This is the holiday card I was about to send you all when my world was turned upside-down by a cancer diagnosis this winter.
Greetings, loved ones!
I wish I could be writing under happier circumstances — but even in our trials, there is cause for joy and gratitude.
Back in January, I was working on this holiday card for you along with a year-in-review letter I was going to send out to all my relations. I was in the midst of my third year as a full-time teacher (and my first year as Dean of Faculty) at a high school in Santa Rosa, and Satya, now 8 years old, was halfway through the second grade — during the ‘pandemic year’ that came to be defined for so many of us by coronavirus — when I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
After a series of bloodwork and imaging, I underwent a pretty immediate mass-removal surgery on January 26, performed by my urologist, a brilliant and talented surgeon, and it was an apparent success. All that was left before I could be officially declared ‘cancer free’ would be two years under a surveillance protocol that would include bimonthly bloodwork and a seasonal CT scan to assure no recurrence. It felt like a miracle.
After a couple of weeks off following the surgery — which included some deep and ongoing soul-searching — I returned to work, finishing out a school year that has been among the most stressful eras of my life (even without the cancer factored in). I know this year has been a lot for us all. And along with all the amazing first responders out there, from frontline healthcare workers to grocers and delivery drivers, I have to give a special shout-out to the teachers and students and parents who weathered this year with such grace and patience. This year was a difficult, difficult initiation.
Around the beginning of May, I began experiencing and treating some intense back pain, which everyone (even my urologist) guessed was musculoskeletal in nature. During my surgery in January, they had to cut through my external obliques on one side. Had that destabilized my low back? Did I get back into practicing intensive parkour too quickly? I slowed down, took on a daily yoga challenge, found a chiropractor, committed to weekly acupuncture, and paid closer attention to my diet — but the pain persisted and increased and eventually spread into my abdomen.
When I gave the commencement address at QFA’s graduation, I thought I was just working through back pain…
I continued doing my best to work through the pain, rounding out the infamous “100 days of May” that educators know to be the longest and most grueling month on the academic calendar, and making it to our seniors’ graduation ceremony with Satya, where I was honored to give a commencement address that I look forward to sharing with you as soon as a recording becomes available.
Then, three Wednesdays ago — during my last day teaching on zoom for the year (on our hybrid schedule in which I got to see my students in person on alternating weeks) — I was in such immense pain that I had to hold class from a yoga mat on the floor in my bedroom instead of at my desk in the office. At a virtual meeting around noon, a couple of my colleagues caught a glimpse of me, heard me share briefly about my pain, and suggested I get some medical attention. With some reluctance, I drove myself to the ER.
“The cancer had apparently spread to some of my ‘retroperitoneal’ lymph nodes and formed a mass there, sort of sandwiched between my guts and my spinal muscles, which explained the back and abdominal pain. We were referred to an oncologist and it seemed chemotherapy would be a likely route forward.”
I’ve never been one to take myself to the emergency room for any old thing; previously, I’d pretty much need to be bleeding out on the floor in order to consent to a hospital trip. But in the last few weeks of deepening back pain, some of my routine cancer-surveillance bloodwork had also come back showing some anomalies.
My medical team and I were tracking three different “blood markers” whose elevation could suggest tumor growth. Prior to my surgery in January, my AFP (alpha fetoprotein) had been elevated — and it had gone right back down to normal levels after surgery. Now my LDH (lactate dehydrogenase) was mysteriously climbing. To be safe, my urologist had suggested we bump up my CT scan from later in the summer to ASAP, and I was just waiting for “prior authorization” from my insurance company when that morning of intense pain triggered my drive to the emergency room.
The ER doctor treating me that day confided in me that he, too, was a testicular cancer survivor. As he ordered up my CT scan, he told me not to be afraid. I did my best.
When she knew that I was heading to the ER, my mother Coralyn drove up from Pacifica to be with me. She has been such an amazing support, a rock of strength and a lighthouse of wisdom, throughout this whole process, and I am so grateful she came to be with me that day.
The ER was so full that afternoon, I didn’t even have a room, just a little bed sidled up along the hallway wall, which my mom scooted onto as the doctor came out to share the CT results: the cancer had apparently spread to some of my “retroperitoneal” lymph nodes and formed a mass there, sort of sandwiched between my guts and my spinal muscles, which explained the back and abdominal pain. We were referred to an oncologist and it seemed chemotherapy would be a likely route forward.
I was glad to have my mother there with me to absorb the news. We looked each other in the eye, seated on our little bed in the ER hallway as nurses wheeled other patients by, and spoke the truth that we both hold in our hearts: We will beat this. Come what may.
Then we held each other and cried.
On the way home from the hospital, I picked up Satya for our next full week together, on the flexible 50/50 coparenting schedule that her mother and I have worked out, and I began to prepare as best I could for all the unknown that was to come. My daughter has been such an amazingly helpful and good-humored trooper through this all. One of the most difficult aspects of this journey has been feeling and appearing so weak in front of this sweet girl who has always looked up to me and seen me as such a big, strong, capable man.
