Medical Privilege & the Cost of Living
Whatup, Cancer Bandits!
I hope you're all thriving and enjoying this beautiful life!
If you missed my last dispatch, I launched a new "Gold Stars" series honoring the work of others by introducing you to the music of my brother Lucas Wolf. That post, along with my latest health update and more, is now live on my blog at nilspalsson.org/news.
With two weeks to go until my next big CT scan (now scheduled for October 22), I'm going hard on the holistic healing — and it's got me thinking a lot about what it truly takes to overcome a health challenge like this one... and how privileged I am to have the ability to take the steps I've been able to in this dance.
As the end of the calendar year approaches, I'm preparing for another year of steep healthcare costs. Even in the best possible outcome of complete and documented remission (here we come!), I'll face the costs of follow-up doctor visits, ongoing scans and bloodwork, and continued healthcare as I recover from chemotherapy and build up a stronger foundation of holistic wellness. I’m committed to assuring that this year's brush with cancer is never to be repeated.
Those who have been reading these missives since June may remember the “Cancer Bandits” dreamI shared around the time I started chemotherapy.
I was a young child in a poor family in an Old West mountain town, and even in the dream, I was cancer-stricken.
That day, a posse of kind, grizzly men who identified themselves as the "Cancer Bandits" had been welcomed into my home. One of them tossed me a small leather satchel full of old-fashioned gold coins, proclaiming, “As long as some people are suffering and some have plenty, we’ll be there to make sure the good is shared and people like you have what you need.”
I feel very fortunate to have access to the health care that I’ve been benefitting from (more on that later in this dispatch) — but I also deeply identify with the boy in that dream, only able to access healing, in many ways, through the good graces of others.
As I reorient myself toward this upcoming (unremarkable, insh'Allah!) CT scan on the 22nd, and the remission and recovery that lie beyond, I’m paying out-of-pocket for the many forms of healing support that aren't covered by insurance (such as acupuncture, naturopathic support, herbs, supplements, massage, and energy work) — and I’m more grateful than every for all the support I’ve gotten from you, my Cancer Bandits out there.
This drawing, which was included in a recent care package sent by a dear friend who has proudly taken up the Cancer Bandit moniker, is an eight-year-old’s rendition of what a Cancer Bandit might look like.
I’m excited for us to reach this campaign’s fundraising goal and move on to more exciting causes (like publishing a book and launching a podcast!), but for now, I give humble thanks for the ongoing donations to this healing endeavor. Gracias!
“With full acknowledgement of the privilege implicit in the healing that I have access to, I’ve still been in what has felt like a major fight for my life and my future here — and as such, I have continued to give this healing project my full attention and the full weight of whatever support has flowed in my direction.”
The Privilege of Deep Healing
I recognize that my access to such amazing complementary healthcare options as massage, acupuncture, naturopathic consultations, potent supplements, and trips to visit the coast or soak in hot springs — even having access to organic foods or a gym — is a major privilege.
I recall vividly the experience of witnessing my father's rapid decline and ultimate death, deeply in medical debt, after fighting his losing battle with cancer with an exclusively allopathic, western, mechanistic medical playbook (on the standard American diet and pretty much making the same lifestyle choices in his treatment that he had made leading up to his diagnosis). His widow was unable to keep the home, which foreclosed on as an effect of a subprime mortgage, and all my father was ultimately able to bequeath to me were twenty-odd years of great memories, a few keepsakes, and a modicum of intelligence and good looks ; )
I know that many patients out there are suffering with the bare minimum in terms of medical care and holistic support — or, worse yet, unable to receive medical care to begin with — and that is a major and ongoing public travesty that deserves urgent attention and action.
Globally, and even here in the United States, there is tremendous injustice in healthcare access — and as I recover from this most difficult experience of my relatively blessed life, I am committed to being an instrument of change and doing whatever I can to serve as a successful advocate for the policy change (and system change) that will ultimately result in peace, justice and amazing healthcare for all.
In the meantime, though — as a single, working-class dad who is currently on a very limited fixed income — I am deeply grateful for the amazing support you have all shared with me. And, in service to my daughter and my mother and my community (and in honor of this life that I so cherish), I am taking advantage of every inspired healing opportunity that comes my way, privilege though it may be.
I would not be experiencing anywhere near such great healing results without you all. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.
With the remainder of this post, I'll detail some of these wellness-promoting opportunities I've been seizing, from directly physical modalities to subtler forms of energy healing. This post ran a bit long, so next week I'll be publishing the second part, which explores questions of deeper meaning and what I'm finding it really takes to heal through such a major wake-up call.
