Ben Sasse

You have cancer and treatment-driven nausea.

You're managing a diarrhea to constipation continuum.

And you've got energy and fatigue.

So when you go talk to a doc, docs like to, especially those that don't have the greatest bedside manner, they like to talk about their specialty or they like to get you off the issue you're talking about so they can talk again.

And she said, if you lead with any of your- I've never noticed that.

about our friends in the medical profession.

She said, if you lead with any of your four problems, there is a drug for that.

We can manage, medicine can manage any of those four problems, energy, undercarriage, nausea, or pain.

But the problem is the drug will probably mess up the other three variables.

And so you got to figure out how you want to manage the variables.

So I was in a ton of pain early on because I had some pancreatic tumors that were essentially pushing on my spinal column.

And so liver and pancreas, ribcage in the front, and they're pushing out the back into my spine.

And I was on 55 milligrams of morphine as soon as diagnosed, and that's your pie is a kite.

And we drove down my pain a lot, but since then, the drug has shrunk the tumor so much that I was willing to dial back up a little bit of pain to get a little bit of energy back and to be able to have a little more control of my nausea, et cetera.

So I'm down to only about 30 milligrams a day of morphine.

And I'd say my pain is, you know, 80% reduced from where I started.

So I manage nausea a lot.

There's a, you know, strong waves of desire to puke.

And when my face isn't bleeding, I'm actually pretty good with the puke.

And I mean, I don't like it, but you can throw up in your throat.