What Counts As Healing When You Still Feel Broken

Cancer care isn’t just doctors and drugs, it’s paperwork, pricing, side effects, and the emotional whiplash of looking “fine” while you’re still struggling. I’m back with a members-only update after months of heavy treatment, sharing what’s changed in my body and what it’s costing to keep moving forward.

I talk openly about the insurance mess that delayed my CT scan, the shock of watching premiums climb, and how money quietly becomes a central character in the cancer journey. I also break down my current immunotherapy with Keytruda and why the price of a single infusion can feel unreal. From there, I wrestle with the bigger question a lot of patients face: do you trust the FDA system with its protections and restrictions, or do you look at treatment options outside the US where access can be different and the risks change?

Then I get personal about chemotherapy side effects and the “after” that doesn’t show up in photos. Nausea, taste changes, mouth sores, weight loss pressure, neuropathy, feeling cold all the time, anemia, weakness, and the mental grind of chemo brain fog are all part of the story. I also share the strategies I’ve leaned on to stay resilient, and why community support can fade the moment you stop looking sick even when you’re still rebuilding.

If you want the unfiltered reality of healing, uncertainty, and what it takes to keep taking the next step, hit play. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations.

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Transcript

Welcome And Cancer Update

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Well, hello and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we've got a members-only episode. I haven't done one of these in a while, and gonna get back to it. And this is gonna be kind of a an update on my condition regarding the cancer, and it's been a few months since I've done an update. And so taking a couple of steps back. Been through a lot of shit in the last few months, and I'm gonna do a few of these episodes, probably some will be for members only, some some for the public. But about I don't know, four months ago, the doctor wanted me to get a a scam, and it was taking me a little bit of time to get it scheduled for whatever reason. The insurance was having a glitch. And you know, that's a big part of all the issues here is actually money and and insurance and all of that. And I've talked a little bit about it, and I don't know, it's probably kind of boring, but man, it's it's really true. You know, my insurance got raised from about$500 a month to$1,800 a month. And I don't know what it should be. You know, frankly, I just don't know. I know in some countries you can go and get treatments relatively reasonable. I know the equipment's expensive, I know the training's expensive, I know everything regarding the medical field is expensive, but I don't know what's the point if the regular people can't use it, I guess. One of the th treatments I'm getting right now is an immunotherapy treatment and a drug called Ketruda. And this drug, each time I get it, it's almost twelve thousand dollars. And if you can imagine that, like what what what does it take to charge twelve thousand dollars for a bag of fluid that probably I mean, I I don't know how much it could possibly cost them to make it, but my guess is somebody's making money on it. And I know the research and I know the you know the trials and all this stuff, but you know, down in Mexico they don't have an FDA. And they say that you know they trust the doctors, and so there's clinics down there that will do just about anything you need. And it's not cheap either, but it's not like this. And a lot of people go down to Mexico, but you know, Mexico's got its own problems, there's cartel stuff and all kinds of reasons to be concerned about driving down to a clinic down there. So you think to yourself, you know, what's the best way? What's the right way to do it? You know, you go FDA with all of its so-called protections, but everything's so damn expensive. Unless, of course, you know, they want to push a vaccine through, then somehow magically they don't have to go through all the rigors. But everybody else, you know, there's treatments that I could have gotten that I believe would have helped me and not caused all the problems that the chemotherapy did. And I couldn't have access to it because the FDA hasn't approved them for the cancer that I had. They approved it for a liver cancer and a tumor of a certain size, but you know they didn't approve it for anything else. So there's not even a way to get into like a uh an experimental study or anything. And even when you do that, you don't know if you're getting the actual treatment or some kind of a placebo. So all kinds of issues with that. So uh I had gotten my six chemotherapy treatments and the three drugs, dose of taxil, cisplatinin, and five flor. And they were pretty, pretty tough. They whooped my ass and made