So far, recovering from cancer has been a full-time job. I'm just grateful to be here doing it, and looking forward to amplifying all this goodness with a lifetime of giving back and paying it forward.
Recent Additions to My Medicine Kit
With full acknowledgement of the privilege implicit in the healing that I have access to, I’ve still been in what has felt like a major fight for my life and my future here — and as such, I have continued to give this healing project my full attention and the full weight of whatever support has flowed in my direction.
In previous posts, I’ve written at length about some of my approaches to complementing the chemotherapeutic centerpiece of my cancer-healing toolkit. As I’ve moved, blessedly, into this post-chemo era, I’ve been reinforcing this toolkit, making some adjustments to my existing tools, and making use of some new methods and modalities as well.
In this section, I’ll be elaborating a bit on these myriad (and in some cases cash-intensive) approaches I’ve taken to this project of thriving through and beyond cancer.
Let thy food be thy medicine
Nutrition has continued to be a major focal point of my ongoing healing. Early on in the cancer journey, I began to eliminate added sugar and dairy, with an intuitive sense (reinforced by my naturopath) that these would not serve my curing efforts.
At the same time, I’ve been attempting to eat a mostly whole-food, plant-based diet, while also doing my best to increase protein intake (which has included some fish, poultry and other animal protein in what feels like balanced quantities). Above all, though, it’s plants, greens, veggies — and as much diversity thereof as possible — that form the backbone of my diet.
Goodbye, gluten
Early into my treatment, I also had some food allergy testing done to ensure that nothing I’m consuming is inadvertently sabotaging my healing efforts — only to find that, as I had suspected, I have a sensitivity to gluten. So I’ve also been eliminating that from my diet. In the spirit of crafting a ketogenic diet for myself, I’ve also been trying (and admittedly struggling) to greatly reduce other forms of carbohydrates… Why, oh why, does every meal seem to be better with some sort of bread product, chip or cracker?
Organic investments
I’ve generally had a pretty liberal approach when it comes to spending money on healthy food, citing the idea that it’s better to pay more for food now and less for healthcare down the road. Having cancer may have debunked the notion that eating organic was some sort of cure-all or complete protection from a scary diagnosis — but I still believe in the power of eating the best quality food (and as locally and organically as possible). As a man healing from cancer, and as a father to a wonderful growing human being, making that investment in quality food with whatever resources I have remains important to me.
That good good (aka green juice)
I still have the same old $99 Breville juicer I’ve had since around the time Satya was born, and it still works like a charm. And while sometimes I’ll treat myself to a bottle of veggie nectar from the local juice bar, I’ve done my best this year to keep my body supplied with at least a serving (if not two or three) of home-juiced yum-yum every day.
I keep pretty varied in my juice recipes, but my A-List ingredients are celery, cucumber, kale, and parsley, and some of my favorite supporting actors include fresh turmeric, ginger, beet, carrot, parsnip, daikon radish, cilantro, spinach, arugula, dandelion greens, and the very occasional apple.
Sup’ dude
I’ve also alluded previously to the role of supplements on my rather robust team of healing helpers. In the long-long ago (that is, B.C. — before cancer), I used to take a multivitamin, probiotic, B-complex, fish oil, and half a dozen other more occasional compounds like ashwagandha and healing mushroom capsules like Stamets 7, all at pretty low doses.
During chemo, I eighty-sixed pretty much everything except my multivitamin and probiotic because I didn’t want to counteract the cell-killing power of my newfound medicinal ally. But since finishing chemo — and especially these last few weeks, as I’ve been supporting my body in quantum healing before my next CT scan — I’ve not only resumed taking supplements: I find myself pounding more of them than ever before.
Heavy hitters
In the realm of supplements, I’ve had some invaluable guidance from my naturopath, and my current regimen includes mega-high doses of "CuraPro" curcumin (turmeric) extract, as well as “Oncoplex” capsules that are basically essence of broccoli. I’m also taking lots of Turkey Tail mushroom, increased doses of fish oil and probiotics, and some encapsulated herbs to support and protect my liver after the heroic work it has done in helping me survive chemo. I’ve also recently added an emulsion of the adaptogenic plant Artemisinin (wormwood) and something called "Wobenzym" to help break down the fibrinogen sheath that any remaining tumor cells might be hiding under, so that my natural killer cells and other lymphocytes can get at them. (Immune team, activate!)
