I hope you are well! It has been a while since I’ve shared an update, and as we near my 38th birthday (on August 2nd!) — along with the two-year anniversary of the completion of my treatment for cancer and the beginning of a long recovery journey — I wanted to reach out with a few kind words and good tidings of what’s to come.
NEW! You can now view this post as a fun video with extra images and bonus content that includes breaking news!
I hope your springtimes are progressing in vivid color, and that your summer is shaping up to be a great one. I just wanted to share with my loved ones out there a couple of pieces of good news.
First: My MRI scan a couple of weeks ago yielded another negative result, showing no evidence of disease and further documenting my complete remission! I welcome and celebrate the clean bill of health!
2022 has been an amazing, humbling, sweet year — one of physical rehabilitation, family connection, spiritual expansion, celebration of life, and working to create a rich, new definition of “normal” after last year’s remarkable struggles and powerful lessons. It was also a year replete with its own challenges and surprises — but are these not essential aspects of the privilege of being alive?
What can we do but smile and give thanks for it all?
After a couple of really challenging years — a dance with cancer that included major surgery, brutal chemotherapy, and months of uncertainty with irregular scans ever-trending in the right direction but stopping just short of the longed-for resolution of “complete remission” — it finally happened.
I went in this November for another CT scan… and at long last...
It was NEGATIVE!
…If you caught my last post, you saw that I just celebrated my 37th birthday (while on an overnight train in northern Finland, no less)! Over the next few weeks, as I settle back into life at home, I’ll be integrating my experience and sharing stories and media from the road (to augment the brief photo chronicles I’ve already shared on Instagram and Facebook).
For now, though — as I pivot somewhat abruptly to Back-to-School Mode — I wanted to take the opportunity to share a video of a very special occasion that took place earlier this summer.
As we approach the holiday season and I continue go about this life-integration process — with an oncologist meeting today and just over a month until my next scan — I wanted to take this opportunity to issue a whole slew of gold stars by publishing a humble tribute to some of the authors and literary works that have had a major impact on my life so far.
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.
I write with good tidings and bearing a beautiful gift for you: the music of my dear brother, Lucas Wolf. Even if you're in a hurry, I encourage you to click through and hear this one song.
Unless you were part of our ragtag group of musician and artist friends in Lake County circa 2010-2015 (or are currently part of the indy scene of up-and-coming troubadours around Boulder), you probably haven’t come across Lucas Wolf.
Yet.
Of course, I’ll fundamentally do whatever is necessary to achieve a long life of thriving and living my purpose as a father and writer and instrument of peace — but I’ve also had a very strong sense that I am already cancer-free, that my body can take it from here, that whatever remained within me at the time of the scan (that fleeting snapshot of a moment in time) is already on its way out.
My belief and hope is that this surgery ultimately won’t be necessary.
As my body and soul have rebounded from the debilitating process of chemotherapy, I’ve had a clearer vision of the outcome that I desire and stronger practices for reaching my goal of vibrant health and freedom from all dis-ease.
It's been six years since the Valley Fire displaced me from my home and changed my life. In this article, I share my story and reflections on the incident, along with a link to Fire Station 88.1, the beautiful, short documentary chronicling emergency response efforts at our community radio station during the 2015 Valley Fire.
