Six years into This Life Without Limits, I’m beginning again with cancer updates, gratitude, presence, and devotion to life.
It’s been about six years since I launched This Life Without Limits from my dining room table in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, I don’t think I fully knew what I was beginning.
I knew I wanted to have honest conversations. I knew I wanted to explore what it means to live with more depth, more awareness, more courage, and more integrity. I knew I was interested in self-inquiry, cultivating presence, holistic health and well-being, creating a life of meaning, and being of service in the world.
But six years later, the center of gravity has shifted.
This 20th episode of the podcast and it feels less like a milestone and more like a recommitment. A moment to pause, acknowledge the distance traveled, and rededicate myself to producing these episodes with more clarity, devotion, and consistency.
It also marks the beginning of another chapter in my cancer journey.
After taking an almost nine-month break from producing the podcast, and after stepping away from social media and most media altogether for the last four months, I feel like I’m returning in a clearer, more focused, and more regulated place.
Not perfect. Not untouched by fear. Not somehow magically above the realities of being a human being in a human body.
But steadier.
And still profoundly grateful for my life. Grateful for the opportunities I have to learn, grow, awaken, love, be loved, and share what I’m learning along the way.
So let’s get into it.
Flashing Back to September 2025
Back in September, my overall physical health felt pretty stable.
My blood markers were still increasing slowly, and my doctors were beginning to consider immunotherapy. But at that point, there was no bulky disease visible in my body. And the idea of taking medicine for an indefinite period of time wasn’t especially appealing.
So we waited. We watched. We continued to gather information.
Then the fall and winter became pretty bumpy.
There was some difficult family stuff. There were issues with getting paid from work between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There was the general stress, uncertainty, and chaos of what it means to be a human being in the world right now.
And in early December, I lost a friend and old bandmate, Bryan Keeling.
Bryan had the same kind of cancer I have. When he died, I grieved him hard. And if I’m being honest, in some ways, I took his story on as my own.
His outcome became a kind of projection screen for my fear.
It brought up a lot of anxiety, uncertainty, and grief. It took me down for a while. Eventually, I was able to find my way back to something that now seems obvious, but did not feel obvious at the time: we are all unique, and we are all on our own journeys in this lifetime.
Just because one outcome happens to one person does not mean it is going to happen to me.
Simple enough, right?
But cancer is a mindfuck sometimes.
That entire season led me to take a long break from media in early February. Social media, news, noise, outrage, everything. I realized my nervous system was becoming deeply dysregulated by things that were out of my control.
And I needed to come home to myself.
Just because one outcome happens to one person does not mean it is going to happen to me.
When the Numbers Changed
Around that same time, my blood markers returned a very high value: roughly 98,000. Essentially double the number from before my original treatment in 2024.
That was deeply troubling to everyone, especially because previous scans had shown no visible disease anywhere in my body.
The blood test, called NavDx, measures tumor tissue modified viral HPV DNA associated with the type of cancer in my body. It looks for evidence of disease at a molecular level. It is incredibly helpful. It can also be incredibly nerve-wracking, especially when the results don’t align with imaging.
So we scheduled a PET/CT scan for mid-March.
That scan showed an isolated tumor in my left pelvic bone.
Because the metastasis appeared to be in only one location, it was considered oligometastatic. But that development also changed the staging of my cancer to Stage 4. As far as my medical team is concerned, it is considered incurable.
That is a very strange word to sit with.
Especially because I still remember meeting with my first doctor and hearing that this cancer was generally considered easy to treat and eradicate. And to be fair, that opinion is pretty common in western medicine when this type of cancer is treated through standard-of-care protocols.
But I suppose that wasn’t to be in my case.
At the same time, I want to be clear: I know people personally who are living with Stage 4, incurable disease for years and years. I know there is a wide spectrum of possibility here.
And I do not put all my faith in prognosis.
SBRT, Keytruda, and a New Chapter
In early April, my radiation oncologist and I decided to move forward with SBRT, or Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy. It is a highly targeted and precise form of radiation designed to knock down a tumor with concentrated treatment.
Before that treatment began, I took another blood test.
