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On NYE 2015 I had surgery to have a lymph node removed. Directly after surgery we headed to the Los Angeles Forum to see a Dead and Company New Years Eve show. I had scored tickets for the Dead a few months prior to being diagnosed and I had no intention of letting them go to waste. I made the decision to deal with the cancer next year, I chose to enjoy every second left of 2015 and spend the last night of 2015 Dancing with the Dead.

 

I considered not sharing this next part of my story, there are bound to be people who read this and disagree with what I chose to do and I will probably be judged by some of you for my decision to eat this magic mushroom. My goal with this Blog is to be honest, to write from the heart and to share my experiences, so having said that I chose to share this next part of my cancer journey.

In all honesty this is not my first experience with psychedelics, I won’t go into details, I am not here to promote the use of such things but in this instance I found the  psilocybin mushroom AKA Magic Mushrooms or Shrooms to be a viable and useful tool to help me accept and process the diagnosis of  stage 4 Lymphoma. 

After my diagnosis I did some research on the use of psilocybin for cancer patients and the benefits that they received and found a surprising amount of information on the subject. Combining the information I found online with my own personal experiences I was convinced that the use of psychedelics was a realistic tool that could be used to help me with the psychological aspects of being newly diagnosed with a potentially terminal disease. Researching online led me to numerous reports about using psychedelics as a tool to help patients deal with being diagnosed with cancer, many of the studies were done at renown institutes including New York University and Johns Hopkins University. Currently Psilocybin trials are underway in the United States and Europe for alcoholism, tobacco addiction and treatment-resistant depression. Other hallucinogens are also being studied for clinical application. The Food and Drug Administration approved a large-scale trial investigating MDMA, the illegal party drug better known as Ecstasy, for post-dramatic stress disorder.  In one study I read that 80 percent of cancer patients showed clinically significant reductions in psychological disorders, a response sustained some seven months after a single dose and the side effects were minimal. Based on the information I found online I decided to experience first hand these benefits that I was reading about but instead of doing it in a clinically controlled environment as suggested by medical professionals I chose to do it my own way, the OZ way, I chose to consume this so called magic mushroom with a small group of trusted friends as my support group while attending a concert of arguably the most psychedelic band of all time, The Grateful Dead or the name they tour under today, Dead and Company. Each year The Dead played an annual News Years Show and this year it happened to be in our home town, Los Angeles at the Forum. I prepared as much as I could for this experience,  I took a moment to meditate quietly hours before the show and make sure that I was in the right mind set for taking Shrooms. I brought a few items with me that I thought may be helpful, I brought some Cannabis to smoke as well as some anti anxiety pills (I ended up not needing these) to help me if things got crazy and I brought a small bag of Psilocybin AKA Magic Mushrooms that I had been gifted from a very close friend.

 Because we had VIP tickets we had access to a special tent set up just outside the Forum where we were offered food and drinks, it was a comfortable and reasonably quite place to hang out before the show. About a half hour before the band was supposed to go on stage I ate the shrooms, shortly after eating the dried fungus I was nervous and wondered if I had done the right thing, I started to get feel some anxiety about my decision to take shrooms, I briefly wondered if I had made the right decision, I had just  been diagnosed with cancer and I wondered if it was going to be difficult to deal with these thoughts of cancer while tripping on shrooms, these thoughts of regret and anxiety only lasted a few moments, they melted away as quickly as they had arrived because I knew that I was in the right place at the right time, I knew that I was strong enough to deal with anything that came my way and was convinced that I was in for an amazing night!

As the band opened the show with the song Feel Like A Stranger, I realized that feeling like a stranger was the farthest thing from my mind, in fact, I was overwhelmed by a euphoric feeling of oneness with the thousands of people that surrounded me. I felt that I was surrounded by a group of people that all knew why I was there and what I was doing and they were all there to help and support me during this epic trip, the band was playing not for the crowds that filled the Forum, they played just for me, it felt like they knew exactly why I was there and they were there to help me on my journey. 

Towards the end of the first set they played the song Sugaree, this song has special meaning to me, I have been a “Dead Head” for many years and have seen them in concert many times and this song has always been a favorite of mine. When our daughter was 4  years old she also adopted Sugaree as her favorite dead song , I have a wonderful memory of her in a pretty princess dress dancing and singing to the song, twirling in the middle of our living room in Simi Valley CA while singing into her “microphone” hairbrush in her wonderfully cute 4 year old voice with a huge smile on her face. Every time I hear Sugaree it fills my heart with joy and wonderful memories of our daughter dancing in a princess dress without a care in the world. That evening hearing that song brought back those memories of joyful girl dancing  carefree and happy and this filled my heart with happiness!

