Finding Peace With the Fact I Would Die
How an NYU guided psilocybin research study helped me deal with my cancer-related anxiety
An hour before I took psilocybin, I finished the last chapter of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In it, the author Douglas Adams speculates that there are three distinct stages in the development of a civilization: 1) survival, 2) inquiry, and 3) sophistication. Perhaps, I thought, these three stages would inform my experience later that day at the Bluestone Center for Clinical Research at NYU, where I was participating in a research experiment for cancer survivors with anxiety.
I arrived at 8:15 a.m. and spent the next 45 minutes getting ready. Nurses checked my blood pressure and heart rate. I laid out pictures of friends and family, beads, ornaments, figurines — all things that would help make my environment as comfortable as possible. There were fresh flowers and fruit on the table.
My path to this moment began about a decade earlier. In 2004, at age 17, I was diagnosed with leukemia. The onset of the illness was sudden and unexpected. In a period of just several weeks, my health deteriorated. I went from playing varsity soccer to being unable to walk up a flight of stairs without losing my breath. I knew something was seriously wrong.
