it would prolong my life by a few more years, “maybe five” is what they said, until my body eventually built up a tolerance to it. It would stop working, the cancer would progress, and they would likely suggest palliative chemotherapy or radiation at that time, driving the final nail in my coffin.

5 more years is promising news to someone previously told that they have 6 months to a year to live, but I didn’t want 5 more years. I had a ten-year-old son at the time. I wanted all the years, so I did it all: the Cannabis, the targeted therapy, the diet and lifestyle changes, the exercise, the supplements, and other healing modalities appearing beneficial that crossed my path.

• I did it all because I wanted to see my son grow, shave, get a girlfriend, lose a girlfriend, get married, have children, and be all the things he dares to dream. I deserve that, and so does he.
• I did it all because I didn’t want to have cancer anymore, and as opposed as I am to most pharmaceutical medicine, I didn’t have enough knowledge at the time to make any argument against it.

Changing Directions

After one night with Cannabis, my circumstances changed and after one week, my life took a new direction. This remarkable transformation encouraged me to keep ‘kicking the can’ as opposed to ‘kicking the bucket’. I began looking around at the four walls of my bedroom, thinking, “Am I just going to stare at these for the rest of my life?” and “Is this it?” and I responded with a resounding “NO!”

Something was happening inside my body. Cannabis was creating a shift as it went to work healing the primary tumors which in turn healed the metastasis that was causing all my pain. It’s amazing what relief from pain can do to one's physiology and one's psyche.

Once the high doses of Cannabis oil abolished my pain, I found renewed strength, fortitude, and energy to get my body moving, walking, doing yoga, or hiking which all contributed to my improved overall well-being.

From my bed, I started with a slow jaunt around a one-block radius from my house and after a couple of weeks, I felt strong enough to walk my local trail, 6 km daily, in under an hour. As I walked, I meditated on my healing, I spoke affirmations to myself, and I listened to inspirational stories of transformation and healing while Cannabis did its work to restore the equilibrium inside my body.

Yield

After 3 years of “stable and unremarkable” scans, I took myself off the targeted therapy. I was confident I could keep myself stable with the Cannabis alone so I stopped the targeted therapy in December 2022.
In April 2023, on 4/20 to be precise, my oncologist finally admitted after 3 and a half years of “stable and unremarkable” scans, that there was no active cancer in my body.

This felt like a tremendous victory. I had been striving to hear those words for so long but when I finally did, I got complacent and lazy when it came to maintaining my healing regimens. I was inconsistent with my Cannabis dosing, I was less stringent with my diet, I was not moving my body nearly enough, and I was allowing myself to ride an emotional rollercoaster that digressed me into a recurrence showing as eleven tumors in my brain in August of 2023.

Oncology wanted to radiate but I was significantly opposed to that, so as a compromise, I went back on the targeted therapy, just not before getting back to Cannabis in a big way. I doubled the doses I had been taking before, working with high doses of concentrated Cannabis oil orally and rectally, and oil tinctures containing a blend of acidic and neutral Cannabinoids. My goal was to saturate my body with as much Cannabis as possible so I was getting it into me all the ways I could.

Back On Track

Those eleven tumors came with some very unpleasant symptoms. Dizziness, nausea, vertigo, balance, and cognition issues were severely affecting my day-to-day operations. Sometimes I had to sit down. Didn’t matter where I was. In the shower, in the kitchen, at the grocery store. If I didn’t sit down, I would fall. Two large tumors, between 10-15 mm in my cerebellum, were causing the unpleasantness, and a midline shift in my brain became emergent, requiring the use of steroids.

Three weeks after returning to the routine of high dose of Cannabis Oil, targeted therapy, and a gradual return to my normal daily health-promoting activities, a second scan revealed that my eleven tumors were now nine and the nine that remained were a quarter of the size that they were three weeks prior.

After two months, scans showed the tumors were “almost completely resolved”, and as of January 12, 2024, I am grateful to report that the tumors are no longer detectable besides the calcification and scar tissue that remains. I no longer have symptoms. I’m feeling great and getting back to living life with hope for a cancer-free future, a future denied by what Western medicine has to offer.

5 years wasn’t much of a future. I’m over 4 years into this journey now, about to turn 48 years old and all I can think of is the next 48. I feel healthier than I’ve felt in my whole life. I feel grounded, spiritually connected, and at peace with whatever life may throw my way. The fear and anxiety associated with the diagnosis were greatly reduced, not just by utilizing various Cannabis protocols, but in the comfort of knowing that I have this plant ally at my disposal should I be faced with it again.

Out Of The Ditch

Inside these miraculous bodies, we house more cells than there are stars in the sky and inhabit more intricate living systems than we can identify on Earth. (2) Our bodily systems support each other similar to how Cannabis supports our Endocannabinoid system.

• It is not by accident that we have a system in our bodies essential for homeostasis, balance, and good health that is interactive with the constituents of the Cannabis plant.
• It is not coincidental that our bodies make molecules within the Endocannabinoid System that resemble the ones in the Cannabis plant. Pharmaceutical companies try to imitate it, but the ‘entourage effect’ (3) of all the plant elements working in synchronicity with our systems has yet to be duplicated.

I’m so incredibly grateful to Cannabis for all the ways it helped me heal, not just body, but mind and soul. I’m grateful to all the people before me who shared their healing stories and I’m grateful to know that with the right tools in our toolbox, we can recover from terminal cancer. Thanks to Cannabis, I did it. Not once, but twice and there is so much comfort in knowing that I can do it again if I have to.

Have you been diagnosed with cancer?
Have you heard that Cannabis can help but you’re not sure where to start?
Have you gone to your doctor for answers and only come away with more questions?

If so, please reach out and I’d be happy to share with you any and all the ways that Cannabis can help you and your recovery.

References

1. “What Is Alk-Positive Lung Cancer? By the Alk Positive Community.” ALK POSITIVE, www.alkpositive.org/what-is-alk#:~:text=ALK%2Dpositive%20lung%20cancer%20occurs,diagnosed%20under%20age%2040! Accessed 6 Feb. 2024.

2. Pennisi, Elizabeth. “New Calculations Say There Are More Living Cells than Grains of Sand or Stars in the Sky.” Https://Www.Science.Org/, 2023, www.science.org/content/article/new-calculations-say-there-are-more-living-cells-grains-sand-or-stars-sky?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ScienceAdviser&utm_content=distillation&et_rid=960447322&et_cid=4945665.

3. Russo EB. Taming THC: potential cannabis synergy and phytocannabinoid-terpenoid entourage effects. Br J Pharmacol. 2011 Aug;163(7):1344-64. doi: 10.1111/j.1476-5381.2011.01238.x. PMID: 21749363; PMCID: PMC3165946.

Jay Jay is the founder and creator of naturalisticallynow and the Canecdotal Collective, where she educates and assists people with cancer, implementing Cannabis into their protocols. As a stage 4 lung cancer survivor and caregiver to her type 1 diabetic son, Jay Jay has learned that you truly do "get what you give", and with Cannabis, she believes we have the opportunity to give our bodies the opportunity to truly heal rather than just masking our symptoms. Through her own experience of healing, she has now made it her mission to share the capabilities of Cannabis with all who will listen.

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Effective Cannabis Newsletter is a platform to educate on the vital role of the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) in one's health. The information is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information contained in or available through this newsletter is for general information purposes only. It is not medical advice; it is health awareness.