 During the concert, surrounded by thousands of friends I experienced so many feelings, I laughed and cried, I danced and sang out loud, I hugged friends I had known for years as well as strangers, there is something very powerful about a hug, I’m not talking about a slight pat on the back hug but an all encompassing bear hug, its a wonderful feeling to be embraced in a meaningful hug, unless you don’t enjoy hugs in which case I guess you wouldn’t  enjoy such a thing but for me a hug is never a bad thing. Close to the end of the concert  I found myself having a tearful moment as I contemplated what I had ahead of me in the new year when a tie dyed stranger came over and gave me an amazing hug, two strangers on the eve of a new year shared a hug and a brief moment of eye contact and during that moment I knew that I would be ok, I will never know who gave me that hug, I don’t remember what the guy looked like but I will never forget the feeling of strength and love that radiated from the eyes of a stranger.

The Dead were playing the final song of the night, Brokedown Palace,  the lyrics at the end of the song are “Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell”, while listening to these words A stranger came over to me while I held my wife in my arms and leaned over and said in my ear “You are on the right path, don’t stray from your chosen path” he said “everything will be ok if you remain on the path” and then he skipped away and disappeared into the crowd, I know this was just the random ramblings of a stranger but those words he said to me couldn’t have made more sense and couldn’t have come at a better time. I was reminded that night something that I have always thought, it is not the destination that is important but the journey itself, life is filled with highs and lows, the low points of the journey make the high points so much more powerful and rewarding. Dancing with my wife and thousands of close friends was definitely a high point, physically, mentally and physiologically it was an amazing experience!

On the Eve of a New Year I held my wife in my arms as I wept on her shoulder, I had moments of overwhelming dread and moments filled with joy and happiness. I felt closer to my wife than I ever had before, I knew that with her by my side I could accomplish anything, life was good!

 I could probably describe the shroom trip in better detail but this is not about the trip itself but the journey and the hope that the experience gave me. I thought about the diagnosis of cancer, I considered that I was about to start chemotherapy, I thought about what I would be going through and what my family would have to endure, so many things went through my mind that night. I considered that at that moment I was closer to death than I had ever been, a death that unbeknownst to me had been slowly sneaking up on me for years and I didn’t even know it, strangely I found that I actually found strength in this thought, just a few weeks before I didn’t know that I had cancer and was happy in life so why would this change just because a doctor gave me the title of a cancer patient, attitude is all in your head and I was not going to let cancer change my attitude toward life. The fact is that cancer would have silently killed me had I not been diagnosed, but the diagnosis itself doesn’t change who I am and how I look at life, all these thoughts went through my shroom tripping mind as the band played on and we danced our way into the New Year.

 At one point I inhaled deeply from a joint that I had brought with me, the cloud of smoke that I exhaled had every color of the rainbow in it and even a few colors that weren’t in the rainbow, as I exhaled this swirling rainbow cloud of love all I could feel was happiness, I stood there staring up at this pulsating rainbow cloud of happiness as it filled the space above my head and I knew that everything would be alright, I suspected that if I had the power to fill the Forum with a pulsating cloud of rainbow happiness that I had the power to beat cancer, as I stood there slowly turning in a circle and looking at the thousands of friends that surrounded me, every eye that I met smiled back at me and in those smiling eyes I found strength.

Here I was on the eve of the day I learned I had a deadly disease and the feelings that kept pushing through to the forefront of my consciousness was the overwhelming feeling of love, so much love from my wife, my friends and the universe. I didn’t just feel love that night I felt hope, hope and strength, it was as if the thousands of people dancing with me knew exactly what I was going through and offered me all of the strength and hope in the world, so much strength and hope that I knew I could not only survive the cancer but by winning the battle that I had ahead of me I would come out the other side stronger than ever, I knew that I could not only overcome this disease with this strength but that I had always had this strength in me and it would be with me for the rest of my life and I intended the rest of my life to be a really long time.

On the Uber ride home with my wife’s head on my shoulder I contemplated an evening of nefarious mushroom consumption and on the dawn of a new year I came to the conclusion that I had the strength to take on the world, lucky for me I didn’t have to take on the world all I had to do was beat a little bit of cancer.

Please keep in mind that psychedelics are illegal in the US, I did the research, I had a trusted source for the mushrooms and I chose to take the risks and for me it was the right thing to do, the experience that I received from this trip will be beneficial to me for the rest of my life. I in no way condone drug use but I would suggest that there are certain instances where it is worth the risk. I walked away from that shroom trip with the confidence to beat the disease that would take my life if I allowed it. The day I learned I had stage 4 cancer was the day that I chose to live life to its fullest and the day I chose to Dance With The Dead!