it to where I couldn't eat, food tasted terrible, and my fair hair fell out, and I was weak as hell, and just you know, it was a it was a rough road. You know, these are difficult poisons, but they're effective at killing fast-growing cells. So I was able to mitigate a lot of the damage by my diet, my diet and my low methionine diet, my methionase, my oxygen therapies, fasting, all the things that I did, and it it allowed me to survive it, where many people don't. I know a lady who's likely gonna pass away soon, and I met her maybe I don't know, six months ago or so, and I was just starting to get in the end of my treatment, and she was just starting hers. And I told her, I said, you know, I I I can help you, I can, you know, teach you some things that can help make it work better. And she says, okay, you know, and but she never did call me, and I heard from her son that she's given up. She can't, she stopped the chemo, it was too rough on her, and she's just letting it take its course. More and more I hear of people that are quote unquote just letting nature take its course, and I I everything's nature, so what does that mean, right? I think stepping in and and taking charge of your health and healing yourself is nature as well. So, what is nature's course? So, anyhow, it was taking me a while to get my CT scan scheduled because of the insurance, and they finally figured it out. The doctor, I went in one day just for just to, I don't know, a checkup or to get the immunotherapy, and I they get they took my vitals. You know, every time I go in there, they weigh me and check my my blood pressure and take some blood and and then usually it's you know go to the infusion room. But this time I wasn't expecting it, I was just expecting a checkup. And but no, she said, go to the infusion room. I'm like, oh yeah, what what's what am I doing here today? And Dr. Song comes in. I said, Doctor, what are we doing today? He says, I'm gonna give you one more. Seven. Okay. I says, All right, you know what you're doing. He says, You're strong, you can handle it. I'm like, all right. So that seventh round, oh my God, it whooped my ass. So remember, I got sitting there for like a five-hour infusion where you get an IV bag dripping in your port. They give you some Benadryl, so you get sleepy and sleep through part of it. And it's not painful or anything, but it's you're just sitting there and waiting for one bag and then another bag and another bag, and then they hydrate you and all this stuff. And then, you know, of course they gave me nausea medicine, but the side effects were horrible, you know, headaches and constipation. And I don't know if you've ever had a bad headache and constipation, but those two together are hell. And I was not willing to go through that hell. So I said, I'll I'll deal with the nausea. And it it's it's rough, you know. Like you try to eat something, and not only does it taste horrible, that's I think the thing about chemo that really is the worst to me, is that everything tastes terrible, like just horrible, like tastes like musty socks, just nasty foods that would normally taste good, are not only unpleasant, but almost unbearable. And then, you know, you swallow a bite, and boom, you want to throw up, or you do throw up, and but you gotta eat, so you go back and you take some more, and yeah, I don't know how many times I got up and threw up and went back to the table and choked out another bite. And you know, the idea is you can't lose too much weight, and what a crazy dichotomy. You know, I went from losing 50 pounds thinking, you know, that brought me to health, and then all of a sudden another 50 wants to drop off because of the fucking cancer. And, you know, I got down, I got down at, I don't know, I think my lowest was below 150. I started getting below 150, I was like, I can't let myself get below 150, that's too low. And I didn't know guys that have gone down to 130, 120, and I just I wasn't willing to let myself get get that emaciated. You know, you gotta have strength to fight this thing, and and strength is key to you know building that immune system. And so I went through that round, and you know, remember I had to carry around a pump for five days, so I I got left, you know, they took after five hours or whatever, the they took the infusion bags off, and then they hooked me up to this pump, and I carried it around with me for five more days or four more days, sometimes depending on where I was at. And then I had to come back that Friday. So each time I'm driving down to San Diego, it's like an hour and 20-minute drive each way, and then go into that, and then after the chemo, the last time I I'm usually pretty weak. My wife was driving me, but I didn't think I was gonna get it. So this last time I had to drive my ass home as well. And and but I did, I figured it out, and this time the nausea hit me really, really, really bad. I was really struggling to eat, and this stuff can make uh sores in your mouth as well. So remember chemotherapy