Trusting in Science, Embracing the Mystical
Connecting to nature and my spiritual self
The oncology nurse asked which arm I preferred to insert the IV needle to start the medicine flowing into me. Once positioned, I put on a VR headset to escape the medical ambience of the infusion clinic. With my hand-contoller I clicked on the nature video my son, Nils, shot and loaded to the headset for me. A waterfall in a green forest appeared before me and the sounds of water and birdsong accompanied by ethereal music took me to a meditative state far from the cancer clinic. I was connecting to the healing power of Mother Nature in a meaningful way, a visual meditation to help welcome this magical fluid, this immunotherapy, into my body as easily as the water flowed from the falls, down the mountain, and eventually back into the ocean.
Since we were children we all heard that our bodies are mostly made of water. When we first experience a cut or a small head wound we know there's truth to it, instead of clear water it's a viscous, red fluid. We need to hydrate with liquid to keep our organs moist and alive as twenty liters of blood plasma circulates within us, pumped over and over again by our heart. We get rid of waste in our blood through our kidneys and expelled as urine, expiration through breathing, and evaporation from our skin. We need to add water in a daily cycle that lasts all of our lives.
Watch a minute or two of the nature video I was watching in the headset
When I was diagnosed with bladder cancer I learned about two other fluids important to our survival: lymph fluid and cerebrospinal fluid. We have about 600 lymph nodes in our body connected by lymphatic vessels that remove bacteria and damaged cells like cancer cells. It is part of our immune system. About three liters of the twenty liters of blood plasma in our bodies makes its way through the lymph system every day, propelled, not by a pumping heart, but by moving our body. As we walk and the soles of our feet touch the earth, step by step, lymph fluid, despite gravity, is pumped throughout our arms, legs, torso and neck, passing through pea-sized lymph nodes that act like a fishing net, trapping rogue cancer cells and getting rid of them. Or at least they're supposed to. Cancer cells have evolved to evade the immune system. Immunotherapy, the medicine now entering my bloodstream, unlocks the cancer cell allowing our own immune system — T-cells, B-cells, and natural killer cells, among others — to recognize and eliminate the cancer. This type of treatment is considered effective because it works in some cancers 20-25% of the time. I'm one of the lucky ones where it is working.
When tumors were found in my brain I learned about cerebrospinal fluid. We have up to 150ml of fluid in our cerebrospinal system that moves through our brain and spinal cord at any given time. It turns over 4 times a day connecting neurotransmitters and signaling molecules. It also acts as a shock absorber between our brain and skull that protects our brain from injury. If the brain is not made buoyant by this fluid, gravity would make the weight of our brains too much for our spine to carry. The CSF is produced in the lateral ventricle, one of four deep caverns of space in the brain that flows one to the other, all the way down the spinal cord. If a tumor blocks the flow of fluid it builds up (water on the brain) and needs an escape valve. When it happened to me a neurosurgeon drilled a hole in my skull and inserted a shunt into my lateral ventricle to relieve the pressure. When the fluid is flowing normally it washes the brain and spine with a clear fluid rich in proteins, ions, lipids, hormones, cholesterol, glucose, and many other molecules.
With my eyes closing and opening intermittently with the headset on, I imagined the pristine river and falls before me as spinal fluid washing my brain and spine clean, the trees around me inhaling and exhaling, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, my lungs a microcosm of the forest around me and the fluids needed for survival, rain from heaven. I imagined the tributaries flowing into the river like capillaries in my body that carry oxygenated blood to my tissue, the lymph fluid flowing easily through healthy nodes like river water circling in an eddy around a stone, and then moving on, clean and clear. And cerebrospinal fluid flowing up and down my spine like the sap of the Douglas fir tree near me stretching toward the sky, it's roots reaching down into the soil like nerve endings connecting life itself to everything I feel.
Ancient spiritual traditions considered spinal fluid as spiritual fluid, and the third eye chakra in parallel alignment with the lateral ventrical, where most of our spinal fluid is created (and two tumors were found). The pineal gland, once believed to be "the seat of the soul" by Rene´ Descartes, is located in the third ventricle and is thought to be a light-sensitive photo receptor responsible for melatonin production regulating circadian rhythms and seasonal cycles. It's also been thought to produce DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine), a hallucinogenic chemical found in nature and used by many indigenous cultures in spiritual ceremonies, although it hasn't been proven by science.
During daily brain and spine radiation treatments I had clear dream-like visions of ancestors visiting me, Vikings encouraging me to fight on, and whales scooping up circulating cancer cells in their baleen that hadn't nested yet and dumping them at the bottom of the ocean. I would like to think that all the stimulation during radiation—the death of cancer cells with collateral damage to healthy cells, including my pineal gland—may have encouraged psuedo-hallicinations, or at least an elevation of creative fantasy that helped me survive the treatment and recovery.
I'm lucky to live in this period of research bringing new medicines to market. I believe science has saved my life. I also believe in the power of thought, prayer and the spiritual aspects of being human, of being alive, and the interconnectedness of all things. I also believe in technology when used for good. As I was transported from my infusion chair at the cancer clinic into the heart of nature through a VR headset, I felt gratitude for outliving my prognosis. As time moves on I feel science will take care of itself. My mission is to live with spirit, story, love and imagination, all of which can be found in nature.
Nice work, Lars! Thanks for reminding us about the healing properties of nature, especially in combination with state-of-the-art medicine.