Singing in high C
This week, I also began intravenous high-dose vitamin C, which has documented anti-cancerous effects and should help my body break down and process any leftover tissue from the affected area and help ease me into the much-desired realm of post-treatment healing. It is also a great immune booster and energy enhancer. I’m paying out-of-pocket for these $150+ treatments once or twice a week over the next month or so, which is exactly the sort of thing this fundraiser is helping me have the confidence to know I can afford.
Naturopathic support
I want to give a quick shout-out to my ND (naturopathic doctor) — and, while we’re at it, all naturopathic doctors! — here as well. I value modern western medicine (especially in cases of acute and severe challenges), and I certainly went running to them with my concerns about cancer, just as I would with a broken bone. But I’ll also echo the increasingly common critique that Western medicine all too often tends to treat symptoms rather than underlying root causes.
When I see my naturopathic doctor, I know that I am more than a case number or a walking diagnosis; I am seen as a whole healing human being, just as I see myself. The naturopath I’m consulting, while not covered by my insurance and therefore pretty costly to see, has been an invaluable support as I’ve done my best to really take charge of my healing instead of simply being a "good patient" and handing all authority over to oncologists and surgeons. He has supported my choice to do chemotherapy (and indeed as a cancer specialist, he has encouraged it), but he also shares my skepticism of further surgery and feels my case bears more time and vigilance before resorting to such invasive interventions.
Through this naturopathic clinic and practitioner, I’ve found support in keeping a bird’s-eye view on my whole treatment and healing as a person, including the act of balancing all the other therapies listed here.
Water is life
I could have easily put this first. I am a lover of water, and I drink as much pure, clean water each day as I can (typically filtered water from a local reverse-osmosis distributor — and, when I can get it, spring water filled at a nearby natural artisanal spring). Whatever the healing task at hand may be, hydration, hydration is the key.
The healing role of water also applies to getting in water and doing various forms of hydrotherapy. I go to my favorite hot springs, Harbin (near my old Cobb Mountain home in Lake County) as often as I can — including this weekend! And as I’ve written about here before, I’ve also really enjoyed spending plenty of time in the ocean lately, both body-surfing and boogie-boarding with Satya in my wetsuit, and jumping in for occasional swims without my wetsuit to really jumpstart the ol' immune system. I’ve also been doing some very amateur cryotherapy at home by including hot-cold oscillations in my morning showers. And, at the risk of sharing too much information, I’ve even included some hydrotherapy for my beloved colon with a recent trip to my favorite colonic spot. (...If you've never partaken, I highly recommend it.)
Say qi
I am a believer in energy (also known as qi or prana), and what most of these modalities add up to, at core, is supporting my body in building up and balancing my qi. One of the therapies I’ve appreciated most on this journey (and increasingly so as I’ve moved from chemo to recovery) has been acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
I attend acupuncture sessions once a week with a gifted healer here in Cotati, who has also prescribed a healing tea with a custom combination of ancient Chinese herbs, which I brew every other day at home in a clay pot and drink warm three times a day. (See what I mean about this healing thing still being a full-time job?)
The brew is bitter and includes many strange-smelling herbs, along with some surprising ingredients (like shards of abalone and oyster shells), as well as cancer-fighting apricot kernels. While it is definitely an acquired taste, whenever I sip this brew (and whenever I get those little needles put in me), I get the strong intuitive sense that this is playing a major role in my healing.
I've also been getting more and more curious about the ancient meditative and healing art of qigong, and I've begun to dip my toes into its mystical pools — but I haven't gone too far in... yet! It is only a matter of time, though, because I know it is calling to me and seeking me out. I will keep you posted as the journey unfolds.
Yoga will save your life
Well before cancer, this is a statement I have felt or heard internally for years — and I still sense it to be true.
I have been practicing yoga, mostly on my own, for over thirteen years. During this cancer episode, I’ve done my best to incorporate moments of yoga practice into each day. Most often, I’m doing this solo on a mat on my living room floor, but at times I enjoy following videos on YouTube channels like Yoga with Adriene.
When I really feel into it, I get the sense that I’ve only scratched the surface of my potential as a yogi, and I feel the yogic path ever beckoning me to deepen my practice. I have regular visions of stronger training, more intensive study, and perhaps even someday being able to teach and support others in building their own yogic practices. But for now, if I can steal 20 minutes on the mat in the morning before Satya gets up, or at night before bed, that feels like a victory. Much like a workout, the only bad yoga session is the one you miss.