goes after fast-growing cells, so that's why your hair falls out, your your mucous membranes in your mouth are are areas that replicate quickly. Your nails get brittle and crack off, sometimes you lose them. Your skin can have all kinds of issues. These are all areas where your cells divide really quickly. And you know, the fasting and the the diet helps with that, but doesn't stop it entirely. And a couple of times I did get some like ulcers in my mouth, like a cold sore kind of a thing. I don't know, like just a sore. But a sore in your mouth is painful and it makes it hard to eat on top of all the cue uh the nausea. So this time last round I was able to avoid that, but then I noticed you know, one of the side effects was it it messes your your thermostat up. So I'm normally a really hot-blooded person, always hot walking around in shorts and t-shirt, and just never never get cold. All of a sudden, after this chemo, not just this round, but you know, even after the first round or two, it really kicked in. I'm cold all the time. And I'm just not used to that. It was it's a difficult thing to adjust to. And all of a sudden I noticed my my feet are starting to get numb, tingly, and sometimes cramping up my hands too. And I start to do a little research, and apparently neuropathy is uh also a side effect of the chemo, and it it started getting pretty bad. And so I'm cold, I'm I'm weak, I'm I'm hard, it's difficult to eat. I'm still on the diet, so there's not still a lot of things I can eat, but even the things, you know, even if I could, the things that used to taste really good don't anymore or didn't. They're just barely starting to now. And just a rough friggin' road through all of this. I'm still sitting with the sweat lodge. The sweat lodge was actually good because I would actually get warm in there, and you know, the sweating helped, I think. I also still sat with peyote medicine, but my knee, you know, from an old injury got aggravated, and so that ended up causing me problems, and everything just seemed like it wasn't my body wasn't healing itself very well, and so now my knees all sore, my shoulders got real sore. Just I I I was kind of a mess, but these medicine ceremonies, you know, you're up all night and you're taking medicine that also wants to make you throw up, and but it's powerful, and I I believe it helped me find the clarity and the strength to keep going. I found answers in that fire and the prayers and the good people around me. I did sat with Wachuma, which is a similar medicine to peyote, but but not the same. And you know, those things helped me to keep going. And really, it was all about just taking another step, taking another step. Now remember, through all this, everybody's going, oh, you look so good, you're getting better, you're, you know, the lump's gone on my neck, so you don't, you know, you don't see the monstrous thing anymore. Eventually I went to an EMT and he checked and he he did a guy got a CT scan, I got an MRI, and they they they both showed a little bit of activity, but not necessarily cancerous, and that's the problem with all these scans. You know, I've talked about it in other episodes, you know, with Dr. Hoffman and the the difficulty of all of the testing and scans and things that we have here is they're not definitive. And it's just a thing that you don't get, you it'll teach you tell you some things, but you know, cancer, by the time it gets big enough to see, it's already huge. It's already hundreds or thousands, millions of cells. And by that time, it's already something that you know can become malignant, which is where it you know can cause you harm. Cancer in itself isn't necessarily a problem, it's when it becomes malignant and starts to overtake your body and you know, all the side effects of the cancer. And so the CT scan, you know, was very promising, you know, and it wasn't definitely the monster was gone. I went to an ENT, he ran a camera down my nose and looked and said he didn't see anything in there, felt around, and you know, there's still a little bit of a lump, a little hard spot, but you know, I had a gigantic friggin' grapeer sticking out of my neck that went away without went away without surgery, went away, went away without radiation. And so, you know, my body's still processing it. And, you know, there could be scar tissue left behind. It may not all get processed out. I could be left with that little lump forever. I don't care if it's a if it's a benign lump, and it's it's fine as long as it doesn't start growing again. But then I go back after the last infusion, get my pump if I'm like, I'm done. But I'm still, you know, I'm still suffering all of these side effects. But it's funny, the people that were so supportive and so, you know, kind and loving and helpful and did all the good things when I had this lump are now celebrating my success and thing, you know, looking at it as as I'm done. And this is a thing that I'm gonna get into a little deeper, you know, illnesses that