[00:00:08] Speaker A: My name is Nancy Farrow, also known as Mama Lou, and I'm the founder of Epic Experience.
Epic Experience mission is to empower adult cancer survivors and thrivers to live beyond cancer.
I hope that as you in the campfires of hope, living Beyond Cancer, you find hope, healing and empowerment through stories and education. We aim to guide those impacted by cancer and more importantly, offer love and support to anyone out there who needs it.
This is beyond cancer.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Hello everyone. This is Gail, Aka Sunshine. Today we have Nils Paulson joining us around the campfire. Welcome, Nils.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Hey, good to be here with you.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Well, first, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, where you're from, and please include one fun fact.
[00:01:26] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks so much for having me here. So my name is Nils Paulson. I'm from San Francisco originally and I live in the North Bay area. I'm a father, I'm an author and an educator and now also a healthcare worker. I've spent most of the last several years teaching high school and engaging in grassroots community organizing, especially around local resilience projects. And I'm currently serving as a medical assistant in a Naturopathic practice that actually helped me during my healing journey, which is really special.
Yeah. I'm also working on a number of self expression projects, including a few books, and one of those books is entitled Cancer Dancer, which is a memoir of my cancer experience, including the tools and tactics I found helpful in my journey.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Yeah. I love being a dad. My daughter Satya just turned eleven. I love to play basketball and practice parkour.
And one fun fact about me is that I've run for US. Congress twice.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Oh my gosh.
Okay.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I didn't win, but I've been that's amazing for sure.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: You are the first potential Congress person that I have talked to. So that is very cool.
[00:02:40] Speaker C: Yeah, it was something. I mean, I may do it again someday. I've been kind of grappling with being a change agent my entire life and just kind of working with this awareness that our political and economic systems are not optimized for serving our people and planet and kind of wanting to advance the movement for social and racial and environmental and economic justice and just sort of finding where my foothold in that is right now. It's all just about kind of creating some foundational stability in my life. I think that's where the whole cancer experience led me really to.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Very cool. Well, because I am also an author, I have to ask what your book was about, the one that you've already written.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: What I've written has not been a book so far.
Yeah, I've done a lot of writing of articles and I blogged a lot too during my cancer experience.
But now there are book projects that are bursting through and there's a parenting book, Wild Parenting. There's a cancer book, Cancer Dancer and then kind of working on a more all encompassing life memoir, which is Go Back and Fetch It. So those are my main projects right now.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Wow. And you already have titles. That's awesome. Congratulations. Well, best wishes to you on the writing journey. I love it.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Thank you. How about you? You're an author too?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: I am an author, yes. I've written mainly books for kids, children's books, but that is another story. So, going with cancer dancer, tell us briefly about your cancer experience. When were you diagnosed, what was your diagnosis and what was your treatment, and when did you stop?
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Sure, I was diagnosed in January 2021 with testicular cancer. And just like, in brief, I had a partial orchiectomy or a left orchiectomy. And that summer, so a few months later had a recurrence in one of my lymph nodes in my abdomen, near my aorta. So it had kind of, like, invaded my central space, which was pretty terrifying.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: And that summer, I went through three rounds of BEP chemo, and since then, it's just been a lot of gradual recovery, building on my strength. There were some irregularities in my scans after chemo, and I had to kind of continue with holistic self treatment just this last May. So this 2023 achieved my no evidence of disease, and I've been kind of celebrating that ever since.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Yes. Congratulations. So you've talked a little bit about naturopathic, remedies and even writing about that. Did you do that all through treatment? So as you were doing chemo, you were kind of doing your own supplemental, I guess.
[00:05:31] Speaker C: Yeah, totally. The whole cancer dancer paradigm, right? I think a lot of people talk about battling with cancer and a war with cancer, and there is a part of us that when we're dealing with this really heavy duty vibration of cancer, it's like we do need to put up a boundary and kind of say, Stop.
So there is some kind of battle element, but it was more life serving for me not to think of it as a battle, but to think of it as a dance. And I'm learning from this.
I'm getting some teachings from my cancer teacher and dancing with this vibration that came into my life for sure. So I didn't want to give up all my power to one or two doctors. And I say this to other patients out there, too, is that you have a healthcare team and you're the coach. So I was the coach of my team, and I brought in naturopaths and acupuncturists and chiropractors and nutritionists and social workers and I mean, it's a whole family members and friends. It's everybody.
