Only Getting Nedder
Details on my latest scan, Reel Recovery, and on to Oaxaca!
Hear ye, hear ye!
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!
Second: Thanks to successful community fundraising efforts (including a few appreciated donations from members of this group), I’ll be chaperoning several high school students on a 10-day service trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. We leave on Tuesday!
I invite you to read on for more details. Of course, if you’re in a hurry, don’t let me detain you! Either way, just know that you are loved and appreciated.
Also, in case you missed my annual letter a few weeks back, I’ve posted it to my blog here. Among the news I shared is that I was laid off a few months back. While looking for work, I’ve also been enjoying this opportunity to work on my book projects and organize my life. I’ve been pretty deep in some long-term writing and self-expression projects, which I look forward to sharing quite soon!
In the meantime, I wanted to share a quick reminder that my healing fundraiserremains open. It has not been as active as it was when I suffering through the more acute stages of treatment and recovery, but your support is just as helpful and appreciated as it has ever been. Thanks for the continued sharing!
NED 2: Nedder than Ever!
My recent no evidence of disease scan represented another milestone in my healing journey, and it was unique for a few reasons — the first being that it was an MRI scan, as distinct from the several CT scans I’ve had so far along the way. According to my doctor in a meeting a few months back, both scans are equally useful, but he ordered an MRI this time to give a different (and perhaps a clearer and more granular) look under the hood. With a new type of scan in the offing, I endured my share of “scanxiety” these last few months — but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
This was my first-ever MRI scan, and it lasted over an hour. If you’ve never had the pleasure of this joyride, picture being dressed in a hospital gown, hooked up to an IV, and slid into a tube the length of your body and not much wider — kind of like a cylindrical version of a drawer at the morgue — and being repeatedly instructed to hold your breath while the machine vibrates and emits a variety of loud sounds resembling a broken car alarm, right into your ears, penetrating not only your earplugs, but your very being.
Suffice it to say, I had to bring my mental A-game. While lying still for the uncomfortable procedure, I did my best to rest in my happy place — feeling the support of my family and ancestors and spirit guides, appreciating all that I love about my life, envisioning all that I look forward to in the decades to come, seeing myself as an old man on a tropical beach — and, above all, focusing on the image of my absolute favorite thing in the world: Satya’s face.
My mom, who has been my greatest champion and best friend through these recent trials, accompanied me to UCSF for the scan. Once again, I need to appreciate what a rock she has been for me. One of the best things about being done with cancer is seeing her tension slowly melt away. As much as it sucked being the one diagnosed and the one in the chemo chair, it must be even worse seeing one’s child go through something like that. I pray I’ll never have to, and I pray the same for you. But I tell you, this ol’ lady has been a fucking GANGSTA through it all. And as I celebrate my own freedom from the pain and fear of the experience, I doubly celebrate hers.
It took a couple of days for the result to show up on my chart, and another few days before I got to discuss it with a member of my healthcare team. The MRI not only showed the complete absence of any evidence of cancer: it showed a further decrease in the size of the lymph node we’ve been watching all this time! You may recall the drama of this node, as we gradually saw it shrinking in the months following chemo, until it finally reached the goal of being less than a centimeter in diameter last November. This scan showed it at 0.7 cm, putting it well within normal range.
I met with one of my doctors on Zoom to discuss the scan’s findings while I was on a fishing retreat for cancer survivors with Reel Recovery, nestled in a green valley between snowy mountain peaks in the Eastern Sierras, north of Yosemite. It was the perfect backdrop for the turning of yet another page. I’m not sure when my next scan will be — probably in a year — but either way, I am beginning to stack some wins and give myself more evidence that I’ve made it through the dark of night and am being greeted by the dawn of a brand new day
Reel Recovery
Last week, in the immediate wake of this scan, I drove five hours east to Hunewill Ranch, in the rural mountain town of Bridgeport, CA, to attend a Reel Recovery fishing retreat for cancer survivors. As featured on the Today Show, Reel Recovery has a pretty unique mission and identity as an organization: they support men at any stage of their cancer journey as they come together, share, heal, and fish.
While all of the “cancer camps” I’ve been to previously have been geared specifically toward young adults, I was far and away the youngest person in this group. It was especially powerful to be in a circle with these brave men who defied stereotypes by sharing their feelings and speaking their truth. I was really touched and inspired by the example of many of these brothers, including an older testicular cancer survivor who shared some sacred insight on life after cancer.
Although we gathered in circle every morning and night, the main activity of our time together was catch-and-release fly fishing, which was totally new to me. I’ve always been a fisherman, since early childhood mornings rising before dawn with my dad and going salmon fishing out in the ocean. But this was new — gentle, artistic, meditative. I was paired with an amazingly soulful fishing guide and we formed a pretty tight bond after a couple of days together on the pond. (Shout out Billy! I can’t wait to meet up again.)
I know I’ve mostly been focused on my own fundraising through this blog, but every once in a while I like to highlight kindred projects that are worthy of your time, attention and donations. Reel Recovery is definitely one of these projects, and if any of you are in a position to make a tax-deductible contribution to their powerful work, you can do so here.
On to Oaxaca!
I shared in my annual letter that my intention this year has been to have a more mellow (and more local!) experience, after the far-ranging, wayfaring, swashbuckling adventures of last year. After a 2022 that took me all over the place — from the snow-capped mountains of Northern California to the beaches of Baja, through the streets of New York City and half a dozen European countries, and to the heart of the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil — I’ve naturally been looking forward to a 2023 spent much closer to home.
So far, things have gone pretty well according to plan. Other than a couple of long weekends in the snow back in January (Mount Shasta with Satya, and Tahoe with friends), and this most recent couple of days fly fishing in the Eastern Sierras with Reel Recovery, I’ve spent the bulk of this year in pretty close orbit of my office and Satya’s school.
But when this Oaxaca opportunity (Oaxa-pportunity?) came to my attention, I felt an immediate, intuitive “YES!”
Granted, I’d be missing ten days of summertime writing progress at home — but we’re talking about a chance to travel to an amazing, new place on planet earth and support young people (both the teens I’ll be chaperoning on this life-changing voyage, and the street children we’ll be serving at our destination) — all for free.
Whatever language you speak, that’s a win-win.
I’ll be glad to share about my experience on my return. And other than some camping weekends, volunteering to staff a surf retreat for cancer survivors later this summer, and attending a yoga and sacred music festival with Satya in September, I’m stoked to spend as much of the foreseeable future as possible at my desk!
I’m undergoing a sort of personal revolution here, as I resurrect some expressive literary projects that have long been gestating (and birth some entirely new creations, as well). As fun as it is to travel about this magical world, my greatest truth right now is that I’ve got to tend to this rebirth I’m going through and continue to organize and write my life!
That, and I love being Satya’s dad!
What are you up to this summer? I’d be stoked to hear from you!
Drop me a line any time, or feel free to call or text me at 415-646-5630.
Wishing you much health and happiness!
Yours in community,
Nils
