Nabilone

Nabilone - sounds like the shellfish from the Pacific - you know the ones you see on the National Geographic channel where the seals crack them on their chest? Well it's not. It's a synthetic cannibinoid which mimics the main ingredients in cannabis. So, simply put - medical marijuana.

Following all of my latest rounds of chemo, I have developed a nasty case of lingering nausea - a constant state of green which lasts for days and days. As Kermit the Frog sings "It's not easy being green" - it surely isn't and so I have been after my medical oncologist and pharmacist for solutions. I now have 5 different antiemetics (antinausea drugs) which I am told I can take separately or all together as each one affects a different part of the brain. Who knew there were so many areas in the brain which harboured the ability to make you green and who knew it was the responsibility of the brain anyway and not the stomach as we all assumed?

I initially took the "tried and true" ondansetron successfully but when that failed, we added four others to the list. Finally, I was prescribed nabilone.
Certain that it would be the med to put me back in the "pink of things", I popped the tiny pill last Saturday along with the regularly prescribed drugs. It took about 20 minutes to kick in and then, luckily, I wasn't far from my bed. Dizzy, tingling, sparkly, dazed, thick, heavy, spinning, even more nauseous - not happy - not high - not nice. All of that and more as the effects lasted for about 14 hours. Imagine having the flu and then something making you drunk on top of it - not a pretty picture.

I'm taking it off my bucket list - been there, done it now.

As a funny post script - before sending this I hit "spell check" and as you know, it comes back with recommendations. The system highlighted nabalone which I had originally misspelled and one of the suggestions it offered was baloney!