Before my biopsy at Marin General this June
The following week was a bit of a blur. It included meeting my amazingly patient oncologist and other members of the care team here at the UCSF-affiliated healthcare complex at the foot of Mount Tamalpais in Marin, developing a treatment plan, learning how to manage my pain, banking sperm in case the chemo has any impact on my fertility, reading Lance Armstrong’s beautiful autobiography (It’s Not About the Bike) at the recommendation of my ER doctor, having yet more blood work done, enduring a rather painful biopsy to gather more intelligence on this lymphatic mass, assessing finances and disability options for the summer of healing, and wrapping up grading and work responsibilities in order to focus fully on getting better.
Knowing that I had already met my annual insurance deductible by paying over $5,000 out-of-pocket for healthcare so far this year (and will likely do the same in the coming years with continued follow-up and surveillance), and knowing that I’ll be experiencing reduced income once on disability, my good friend Dana set up a GoFundMe account on my behalf. (Thanks, Dana!)
I am not asking for a donation here outright, but I’m sharing the link just in case you have an authentic desire to contribute. Please give what you can and feel free to share the link at will. As much as I welcome financial contributions in these difficult times, I also welcome connection, words of affirmation and solidarity in the form of emails and phone calls, and silent prayers for our shared emergence in victory and in light. And if you’re ever in the North Bay, I also welcome visits! (And healthy food!)
The funny thing is that, prior to this cancer "recurrence" — when I was ostensibly in the clear — I was actually working on another offering for you. I’ve been mentally writing an email like this — minus all the cancer stuff — to reintroduce myself and celebrate all the content that I’m excited to share with you.
For as long as most of you have known me, I’ve been working on a long-term writing project and really wanting to break through as an author and content-creator. You’ve seen me become a dad. You’ve seen me host a radio show and serve my community through disaster response during the 2015 Valley Fire. You’ve seen me run for US Congress twice and earn a Master of Fine Arts in Writing & Consciousness from CIIS in between campaigns. And since then, perhaps you haven’t heard much from me at all, as I’ve been deepening my teaching practice and gesturing toward greater stability in service to my daughter and in the spirit of cultivating a more sustainable long-term career as a change-agent.
But this whole time, I have had a dream.
I dream of finishing something that I can call “my book,” — Go Back and Fetch It — an intimate memoir chronicling my singular experience on planet Earth. And while the project has felt too overwhelming to integrate very powerfully into my daily and weekly grind as a teacher and single dad, I have really been doing my best to level up this last year — especially since my cancer diagnosis in January.
If my cancer journey has made one thing abundantly clear to me (beyond the general preciousness of every moment and of life itself), it is that I really need to write my book, sing my song, liberate my message, and integrate this life.
And while it is fundamentally for myself that I am doing this (for my wellness, for my salvation, because it is my purpose and my job and my unique calling on this planet), I also know that I feel called to share my labor of love with you.
So, while bouncing back from my initial cancer surgery this winter, and while staying up late nights over spring break, and even into this May of back pain and this June of chemotherapy, I’ve been working on singing this song and integrating my life into something shareable. I’ve been uploading video archives onto my YouTube channel, organizing my photos and writing, fleshing out a new podcast, setting up a Patreon account (launching here soon!) to facilitate ongoing contributions to support my content creation, and beginning to spruce up my website, which is morphing from a campaign site to an all-purpose mashup of my life.
In the coming months, I am excited to share with you all sorts of angles on the many things that I am interested in and passionate about, from electoral politics and revolution to integral education; from yoga and holistic wellness to entheogenic plant medicine and nonordinary reality; from emergency preparedness to permaculture, transition towns, and other local solutions to climate change and economic uncertainty; from transformational hip-hop music to parkour and fluid movement; from birth to death; from etymology and the true meaning of words to genre-bending literature and the true meaning of life.
So I’m sending this email to catch you up on some of these recent developments in my world, and to provide a small hint of what’s to come.
(Hint: there is much more to come!)
As always, this communication is intended for you as a trusted and supportive loved one in my life, and you are free to opt out at any time by following the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. I'm really only trying to get at people who want to hear from me!
You can also forward this openly to others and encourage people to sign up for these communications themselves by visiting tinyurl.com/nilsupdates. You can also link up with me on any of the social channels below, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
I’m cobbling away at this stuff in the background and none of it is perfect, but as wise poet Leonard Cohen famously and raspily sang,
“Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack in everything,
It’s how the light gets in.”
My first chemotherapy infusion took place on June 21, 2021. Photo credit: the best mom in the world.
This photograph, taken by my ever-lovin' mother, shows me on my first day of chemotherapy, which was two weeks ago. I have a smile on my face, but this has also been one of the scariest and most difficult experiences of my life.
Chemo will continue through the end of August, and I'll keep you updated on my progress through these emails. I'm wrapping up my first round this week, and I look forward to sharing more about what it's been like in my next dispatch.
For now, please accept my fond blessings and warmest regards. Whether we are family and you’ve known me my whole life, we’re close friends and you’ve been riding with me through these many chapters I’m integrating, or we met in New York or San Francisco or Lake County or on the road during one of my political campaigns, I am honored to be in community with you.
I remain committed as ever to doing my part to realize this big change we are all working toward, in our shared and deeply interconnected struggle to achieve liberation and justice for all.
Thank you for receiving this, thank you for knowing me, and thank you for being you. Much respect and appreciation!
Yours in love and light,
Nils