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16 cannabis patient care | vol. 2 no. 1 cannapatientcare.com patient focus cannabidiolic acid (CBDA), tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and cannabidiol (CBD). "We had a couple of different terpenes in there that had promise for prostate cancer," Brendan said. "But it took us a good year to experiment with that." "We sought advice from leading experts in the field includ- ing Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, Dr. Bonni Goldstein, Dr. Dustin Su- lak, Dr. Debra Kimless, and Mara Gordon. We experimented on everything from vaping to edibles to oils, and it turns out that we ended up using a combination of those things," Brendan said. "The oils were great once we found the right combina- tion, they would stay in his system for five or six hours before he would need his next dose." Their success in treating their father's prostate cancer re- ally turned heads. "The doctors at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center in Boston were blown away that someone who had stage IV cancer was lasting this long and had no bone pain unless he was off of cannabinoids," Brendan said. "That was absolutely amazing." When it came to allowing cannabis therapy, that hospital was the exception rather than the rule. Other medical systems in the Boston area were adamantly against it, Brendan explained, recalling how their father had to be rushed to an emergen- cy room on occasion during the course of his illness. "He hap- pened to end up at one particular hospital that became aware he was using cannabis," he said. "They actually threatened to throw us out of the hospital and charge us for all of the bills as opposed to sending it to the health care insurance. They re- fused to allow us to give him cannabis at the hospital." He argued that their father was experiencing tremen- dous nausea when he was not taking cannabis. "Our family said 'You guys have tried all the antiemetic drugs (anti-nau- sea drugs) that you have in stock and my father continues to throw up. He's now throwing up all of his medication—the heart medication, and all the pain medication you're putting him on. He cannot get comfortable. When we put him on can- nabis, all that goes away, and you can continue treating him.'" Fortunately, Brendan said, they had a wonderful nurse who helped. "She said 'I know a lot of patients have gone to canna- bis. I've seen how it can help patients. I'm going to walk out of this room, and you should probably do what you need to do to help your father. And don't tell us anything'." Their father's skepticism about cannabis changed as he went through the process, Brendan explained, so much so that he fundamentally believed at the end of his life that pol- iticians opposing this drug should go to jail for holding these compounds back from patients. "My father just saw how ben- eficial they were to his own life. And for us to see the im- pact that cannabinoids had on my father's life, and the fact that we, as a family, had the opportunity to spend four decent years with him before the last couple of months of his life where things really deteriorated." Richard lost his battle with prostate cancer on May 3, 2019 (9). The Healthcare Promise of Genome Sequencing The key to finding help for their father began with genome se- quencing, a process that can identify the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) fingerprint of a germ, and is part of a broader movement in healthcare to do precision medicine (10). What is genome sequencing and how does it work? According to the National Human Genome Research Institute (11), a genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, a chemical Dr. Raphael Mechoulam presenting at CannMed 2016. Photo credit: AM Media Group.