Before I begin the account, I will outline some background details about my father's condition and treatment. My father is 59 years old, and was diagnosed with primary pancreatic cancer in September 1997. He has refused chemotherapy and had one radiation treatment several months ago, preferring instead palliative treatment in the form of pain management. He has a 40-year history of alcoholism, was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes in February 1997, and smokes up to a pack of cigarettes a day.
He is 6 foot 4 inches and weighed 143 pounds, as of Friday, April 3rd 1998 when he had his last doctor's visit. This is an increase of six pounds from the month before, which we mainly attribute to a steady diet of high-fat, high-protein foods. His blood tests were unremarkable, with no noticeable abnormalities on liver and kidney function tests. He tested slightly anaemic and, of course, his glucose was high, but overall the tests were not as bad as they could have been. Rather than change the diet we currently have him on, the doctor instead preferred to increase his Humulin insulin intake to 30 units per day.
The medications my father is taking were not altered for the sake of the MDMA session, as per his wishes. They are as follows:
Dilaudid, administered subcutaneously at 20 mg QH.
Bolus doses available at 8 mg Q 15 minutes PRN.
Zoloft, 50 mg, 2 tabs BiD.
Restorfl, 15 mg, given QHS.
Pancrease, strength unknown, given at mealtimes.
Valium, 2.5 mg, given QiD.
It must also be noted that Dad had never ingested MDMA before this session.
On Sunday, April 5th, my stepmother, my boyfriend and I woke up Dad at 6 pm from a three-hour nap. He had not eaten since 11am, when he had a full breakfast. Noting that he was hungry, we gave him a piece of home-made cheesecake. After going over specifics of what to expect (he had been informed several days before, but wanted a re-briefing), we administered 107 mg of pure MDMA in a capsule.
We took the MDMA at 7.15pm. We gave my stepmother a half-dose to begin with, since she is small in stature and is prone to nausea and vomiting, with the understanding that we would check in with her after 45 minutes. If there was little or no effect at that time, we would administer the other half. With Dad, we opted to give him the full dose because of the meds he was taking, on the understanding that we would administer another full dose after 45 minutes if he was not feeling the effects.
At approximately 7.40 pm, my boyfriend and I could begin to feel the effects. At 8:00 pm, neither my Dad nor stepmother could feel what they thought was a difference, so we administered extra doses to them as outlined above.
At approximately 8.15 pm, both of them began to feel the effects of the MDMA. At this time I was fully experiencing the tactile effects, as was my boyfriend. My stepmother remarked that she had "an overwhelming sense of wellbeing." My father began to state that he was feeling something, too, and he liked it.
It is important to note our setting. We were all sitting in different corners of the room, with a pleasant visual video playing on the TV, muted, and a soft, mellow music CD playing. We have four cats in the house, and all four were making their way into the room, not especially interacting but wanting to be close.
At this time, Dad was lying on the sofa, propped up with pillows and covered by a blanket. My boyfriend had completed a lanyard which he intended to add on to the two I had created with my sister and which adorned the cane Dad has to use. When he was ready to present it, I moved onto the sofa next to Dad, my stepmother sat next to me, and my boyfriend was on the floor in front of Dad. We remained in these places for the remainder of the experience.
Very soon after we changed positions, I felt the urge to massage Dad's hands. As I did so, my stepmother decided she wanted to massage Dad's feet. After we did this, I massaged Dad's head and face, which he loved. The three of us just kept administering massage to Dad, wherever he wanted it. My boyfriend, who is an amateur massage therapist, massaged his back and neck. Dad's main remark was that "everything feels good" and that the sensations weren't as strong as he thought they would be. I had warned him that MDMA does not always come on very strong.
We all expressed how happy we were to be together, as a cohesive family. I turned to Dad and told him I loved him, and I saw genuine happiness in his eyes as he told it back to me. My stepmother remarked to him that she believes my presence in his life now - I've been living here with them for the last month - has definitively made an impact on the slowing of the disease process, to which he agreed. I reminded him of how important this time was and that I felt like we were living out a classical archetype, of the dutiful daughter come home to care for her dying father. He agreed.
We spent a good deal of time relating various anecdotal stories to each other, and even though the stories were unremarkable, it is important to note that we had not, until this point, been at such ease with each other to feel comfortable enough to converse in such a way. The most notable change was between my stepmother and me, because we both felt we had not 'known each other' to such an extent prior to the session ...
See also 'MDMA in the relief of pain' in Re-Inventing Society (Institute for Social Inventions, 1994, page 212; or on the web at: www.globalideasbank.org/reinv/RIS-217.HTML).
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