Stephen Jay Gould, Marijuana, and Statistics are Not Destiny

I'd read some essays by Stephen Jay Gould when I was in college. I never knew he was a cancer survivor. This from Wikipedia:

"In July 1982, Gould was diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma. He later published a column in Discover magazine, titled The Median Isn't the Message, in which he discusses his discovery that mesothelioma patients had only a median lifespan of eight months after diagnosis. He then describes the research he uncovered behind this number, and his relief upon the realization that statistics are not destiny. After his diagnosis and receiving an experimental treatment, Gould continued to live for nearly twenty years. His column became a source of comfort for many cancer patients."

"It was during his bout with abdominal mesothelioma that Gould became a user of marijuana to alleviate the nausea associated with his cancer treatments. Although Gould maintained, "I am something of a Puritan" with respect to any substances that would alter or dull his mental state—not drinking alcohol or using drugs in a recreational sense—he attributed value to the medicinal use of marijuana in helping him to face the painful side effects of his treatment and keep a more positive attitude (Grinspoon 1993). Ultimately, he recognized an important role to the maintenance of spirit through adversity, and that use of marijuana had an important effect on this aspect of his treatments, though he disliked the mental blurring."

"Stephen Jay Gould died May 20, 2002, from a metastatic adenocarcinoma of the lung (a form of lung cancer, which had spread to his brain). This cancer was completely unrelated to his abdominal mesothelioma, from which he had fully recovered almost twenty years earlier."