[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: This is Padmasana and I am Brendan Orr.
Sometimes life asks us the hardest questions at the most unexpected moments.
Why me?
Is one we often ask when difficulty arrives.
But Joe McClarnon asked a different question when he was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer in June 2019.
Why not me?
Joe's story begins long before that diagnosis.
Eighteen years in social services and mental health, working with children in long term treatment centers, work he loved and believed was his calling.
Then, at 38, somewhat uncharacteristically for someone who carefully planned major decisions, he became a carpenter.
The heavy work, combined with years of weightlifting took its toll.
By 49, with increasing osteoarthritis, he walked into Yoga Patch on Warnell Road in Kansas City, Missouri, looking for nothing more than stretching tips.
What Joe found was so much more than that.
He discovered TKV Desikachar's the Heart of Yoga, a book he studies to this day.
He realized that yoga was exactly what I had needed for a long time, perhaps all my life.
It was where I belonged to and what I believed in.
In 2013, after completing teacher training, he created what would become his signature, offering Slow Flow with Joe, a class designed for people who felt intimidated by yoga, who needed time to make poses fit their bodies rather than rushing to match everyone around them.
For over a decade, Joe has taught students ranging from their 20s to their 80s, many staying with him for years.
He plays classical music during class and weaves into teachings from the yoga sutras, inviting students to use them, ignore them, or investigate further as they see fit.
He also teaches yin yoga, combining traditional yoga with Chinese medicine to target connective tissue and fascia.
Then came June 2019, stage four prostate cancer, Gleason scale score of 10, the most aggressive kind cancer in his lymphatic system and bones.
Doctors estimated he had one and a half to five years to live.
Joe's first instinct was suicide.
He decided years ago he wouldn't put his family through watching him slowly decline.
But his wife, a nurse practitioner, wouldn't let him give up before he had even enough information to understand what he was facing.
That conversation saved his life.
Joe chose a different path.
As he wrote in his substack post, why not me?
I decided then that cancer may kill me eventually, but it was not going to kick my rear up and down the street for the rest of my time on this planet.
He approached it like it was his yoga practice, with patience, persistence and positivity, one day at a time, making every day the best he could.
Last June, Joe celebrated six years of survival far exceeding initial expectations.
His oncology team agrees that his overall fitness and positive attitude have contributed not only to his extended survival, but to his quality of life.
Through studying and practicing the eight limbs of yoga, Joe finds stability and positive energy to deal with the stressors of living with advanced cancer.
Now Joe volunteers at the Kansas University Cancer center, where he receives treatment with a cart full of snacks and drinks. He visits with patients who are often very open to him when they learn he's a patient too.
We are all looking for hope, he says.
He shares his journey, encourages them, and helps them understand that while cancer is formidable, they don't have to take it lying down, that they can affect their outcomes through positive activity and attitude.
As Joe puts it, cancer may eventually kill me before I can kill it, but it can't break my spirit.
I choose life and love.
On this episode of Padmasana, join us for a conversation about finding what you need when you need it most.
The power of moving slowly and what it means to face mortality with grace, humor, and an unbreakable commitment to living well.
Part 1 the Journey to Yoga and Finding Home.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: Joe, thanks for being on Padmasana.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to join you. I'm not that familiar with podcasts, so it's a great experience for me to get a chance to work with you on this.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: Yeah, great to have you on Joe.
So Joe, you spent 18 years in social services working with children in long term treatment centers.
Work you describe as what you believe you're truly on earth to do.
Then at 38, you became a carpenter.
Take us through that transition and what eventually led you at 49 with osteoarthritis to walk into the Yoga Patch studio.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Looking for stretching tips.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Well, that was quite a journey. That was quite a turn for me and not the type of thing that I would ordinarily do just to suddenly change careers like that. I had every plan of being working with children for the rest of my life. I absolutely loved it. Of course there was no money in it, but that really wasn't a consideration. I never had any money to begin with, but I guess I found after that 18 years that though I still loved working with the children, it's a difficult field because of the lack of funding, the great difficulty in getting and maintaining good staff members.
And against my wishes, I almost always ended up being some sort of supervisor. I joke sometimes that I did that out of self defense to run these various units. And I guess I could. The stress kind of Got to me, and my parents were quite ill at the time. I had just gotten married. My wife also worked with children. She was a nurse, a psychiatric nurse, still is a psychiatric nurse. And I was just starting to have some inkling of an idea that I might change careers and maybe do some things with kids as a. As a volunteer. And then I was at this wedding, bumped into an old friend who was a master carpenter. And we got to talking and actually on a hayride in Massachusetts and mentioned that I, you know, I liked working with wood. I liked building things. I wished I knew more about it. And that's. That really the only other thing I had any interest of doing as a career was working with wood and building things. And he said, well, come work with me. And I thought about it for a couple of days. We got back into Kansas City and I called. I talked to my wife about it, of course, and she said, well, just go ahead and do it then. There's many, many children in many, many places that you can have contact with. And so I just did it. And I don't know, it kind of felt good. It felt kind of aggressive a little bit that I could do something like that. I tend to get sort of stuck in my ways. So it was very good for me to just. To make a bold decision and just to make that change.
Now.
