Truth Serum (The Calling-in-Sick Phenom)

Even though I now have the luxury of not having to answer to anyone, there was a point in time when I was someone's gainfully employed bi-otch. Being the sickly girl I am, I would, on occasion, have to call into work to tell my boss that I was ill and wasn't coming in, and each and every time I dreaded it.

It didn't matter if I was bleeding from my eyeballs or had a railroad spike sticking out of the back of my head, I always felt as if the person on the other end of the phone thought I was faking. Nauseous butterflies would take flight in my stomach and I would have to psych myself up to dial the phone. Chalk it up to guilt or paranoia or maybe just a plain old good work ethic, though I doubt that's it.

But now, that same feeling has followed me and applied itself to another aspect of my life.

Weed. Smoke. Action Figures. Ganja. Reefer. Buddha. Green. Gummi Bears. Grass. Lando Calrissian. Sticky Icky. Doobage.

So there we have it. So what does this have to do with calling in sick from work? Anytime I tell someone that I smoke, I feel like I'm being judged. It has to be being raised Catholic. It just has to be. What normal person carries guilt over such stupid stuff? But I digress.

I never smoked weed in high school. Tried it once or twice, but it didn't do anything for me. I'll admit it... I liked the harder stuff, but that was years ago. I probably should have smoked weed back then because my dad has always been a huge stoner and pinching it from him would have been easy peasy.

Many of my friends have been or still are smokers, and my better half likes it to relax every now and again, but never me. Never that is, until about 2 years ago. My nausea meds started to not work as well, and most of the meds I've been on since come with horrific side effects. So a friend of a friend suggested that I try smoking weed. If it works for chemo patients, it was worth a shot, right?

And it changed my life. I know that's a bold statement, but it's so true. I think I always had a misconception about marijuana, about "stoners" and what I thought I would, or rather wouldn't, do for me. But even though it has done wonders for me, I feel like I now fall victim to the same mind set that I had about marijuana smokers before. I'm afraid to tell my doctors about this great discovery because they don't know me. They'll look at my tattoos and my hair and figure I'm full of shit. I'm just a dumb stoner. At least, it's what I'm convinced they'll think. And that's a hard thing to deal with.

It also makes me angry. Angry at the people who don't understand. Angry at the government for keeping it illegal when say, oxycontin, isn't. Angry that it isn't covered by my medical insurance (wouldn't that be nice?) and angry at myself for not trying it sooner and suffering through all that time without it.

Being sick comes with so many emotions attached to so many strange things. And maybe some day I'll get over this baggage and maybe I won't. For now, I've holed myself up in my little cave and I'm not letting a whole lot of people in. I feel like I have secrets that have no reason to be secrets, but it's hard to let go. When you're convinced that you're going it alone, those secrets are the only thing that keep you afloat.