“ Canna-bliss” ?
I’ve been thinking about St. Maximilian Kolbe. Do you know who he is?
Maximilian Maria Kolbe, venerated as Saint Maximilian Kolbe, was a Polish Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II.
Wikipedia says, “On 10 October 1982, Pope John Paul II canonized Kolbe and declared him a martyr of charity. The Catholic Church venerates him as the patron saint of amateur radio operators, drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, and prisoners. John Paul II declared him "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century." His feast day is 14 August, the day of his death.”
His feast day recently passed and I was thinking about his words about pain and suffering.
“Entering into his Passion”. It is difficult to accept suffering as a gift. There are many days that I ‘passionately’ do NOT want to suffer.
I had a fall recently and I’ve been feeling more sore than usual. At breakfast one morning, I was lamenting that the cannabis gels that I’m trying just aren’t working at all. (Our family has been trying to tell me to stop listening to the doctor’s advice and just take MORE gels. “You can’t take too many” , “Stop worrying about the money. Just take more and then pull back if you have to…” as a couple of examples. )
So Terry concurred and told me that I should just take 9 gels instead of the 3 I’ve worked my way up to. So I took the 9 gel caps and one gel with a little more THC in it. O.K. Let’s see if some of my pain could be managed this way!
Off I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning and all good there.
About an hour and a half after I took the cannabis pills I came into my office and the room started spinning. If I closed my eyes it seemed worse but I could barely keep my eyes open. I was worried I might faint so I made my way to the living room and sat down. My mouth was extremely dry but my biggest worry was the my jaw seemed to be going numb.
Terry virtually never carries or picks up his phone at the golf course. But I called him anyway to share with him what was going on…..and he actually responded by text. Unusual! He suggested that I just make my way to bed but when I said that I didn’t feel I could safely get off the chair he decided to come home after 2 holes of golf.
The dizziness continued to get worse and I believe I was slurring my words. I WAS STONED!
There are a few ‘bummers’ about this situation: A) I still felt pain! Arghhhhh.
B) It wasn’t like the movies! I didn’t get to see cool rainbows and unicorns flying around the ceiling or anything like that. I was just dizzy ….and now nauseous!
Anyway, Terry was able to get me to our room where I promptly fell asleep for 2 hours until the men tried to break in through the windows!
Oh, that? Of all days, the window washers that I booked showed up and the knock knock knocking of the hose water and squeegee woke me up to a bit of a hallucination. HA HA HA
Also, I was supposed to spend a portion of that lovely afternoon at my friend, Cathy’s home and when I indicated why I had to cancel she messaged me a photo of a guy dancing with a lampshade on his head. HA HA HA again.
It took over 5 hours for the affects to finally wear off. No fun.
So today I’m trying 6 per meal and I cut out the THC gel. Wish me luck!
Photo of St. Maximillian Kolbe above.
Praise be to God for the pain….and help me to endure it…or cure it if it be Your will.
And for our oft broken world this song verse by Marty Haugen…..
“May pain draw forth compassion, let wisdom rise from loss; oh, take my heart and fashion the image of your cross; then may I know your healing through healing that I share, your grace and love revealing, your tenderness and care.”