The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear. - Voice Post: The Party, Community & Treatment Update

“Well, I have to say it was an awesome party – thank you so much to everybody who participated in arranging it, coming, and donating. We raised approximately 12,000 dollars which was three times as much as we thought we would to raise, and not only that, it felt for me and it sounds like it felt for a lot of people like a very healing and loving community event.

I just want to say that that’s exactly what I was hoping and looking for in terms of something for Healing the Roots because Healing the Roots, even before it became a foundation that was focused on my healing, I always envisioned it as something that would create a sense of space for our community, a community of activists to have a much greater sense of health and community.

I think that a lot of times, people have, people that work together in such intense situations, often risking their lives together, have a very strong sense of camaraderie and that roughly translates into a feeling of community because there is a lot of love and trust shared, but there is not a lot of infrastructure and support for those people. So when something happens - if something goes wrong, if somebody gets ill or somebody gets in trouble, then we’re always scrambling to do something, to help out.

Healing the Roots, to me, in terms of the long-term, is an organization that will really help cultivate those aspects that focus on the long-term and developing a real sense of community between people and places because I think community also has a very strong relationship to place. It’s where we live, it’s where we get our food, it’s what we want to see healthy in the future, and all of that.

Anyway, that was really wonderful.

There’s a little bit of new news. This is not so positive.

My chemotherapy is no longer working, so I’ve had to change gears, and after a very, very difficult last week, I spent the night in the emergency room on Wednesday night because I had a mild fever and I have been having breakthrough pain sometimes twice a day for a couple of hours and it is almost unbearable and this is already after doubling the amount of morphine I was already taking.

It’s a potential sign that there is more metastasis. It certainly feels like it and my numbers indicate that also.

I actually went and saw my oncologist Thursday and we’ve decided to take a break from chemotherapy clinical trials and try something else that is experimental but much less toxic on my body which I’m excited to try. It’s looking like it will be GMCSF (Granulocyte–Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor) which is immune therapy which will help stimulate my immune system to target the cancer which I’m philosophically a lot more aligned with and excited about.

Anyway, it was just really wonderful to have a very, very difficult week and to go out to the party and have such a wonderful time and then finish it off at the Goldman Environmental Awards on Monday and celebrate all the people who are doing great work around the planet and see my friends again.

Anyway, that’s about it, I’m running out of time.
Stay tuned.”

cauch