are seen and others that are unseen, and people's ability to understand and empathize or sympathize or help or whatever. I mean, I don't know. There's no right or wrong answers here. I'm just observing things and but the second you look like you're okay, that same care and compassion for your circumstances, you know, shifts. And it's okay. You know, it's my journey, it's my battle, it's my health, and my joy and my sorrow, and not dependent on anybody else. But in a time of weakness to have the support of people is important and helpful and powerful and I believe necessary. And so that's been kind of an interesting piece of the puzzle, you know. I mean, and part of it is I'm keeping myself in a place where I'm accepting the heel. I'm accepting that I'm okay, but without knowing for certain I'm cautious to just let it go at that and say, okay, well, I'm okay, so I don't have anything more, and I don't have any more work to do. And that's one piece of it. We're gonna get deeper into that as well. The other piece of it is now I look at my blood work and it comes back and I'm anemic. So my iron levels are really low, my red blood cell count is really low, my white blood cell count is high, and my hemoglobin is low, and it's left me weak, and I'm not used to being weak, you know. So through this last year and a half, I've I've you know gone from working outside all the time and you know, being strong and and able to do the the chores and the the farm work that I've always done to you know barely able to lift an ax, to can't lift a chainsaw, yet still barely tossing sand, can't push a full wheelbarrow up a hill, all the things that I used to do so easily, you know, my muscle mass is diminished significantly, my hand strength is diminished, all of these things. Oh my god, what a what a it's it's more of an emotion uh no, it's probably equally an emotional as as a physical issue. And because I'm used to, like I said, having control over my my own body and my strength and all of those things. Yeah, if I got fat and lazy, it was because of choices I made, not because of conditions that were difficult to control. It's taken me three months or so, and I've tried a bunch of things. I did a whole episode on anemia and really got into it, and just finally the last two blood tests I did were right on the edge of normal. With my red my red blood cell count went up to normal, my hemoglobin is right on the line, and my strength is coming back. Still got some neuropathy. The brain fog is another thing, you know. It's funny I I was not a very empathetic, sympathetic person, and I had people tell me about chemo brain fog, and I was like, yeah, whatever, shake it off, you know. It just I never could understand it. And holy shit. It's like it's like I'm drunk without any of the fun part. Just can't remember stuff. My brain is literally fuzzy and foggy, and everything's more difficult. I have to try twice as hard everything with formulating products. I I have to triple check myself to make sure I don't make any mistakes. I forget things, you know, so often. And, you know, like my wife is you know, she loves me a lot, but as soon as I start looking better, she just like thinks I I'm okay and doesn't understand the difficulty of all this stuff. And I I I get it. I I don't I look better and and I go out of my way not to, you know, be a feeble old man. I'm trying to, you know, capture my youth and strength back. And and so I go out of my way to behave as as normal as I possibly can. I'm not looking for any kind of sympathy, but a little bit of of understanding that says, well, you know, you forgot to do this thing, or you forgot to pick up this thing, or whatever. There's a reason maybe why I have a little understanding. Anyways, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave it off about there. I'm gonna do another one of these. I'm gonna start doing more of these subscriber episodes. There's a lot of deep stuff that I want to get into, or I'm gonna get, you know, pretty candid and raw about some stuff that I don't necessarily want the whole public to listen to. But I do appreciate very much everybody who has supported the show and subscribed. And whether you listen or not, you know, your your support helps make it possible for me to run the show. The financial hit that this cancer has taken on me has made it to where I'm not really able to do much of anything, and I'm looking forward to building my business back up to where I have some more freedoms and I can start to do these things and help more people that way. So I'm super grateful for everybody that's been supportive. And I know I've been a little wandering, but I'm actually sitting in a hotel room at 4:30 in the morning, getting ready to go get a scan in Japan right now. And I had to borrow money to go. Some people helped out, that was great, but this is this is I'm gonna talk more about it, and we'll get hopefully into some of the the details of all this as we go along. So thank you, and uh, we'll see you next time.