Gym carry
Speaking of working out, another major recent development in my recovery has been getting a membership to a local health club. Exercise, like healthy food and plenty of water, is a well-known key to improving overall wellbeing. My gym visits often consist of a nice stretch, a 3- to 5-mile run, some rowing, and gentle practice easing my chemo-addled muscles back into weight-training, capped off with some time in the sauna and steam room followed by a cold shower.
Even with all the fancy healing treatments I’ve been receiving and expensive supplements I'm taking, this annual gym membership has honestly been the best $250 I’ve spent all year. I know it will take time, but I am committed to coming out of this cancer experience healthier than I was going into it.
Let’s get this workout in!
The climb
The metaphorical climb that is my healing through cancer has recently been evolving into more of a physical climb, as well. My people, I have discovered the joy of indoor rock-climbing.
For as long as I’ve remembered, I’ve naturally liked climbing on things, jumping over things and playfully interacting with the world around me. Those of you who know me well probably already know this about me — but show me a big rock or a tree, and I’ll show you a guy climbing a big rock or a tree.
A few weeks ago, I visited an indoor climbing gym for the first time ever… and I kinda found my jam. I’ve been back a few times (including once with Satya!) and I have found it to be a great full-body (and mind) workout. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle with your entire being.
(Bonus: working so intensely with my hands and feet is helping me heal some of the burning and tingling neuropathy in my fingers and toes that have remained as a souvenir from chemo!)
Helping this bodywork
We all need more massage.Back in my day as a young massage therapist and holistic health facilitator in training, I used to do massage trades all the time with my colleagues from the World School in San Francisco.
There was even a time, back before Satya was born, when I had a room in my home dedicated to massage. Friends would come up from they city and spend weekends at my sylvan retreat, trading bodywork and energy healing day and night.
Since "growing up," though, I’ve barely received any massage! That is, until this cancer teacher stepped in to remind me the importance of hands-on healing touch.
Thanks to a couple of grants that I applied for early in my treatment, I was awarded a dozen or so free massage sessions, which I enjoyed during and immediately following my summer of chemical torture. While I've used all those complementary sessions, I’m continuing to heal with massage, and I know it has been very useful in this ongoing effort to support my body in releasing any final vestiges of unwanted cells from my lymph nodes while promoting overall wellness.
I’ve sampled a couple of local practitioners, including a lymphatic massage therapist, and — most awesomely! — I was recently connected with a massage and energy work practitioner from the Harbin community who is bar none the most gifted healer I’ve ever worked with. The first time I received bodywork from this sister, I was crying on the table with gratitude for finally finding someone who gives massage and energy work in a style so similar to my own, with just the right pressure and intuitive moves that seem to be listening to my body’s every need. When I’m on this woman’s table, it’s like I’m massaging myself while being touched by an angel. And I am extra-stoked to see her again this weekend!
I have been nursing an emerging vision of posting up some flyers inviting wellness practitioners of all sorts to gather for trade parties one or two evenings a month at my place in Cotati. Healers need healing too — and trade parties are a great way for us all to get free bodywork! I'm excited to see who will turn up and what we can learn from one another. Stay tuned for more on that.
"Currently" healing
This may sound a little “woo” for some of y’all, but I’ve also been doing sessions with a healing modality known as “frequency-specific microcurrent,” or FSM. This was initially recommended to me by a friend, an elite medical professional whose testicle had swelled to the size of a milk carton due to fluid draining from an infection in his abdomen after a botched appendectomy. He healed completely and avoided a major invasive surgery — all by doing four sessions of FSM.
This therapy involves laying on a massage table with wet towels under my neck, over my ankles, and around my abdomen, with each towel connected to alligator clips wired to a machine emitting low-frequency electrical currents, which have been studied and developed over decades to support specific organs and bodily functions and aid in the healing of various maladies.
As a believer in the “placebo effect,” I’ll acknowledge that FSM is kind of a fringe therapy, and as with most things, belief likely plays a strong role in efficacy. But as with the acupuncture and herbs and everything else on this list, I’ve felt a resounding intuitive “yes” when learning about and receiving this form of therapy, so I'm continuing with it. It also helps that the practitioner I am seeing is a greatly intuitive healer, a gifted therapist and a kindred soul.
Good ol’ therapy
While we’re on the topic of therapy, psychotherapy deserves a strong mention here.
