I have a good friend who’s been bugging me lately about my health. Call him Bob (which is, in fact, his real name). Bob and I have been friends for almost 30 years, despite the fact that we have not seen one another for almost a quarter century. Bob and his wife have lived in Alaska for the last 22 years, so all of our contact is by phone or email.

Bob is a “fixer.” Bob is a lot of things, to be honest, but high on his list of per­son­al attributes is that of fixer. You have a problem? He wants to fix it. The nation or the world has a problem? He wants to fix those, too. A lot of his fixes are more talk than anything, but his heart is in the right place.

For the last year or so, Bob has been trying to fix my myeloma. So I am often the recipient of email links (“April, you need to read this!”) and lengthy phone calls about whether I have tried or would consider trying or would at least talk to my on­col­o­gist about this supplement, vitamin, injection, whatever.

By the way, Bob is not a doctor. His wife is a doctor, a recently retired internist with the Veterans Ad­min­is­tra­tion system, but she is not the man behind the curtain directing these phone calls. It’s all Bob.

I put up with his calls and suggestions, which range from laughable to annoying, to a degree far beyond my usual tolerance for unsolicited and unwelcome medical advice. Why? Because it’s Bob. That 30-year history is pretty strong.

Bob’s latest call was all about marijuana, now that it’s legal in Colorado and Washington. He’s been re­searching marijuana. There are two strains of it. Some of it has no euphoric effects. He may be going to Colorado soon to get some for his own medical problems. He knows what strain he should get for himself. He has some ideas about what I should get. He could get me some. It would make me feel better. He’s not saying it would cure the myeloma (a tack he took in one phone call months ago) but I should try it. He knows all this because of his extensive research.

Bob, Bob, Bob.

Some basic facts about me. One, I never inhaled. Two, I work for a court in a state in which marijuana is ILLEGAL. Three, I’m not interested, even if it were legal here in Ohio.

I related this to Bob, and he came back with “I know! I know! But this might just help you! Consider it! Do some investigation!”

It was like being stuck in a bad Cheech and Chong skit, only they had funnier lines. (At least it seemed that way when I was in my twenties.)

My day job is that of a mediator with our local juvenile court. Recently I mediated a delinquency where the young offender took the very bad legal advice (“You don’t have to tell the cops your name!”) of another teen­ager with her and ended up with multiple charges as a result. I asked her where and when her 15-year old co-defendant went to law school. She looked at me in a puzzled way, and I pressed the point. “Well, you felt you could rely on his legal advice, so I figure he must have gone to law school somewhere.”

I told this to Bob and, to his credit, he roared with laughter.

“I know! I know! I’m not a doctor! But I’ve done my research!”

My oncologist and I think (believe, hope) that my myeloma is flat-lined at present. I’m waiting on one more set of lab tests later this month before I feel it as strongly as he does, but the evidence is certainly pointing that way. That’s the good news.

The flip side of that coin is that, after 10 years of the disease and almost 10 years of off and on treatment, the physical toll of treatment and disease on me has been significant. My current companions are fatigue and a rolling sick feeling that I can only describe as being hung over without any nausea or aches.

We (the medical “we”) are coming to the conclusion that these things are just the cumulative effect of the last decade. As the late Arnie Goodman wrote in one of his columns ^[1] for the Beacon, “Multiple myeloma takes its toll. A physician once told me that, between the disease itself and the treatments, it wears you down.”

And that’s where I probably am now: worn down.

But back to my well-meaning friend Bob. He might as well be quoting the 1936 movie, Reefer Madness: “Bring me some reefers!”

And I’m shouting back with Tommy Chong’s line from Up in Smoke: “HEY! MELLOW OUT, MAN!”