I did it all and worked a lot with what I was eating and what I was doing with my body, what I was taking in. I think that all mattered for me in my long run.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Do you think that helped you cope mentally, emotionally, physically? All of the above.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
We all have our own way of sort of dealing with the trauma of something like this. And some folks like to sort of say, don't ask why, right? Bad things happen to good people. And for me, it was helpful for me to ask why for me to consider that this teacher and this teaching came into my life for a reason.
Why am I being diagnosed with a really scary, life threatening illness? And especially I look at disease in the body and where it occurs and kind of like read that symbolically. What does it mean for someone to have a pain in the neck or a bad back or something wrong with their foot or their stability? So for me, I had this cancer occurring in my center of creativity and creation and then also kind of recurring in my center of my solar plexus, the sort of the center of will and purpose. And so, yeah, that brought me into considering my work in my life and my purpose in life and how much I'm really being true to my purpose and expressing.
So I'm kind of not answering your question about how the sort of naturopathic or holistic stuff it felt empowering to me.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: It felt empowering to me like I'm not just like a consumer or recipient of this health care process, but like a co creator with it.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Well, right. And even I'm thinking again about the title of your forthcoming memoir, cancer Dancer. That's a choice that you are making a choice to dance with it. You are looking at it from a more, I guess even creative way and not seeing yourself as the victim of it, which I think that must have helped your mental state, for sure. What would you say is the most challenging part about this whole diagnosis treatment?
The whole experience?
[00:08:56] Speaker C: Most challenging part.
The most challenging part of my dance with cancer was also probably the most rewarding, and it was the mortality fears that came during that process.
And 1516 years ago now, I lost my father to cancer, and cancer has just shown up. I've lost other relatives. And it's just in our cultural awareness, it's such a heavy vibration. You think you hear cancer and we know movie stars and athletes as the who died from this. And it brings up this it triggers this just deep, deep fear.
And I refer to the angel of death, right? The fact that we're all going to die someday, like the fact that we are all mortal. And if we have something like a critical big diagnosis like this or lose somebody close to us for any reason or maybe have a near death experience or accident, that brings the sort of specter of death close. And it's the hardest and scariest part, but it's also the thing that puts us in touch with what's essential. Right. It's like I'm grateful to be here still. I'm grateful to feel stronger than before, but yeah, it was dealing with this what if sort of scary situation and finding a way to harvest the lesson from that, like, how to actually make the most of the experience of being alive.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Yeah. How has this whole journey, both in the midst of going through treatment and all of that and the survivorship part right. For you, survivorship starts right away, but I guess if you want to make it official. When you were declared no evidence of disease in May, how has that affected your social life, your relationships with your family and friends, with your daughter? How has all that been impacted by your cancer survivorship?
[00:10:53] Speaker C: Well, it's an ongoing process, and it does have to do with the way I've engaged with this experience. Like, it came here to teach me something, and I'm continuing to endeavor to live my life in a way that sort of gives a receipt for the teachings, like, gives great spirit, like, all right, I got that lesson. Thank you. Here's what I'm doing differently. And so I feel more grateful, I feel more on fire with purpose, more loving and compassionate in my life. My daughter was an amazing companion. I mean, she actually satya hi, satya kept me present. There were so many times where the treatment chemo sucks and people with different cancer dancers out there have gone through chemo and radiation and things, and it can kick your butt, and all my hair came out and neutrophoenic and all the annoying stuff, but really it wasn't that bad. I feel like I was able to handle the physical dimensions of it. I was pretty hearty, pretty strong physical body going into it. But it's like the times that I started Future Tripping and, like, what's going to happen again? It's great because it helps you connect with the essence of life and why we want to be here to begin with. But I would be all sad Future Tripping and my kid would just be like, you want to play? Yeah.
Want to play a game?
Actually, yeah. I feel fine. Let's go climb a tree.
I want to give this receipt for the experience and just be the most alive that I can be. And that's an ongoing challenge to myself. And it's hard because I think daily life is always tempting us to forget. We have these awakening experiences, and we remember for a moment like, oh, life is precious. What do I really want to do? And whether it's the next day or the next year, the daily life starts creeping back and, oh, you got to make the money, and you got to get up in the morning and make the lunch and do the things and chop the wood and carry the water.
