Dan Shapiro’s mom, like most parents, vehemently opposed her son smoking pot. At least she did — until her son was diagnosed with cancer. But for the sake of her son’s health, she bends her beliefs and grows marijuana in the lush backyard garden of their suburban home. She even used Consumer Reports to pick out a 3-foot bong for him.

Despite the title, “Mom’s Marijuana” isn’t just a story about smoking a little medicinal reefer. It is a tale of cancer survival and the support that helped Dan battle cancer.

In 1987, Shapiro was a 20-year-old junior at Vassar College and he, like all of us right now, had his entire life before him. He went to class, studied and dated. He even played on the ultimate Frisbee team. His life was loaded with all the benefits and pressures of being a college student. He had a relatively normal existence — until he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease.

For the next seven months, instead of hanging out with friends, going to keg parties and doing things that all college students do, Dan spent hours in treatment at the hospital. And instead of reaping the benefits of upperclassman status, he spent his time reaping the benefits of chemotherapy, drug cocktails and radiation therapy.

“Mom’s Marijuana” is a collection of short stories from the journal that Dan began when he was first diagnosed. The stories are organized chronologically and set in different stages of Dan’s battle with cancer. This book does the damn-near impossible: it takes a heart-wrenching story and turns it into an interesting glimpse at surviving cancer early in life.

After his first of several recoveries, Dan started graduate school in clinical psychology. As he is beginning his rounds in the bone-marrow transplant unit at the University of Florida hospital, Dan meets Terry, a nurse. She is amazing. Despite warnings from her friends and co-workers, Terry dates and eventually marries Dan, knowing that he could die of cancer. Instead of running away, she helps him through his illness and becomes one of the most amazing characters in the novel.

Throughout his battle and the novel, the reader meets not only family and friends but also other acquaintances that made a mark on Dan’s life and his recovery. Dan’s first counseling patient at the hospital is Jodi, a young girl struggling with the same cancer that he has been fighting. A few months later, she dies and his cancer returns. He is given a 40 percent chance of survival and undergoes the same transplant that killed his young patient.

The picture the author paints of his mother growing pot is hilarious. Even funnier are the stories about his mother’s involvement with freezing his sperm. (Dan and Terry now have two children thanks to his parents’ active role in storing sperm.) At one point his family discusses the details of his sperm deposits over dinner. But as Dan got sicker and his battle with cancer longer, the stories turn a bit more sentimental.

The title is a bit misleading because “Mom’s Marijuana” morphs from funny to reflective and again to appreciative. Through the stories, Dan describes what it means to love someone first through humor, then by describing support, finally ending in thankful appreciation.

Today Dan is an assistant professor in psychiatry, integrative medicine and psychology at the University of Arizona. He spends his time preparing patients diagnosed with fatal illnesses for the mental and physical battle of having a life-threatening disease. He also travels around and speaks to groups in the medical community about health care.

Dan Shapiro reads tonight at the University Book Store.