For a few years, well before this cancer journey, I was seeing an amazing therapist at the Liberation Institute in San Francisco to work through an earlier chapter of my emergence. (Gold Star alert! I’ll share more on the Liberation Institute soon — but for now, if you’re in the SF Bay Area and in need, they offer sliding-scale integral therapy, and no one is turned away for lack of funds. I strongly recommend them!)
Around the time of my last campaign for Congress, my therapist and mentor moved to Maui to work on developing a Hanuman temple there (Jai Hanuman!) — and since then, I’ve been looking for a new therapist. If you know an amazing shrink in Sonoma County, especially one with a Jungian background, please refer me!
In the meantime, I have benefitted from some temporary venues for sharing and working through the manifold inner aspects of my intense journey. I’ve attended some cancer support groups (and could probably use more of that, come to think of it), I’ve spoken several times with the amazing hospital chaplain at Marin Cancer Care, and I’ve done a few sessions with a local therapist (who is, likewise, about to retire). I think I'm ready for something more steady, though. I've located some baggage that needs unpacking.
I’ve also used my journal, art and meditation as avenues for reflecting on and making meaning of this tumultuous year, but I know that I could definitely use a more regular and stable place to track this inner journey. (...And for whatever it’s worth, I believe therapy is for everyone and that we pretty much all need it — so if you’ve been thinking about getting help, please do!)
Meditation and visualization
I’ve shared much about visualization already in previous dispatches, including my inner conversations with the cells in my body, and the healing artwork that Satya and I have created together to express and guide the healing process. So for now, I’ll just say that the mediation continues, and I’ll acknowledge that, much like the yogic journey, I know I have a long way to go in my practice.
So far, while I’ve made some effort, my meditation routine has been spotty and irregular. I look forward to the day when I can truly say I have a regular daily practice, and one of my growth edges right now is letting go of my inner striver and perfectionist tendencies and just sitting the F down, even if I only have five minutes. I’m doing my best, and I know I can do better.
Getting at the root
This probably deserves its own email, but my tale of cancer and healing has an interesting dental backstory.
I’ll tell it all in greater bloody detail soon, but for the moment, I’ll start by saying that in January, around the time of my initial cancer diagnosis, I also had my first and only root canal, which I’ve regretted ever since. All year — especially through my cancer recurrence and treatment this summer — I’ve had a strong intuitive calling to get this effing thing out of my head as soon as medically feasible.
I didn’t want to expose myself to oral surgery while I was on chemo because I was immunocompromised and lacking in sufficient platelets for clotting. But now that my blood is getting back to normal, truss-n-believe I’m gettin' this sucka pulled.
A recent visit with my dentist (and a set of dental X-rays) confirmed what I suspected: even after the root canal, there is an infection deep beneath that dead tooth, menacingly close to my sinuses. My beloved biologic dentist and my naturopath both concur with my intuitive knowing: that muhfucka has got to go!
It may cost me a few grand, all told (including a bone graft and the possibility of a dental implant next year), but this is one of those things I just know in my bones to the point that I can’t really be told otherwise: I need to get this root canal out of my body, and doing so will benefit my overall healing and help me to be (and remain!) cancer-free.
Were I to keep this dead tooth, the infection would continue to lurk in and around it, daily sapping my body of vital energy as I constantly tried to fight off the bacteria. Worse yet, the infection could spread to my sinuses or brain. All the while, the dead organ (yes, teeth are organs!) would continue leaking nasty pathogens into my throat and esophagus and bloodstream. No thank you!
I know it’s a touchy topic, and I don’t want to throw shade at anyone else’s medical choices — we all do what we gotta do to survive in this crazy life! — but if you’re ever considering a root canal in the future, note for the record that this one schmo says, “don’t do it!”
As for me, I’ve got my extraction scheduled for the 18th, and I am stoked to get this little alien out of my mouth. I know this will be a major win for my long-term health, and I’m only sorry I didn’t just follow my intuition and extract back in January.
Writing, enjoying, and living the life I’m meant to live
Oh, my dear, beloved reader!
What I wrote for you this week was surely too long!
I know because what I've copied into this email so far is barely half of it.
In my next inevitably prolix publication, I’ll share more about the healing powers of writing, self-expression, having fun, living one's dreams, and other profound aspects of the life-transformation process that is the true centerpiece of my overall healing project (...and the most meaningful of all healing modalities!).
In short, I’m working on hearing — and heeding — the messages this cancer has brought me, in terms of my purpose and lifestyle and my ever-evolving answer to the eternal question posed by poet Mary Oliver, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Whatever I do, I'm glad to be doing it in community with you.
Wishing you all the best!
Yours in health,
Nils