The results came back roughly ten times higher than February — around 1.4 million.
That got everyone’s attention.
My team moved into overdrive in terms of how to approach the situation. I received a week of SBRT in late April, delivered in short, intense cycles. Since then, my focus has been simple and immediate: heal my body from radiation, get back on my bike, return to the gym, eat well, sleep well, spend time with my partner and my kids, and practice being as aware and present as I can be.
Optimistic, but not attached.
Hopeful, but not naïve.
Engaged, but not trying to control what cannot be controlled.
This week, I began taking Keytruda, an immunotherapy medicine that helps interrupt the PD-1/PD-L1 signaling pathway cancer cells can use to hide from the immune system. My tumor profile appears to be very susceptible to this medicine, and the hope is that this treatment will slow, stabilize, or possibly stop the disease.
It will take time and patience to see what happens.
But I’ve been feeling into this intervention for over a year now, and it feels like the right tool at the right time to support complete healing in my body.
My treatment schedule is one infusion every six weeks, which feels totally manageable.
I don’t particularly love the open-ended nature of it. I don’t know how long I’ll be taking it. But if it helps me get to my 108th birthday, I’m game!
Optimistic, but not attached. Hopeful, but not naïve. Engaged, but not trying to control what cannot be controlled.
The Inner Work of Healing
I won’t go too deeply here into my personal meaning-making around the mystical, metaphysical, or energetic reasons this disease may still be present in my body.
But I will say this: I do believe that many of the heavy feelings and emotions I’ve carried over the last several years — and honestly, over the last several decades — have helped create an environment in me where disease has been able to persist.
That does not mean I blame myself.
It does not mean I think cancer is some simplistic manifestation of “bad thoughts.”
What it means is that I believe the healing work I am doing in the spiritual, emotional, mental, and relational realms is every bit as important as the physical interventions.
Maybe even more so in the long run.
So I am deepening my devotion to gratitude and prayer. I am working with my nervous system. I am continuing therapy. I am paying attention to the stories, identities, fears, and patterns that have shaped me.
From the beginning, I have said that cancer is an initiation.
An embodiment opportunity.
Perhaps the greatest teacher of awareness and reality there is.
And more than death, what I have feared from this experience is not being wholly transformed by it.
My therapist called me forward this week when he suggested that I may be resisting the initiation. That maybe I am afraid of what it really means to be wholly transformed.
To fully and finally release the damaging, demoralizing ideas, concepts, stories, and mental models I have held onto so tightly over the years that I became identified with them.
To die and be born again.
Awake. Aware. Liberated. Loving. Compassionate. Unattached. Free.
Maybe he’s right.
And now that it is in the light, I have the chance to live more fully into it.
Beginning Again
So I think this is where I’ll set it down for now.
I am at the beginning of a new phase. I am a few months away from my 54th birthday, which I have come to view as my “half-life” birthday.
My intention is to go long.
And to live fully — every breath, every heartbeat, every moment — from this one to my last one.
Thank you for your support, your love, your prayers, your encouragement, your kindness, and your generosity. Most of you will never know how deeply touched I have been over these last few years.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Boundless gratitude to God for my life, and for all the love and many blessings I have been given in this lifetime.
Sending that love and those blessings out to each and every one of you.
Be good to yourselves. Be good to others. Be good to all your relations.
Peace.
I’m grateful — beyond words — for your prayer, kindness, and patience over this past year. You’ve helped heal something deep in me. I’m here, I’m listening, and I’m speaking life.
Links & Resources:
- Keytruda: https://www.keytruda.com/
- NavDx: https://naveris.com/navdx/
- SBRT: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/radiation-therapy/stereotactic-body-radiation-therapy
- My teacher page on Insight Timer
- Work with me
- My GoFundMe Page: https://gofund.me/0978a984
- Head & Neck Cancer Alliance: https://www.headandneck.org/
Watch The Video:
As always, this podcast streams on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And NOW, you can check out the visual experience on YouTube! Check out other episodes here!
Be good to yourselves and be good to others,
Weston
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Photo courtesy off the immensely talented, Chris DeVille (https://www.instagram.com/chris_deville/).