The daily life kind of tries to make us forget, and I would love to continue remembering you better and better at that.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Well, yeah, to remain present as your daughter helped to do definitely. So how did you discover epic experience?
[00:13:35] Speaker C: I discovered Epic Experience I want to say hospital social workers. So much love and gratitude for social workers out there. And I was really blessed to have an amazing social worker in my life. I mean, you asked about the hardest part. One of the other hardest parts was just dealing with the financial bit of it. It's just so scary and overwhelming and so costly and just devastating to savings and how to deal with insurance and medical bills and then am I eligible for disability? And it's just like, oh, it's just all this and then plus you're going through treatment and it's know, kind of beating you down physically and how to deal with all that. So I had a great hospital social worker at Marin General shout out Nicole Bullock, who as I came out the other end of treatment, kind of alerted me to some of these adventure camps. So I actually went to some non epic cancer camps. And it's great. I think any opportunity for cancer survivor thriver dancer to connect with others who have gone through similar experiences is so healing. And then to get back out in the great outdoors is so healing. So it was at a different camp. One of my friends said, you got to get the camps at a different camp. Someone said, oh, have you heard of Epic Experience? And I hadn't. And I researched it and I'm so glad that I found you all. So glad.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: So based on your research, what was your expectation prior to going to camp?
[00:15:07] Speaker C: I didn't do a lot of research.
There was almost this kind of air of mystery about it. And I know you can go on websites and click around and look at pictures. I did not go to the website. I was like, I'm applying to this actually. I found out that there was a testicular cancer specific camp going on at Epic Experience, which was totally new for me. Like, I had been to an all purpose cancer survivors camp elsewhere and a young adults one, but I'd never been to, just like I'd never really sat in a group with dudes who had been through testicular cancer. So that my only expectation was that I was going to have this chance to bond with some kindred brothers and everything else. I tried not to go in with expectations.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: So given that special aspect that you were there with other testicular cancer survivors, how was that for you? What was your experience of that? Did it make a difference? And again, not making comparisons between camps in general, but that specific aspect, was that something that really ended up being an important piece for you?
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Totally. Yeah. And it's kind of like the experiences stacked on themselves or stacked on each other because at first it's like just coming out of treatment, what the hell just happened?
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: And even just like talking with a single survivor of a different type of cancer, right. Sitting down with a breast cancer survivor, there's still such a kindredness and like, oh my God, you went through this, I went through this. Oh my God, we can connect over what pisses us off about cancer muggles or how annoying insurance companies, all these different things.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Right, exactly.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: But this was like I feel like the epic experience, particularly because of the testicular cancer brothers that I was surrounded by, was like a sort of crowning experience in a lot of ways.
And one of the things that was most special about it for me, I mean, other than just hearing other men very casually and matter of factly refer to having had experiences that I had, like, oh, remember that morning you woke up with the jock strap on after the surgery? We're like, oh, yeah, we all woke up with this weird jock strap on. Right.
Other than things like that, there were survivors who were further on their recovery road than I was, more years out, particularly my brother Gonzo, huge shout out to Gonzo. But there were men who had the cancer experience further in their rear view mirror. And for me, I was going there really with the intention of turning the page and like a sort of chapter break in my life.
And I had this sort of compassionate guidance of some guys who had just been further down the road because it says Campfires of hope. Right. That was like that lit a huge beacon of hope for me.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
So what was your takeaway then, if you could, I don't know, narrow down to one or two and how have you incorporated that into your life now? It seems like you're the kind of person who is looking for those life lessons and you're grabbing what you can. So I'm curious to know what you took away and how that's making a difference now.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: Well, one thing I took away was relationships that I continue to maintain and carry on for life and that's really special.
I think the sort of deeper one is that there is life beyond cancer and that's something that I was bringing with me as well. In addition to taking away it away, I was showing up with it.
I am vast, I contain multitudes. And a cancer survivor or thriver or dancer is one of my aspects, but it's actually not even like one of the core ones.
I'm a father, I'm a writer, I'm a change agent, I'm like a lover, I'm all these wonderful things and I've been through this experience, but when you're in it, it can dominate a person's life. When you're just coming out the other end, it's so disorienting.
So just like taking further steps down the path and greeting the other parts of myself. I think that's one of the reasons this cancer dancer book is like, I've got a more broad scoped life memoir, but I don't want the cancer experience to take over that narration. So it's like, I almost want to do like, okay, here's the cancer book, just so that we can give it a voice and honor that experience without it overtaking the rest of my life story.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.
[00:19:52] Speaker C: I think just the river working with rivers and being in the river, and I had never been rafting prior to this past summer, but then I did it twice. I did it once with another group of survivors and then with the Epic crew. And so I feel like there are times when I close my eyes and see the river, and I do think metaphorically and I think a lot about the sort of metaphor of working with the river and flowing down. The river and sometimes there's intense rapids and you got to paddle, paddle, paddle and pick your direction and commit and go with the river and use your ore skillfully. Sometimes it's time to just lay back and goof around and stand up and do backflips into the water and try and tackle someone off their ducky. So I don't know. I see the world in this river metaphor more than ever before, and that's affecting other aspects of my life. Definitely.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: That's beautiful. How has it like in your day to day life now? How do you take that river metaphor?
[00:20:53] Speaker C: Well, I mean, just going with the flow, but not like in a way that totally it's like, you have an ore, you have a paddle for a reason, right? So you go with the flow. You work with the river, you listen to the river, and also you dance with you interact with the river. So something like in parenting or in relationships. Right.
There are times when, like, okay, we're going into some rapids right now.
Let's be aware and let's get focused, and we're ready to go through some rapids, and we're going to get wet, and we're going to get splashed, and we're going to come out the other side, and it's going to be all right.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:21:31] Speaker C: Kind of just getting tuning into the cyclicality of things and riding with the seasons.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Exactly, yeah. That's great. Is there anything else that you would want to share with someone listening that I haven't specifically asked you about?
[00:21:50] Speaker C: I would I'd like to extend love to everyone out there. I would like to extend that especially to patients and survivors, also to caregivers and friends and allies.
We all have our struggles and whether it goes by cancer or another name. And so what I would put out there is that I hold a prayer that we all find greater compassion for each other and especially for ourselves.
This ability to see ourselves in one another with love and to be fierce guardians of our own joy.
I think especially those who have experienced major life shaking trauma in the form of whether it's sickness or loss of another person, we all carry this deep awareness of our own mortality. And I think the preciousness of life is something that we can all be reminded of how sacred every moment is. And even if daily life is trying to distract us in different ways and get us to forget, I have this hope that we all remember.
That would be what I'd extend, is that we remember and tune into the essential. Like, what am I here for? What is essential to me if my end is coming someday? Because guess what? It is. And hopefully it's far, far down the road for myself and for everybody listening, that may we enjoy longevity and that end is going to come someday, so may we die well. And when that time comes, what's it going to take now at that moment in the future to look back and be like, I did it. I lived my life, I sang my song. I was the best parent could be, best friend, best lover, best creator, worker. Whatever our purpose and dharma is in this world, that we do it. That we do it right now.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: That's right. Dance your heart out right now. Right?
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Well, very important question that I always finish with is marshmallows over a campfire slow and steady or flaming crispy?
[00:23:59] Speaker C: As slow and steady as you can to I want it golden brown. Slow, rotisserie crisp, golden brown on the outside, but so hot that it's liquid on the inside and it's like running down the stick.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Well, that is a picture. I can't wait till your book comes out, Nell.
[00:24:19] Speaker D: Great.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: The cancer dancer memoir is going to be great. Well, thank you so much for joining us, for sharing your insights, for talking about giving people a new perspective about dancing their way through cancer. Right. Whatever life hands us. So I really appreciate your time and your insight and your vulnerability and we'll see you in the future.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: Thank you so much for the opportunity to share.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Sure. Until the next time we gather around the campfire. Keep living beyond cancer.
[00:24:59] Speaker D: Thank you for listening to this episode of Campfires of Hope living Beyond Cancer. For more information about Epic Experience and our programs or to donate, please visit our
[email protected]. Music for this podcast is provided by Moonshiner Collective. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us so we can share our story with more people. Also, be sure to subscribe wherever you get podcasts so you'll know when new episodes are released. We hope you come back and join for our next episode.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: By that time through the night, with some ghosts of America police still on our family, men's, bride and woke, we will rise once again. Close.