That was quite hard on my body, that work, to start that at 38 and with a body that had been used pretty hard. I didn't play a lot of sports. I wasn't particularly athletic, but I was kind of a workout junkie. And I did a lot of weightlifting, probably heavier weightlifting than my body was built to take. I'd say surely heavier weightlifting than my body was built to take. So pretty quickly, the. The work took a toll on me. Even though I ended up being a trim carpenter and cabinet maker, which is somewhat less heavy work than the framer or somebody like that would do. It's still a lot of work. And you got to carry equipment in and out and, you know. You know, and working. We worked a lot in the West Bottoms here in Kansas City. A lot of big old buildings. So even the carpenters would often be recruited to help move debris and radiators and things like that out of the way so that we could do what we needed to repair next in these very old buildings down there. So I got a little more extra heavy work than I thought I would get, too. So going along here. But I loved it. I loved doing that kind of work. It felt good to work with my hands and have something that I could look at. At the end of the day, it was more like playing all day. Even though it was difficult hard work, my body still was able to do it pretty much as it. I started noticing more and more that it was taking the toll. But I could still do it. I was relatively young, quite strong, and when I did get a chance to do the carpentry part of it, which was most of the time, I was able to be productive and learn from my friend who again was an excellent carpenter and really quite an artist in his own right. And I, we're still very good friends. We had lunch just the other day, but then as doing all that weightlifting over the years I was always into stretching. I'm very naturally, very flexible for a man my size anyway and.
But I started thinking, oh, I might need a little more, I might need some help with this because, you know, I was kind of desperate. I thought I didn't want to change careers again. I knew I was going to have, I knew I was having problems. I had had to quit running a couple years. I was getting close to where I had to quit running at that point. And I didn't quite quit running, quitting running a couple years after when I was about 40 or 41.
So a friend of mine who was in martial arts had been taking some yoga classes. He was just there for the stretching, you know, as you might imagine a martial arts person might be.
And he told me about it and suggested I give it a try. I went to the studio he was going to, which was at that time just about a block from where Yoga Patch ended up appearing.
And I didn't really understand that yoga studios aren't open all the time. So I was leaving notes and leaving messages and nobody ever called back. I didn't understand that they aren't just open during the day, they open for classes and they close. Small studios open and close all the time. So then I was on my way to get some prescription work glasses as my eyes were also starting to have some issues. And right next door to that eyeglass shop, which I think may still be there on Warnell was Yoga Patch, which I had not even noticed driving back and forth. So I just poked my head in the door. The then owner of Yoga Patch, the original owner, was in there and gave me a great big smile, invited me to come in and told me a little bit about her studio. And I signed up right then and there for a three week trial and I told her what I was looking for and she said that was. It was fine. She could help me with that and she did. So, yeah, that was. I guess I'm talking about just the transition. That's how all that kind of came to be. But I wasn't really expecting to do much more than maybe temporarily go once or twice a week and learn some more about stretching and things like that. And then I probably wouldn't even go back. I thought at the time. That was quite a few years ago.
[00:12:02] Speaker C: So, Joe, you write that when you discovered the Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachar, it felt like exactly what I had needed for a long time, perhaps all my life. Those were your words. What was it about yoga philosophy beyond just the physical practice that felt like coming home? What did you recognize in yourself?
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Well, that was very interesting. I picked that book up almost accidentally, bought another book that had the yoga sutras in it, Yoga Sutra that I heard one of the teachers talking about. And I asked, what's that? And so she showed me the book she was reading. She was a very young woman. And I read that book. It didn't really connect with me. It's seemed a little, a little bit, I don't know, a little out there for a guy like me who was pretty grounded and I thought he was grounded, but it was kind of mystical and magical kind of writing in it, and it didn't do much for me. But when I bought that book, you know, it popped up online, wherever I bought it, that you might also like this book. And I think maybe they even threw it in for half price or something and it happened to be the heart of yoga, so I went ahead and got it.
So when I didn't like that first book about Yoga Sutra, I picked up the Heart of Yoga, discovered it had Yoga Sutra in the back of it as translated by Mr. Desikachar's father, Krishnamacharya, who of course as many people call the father of modern yoga. And boy, it's just so concise and so down to earth. And all the rest of the book, it just seemed like how I thought or how I wanted to think, how I wanted to see the world.
But it never really quite jived with anybody else I knew or anything else I was introduced to. I was brought up in a church setting. My father was very religious, my mother a little less. So none of that ever really quite worked for me. I didn't really dislike it particularly, but it just wasn't for me. But this book just kind of just the con, the precision of it, the sutra itself, of course, Is very concise and short, and it just. I just. I just could connect with it. And it was kind of seemed like. Yeah, it seemed like who I was for the first time. I saw somebody else, some other group of people that thought kind of the way I did.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's a book, as I understand, that's often in teacher trainings, you know, and so I. It's interesting to hear that you had such a strong connection with it.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I didn't realize that.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And so was there anything beyond its approach to the sutras that also connected with you?
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Well, I think that.
Well, it describes the eight limbs of yoga, and those also seemed very clear to me. Breathwork being the only thing that really seemed novel, Even though I never had seen these writings before or heard anybody talk about these types of writings before. But just the sense of community, the interaction with an attitude toward the things outside yourself, the world around you, the yamas, the niyama, your relationship with yourself and how you treat yourself, and your attitude towards yourself. You know, I won't go through all of them probably right now, but you get the idea. It all just. It just made perfect sense to me. And then, of course, he just goes through all the different parts of yoga as he saw it, as he learned it from his father. And again, very precise, very down to earth to me. It all just made perfect sense to me. These are things you can do to try to improve your lot in life, to make yourself a little happier. There's no. Really without any mysticism that you might find in religion or any. Any number of other types of philosophies and things like that. So I guess that would be my best answer to that. It's just you always have to read the book, which I have many times, and I still study it, and it's kind of my go to. I never really read too many other books about yoga. I did pick up a few other ones on recommendations, but I never found anything yet that I could connect to like I do the heart of yoga.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: So despite your yoga practice, you continued working as a carpenter, and your physical condition kept deteriorating.
What made you decide to pursue teaching certification in 2013?
Was there a specific moment when you thought, I have something to offer here?
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Yes, there certainly was. I was going to, by this time, three or four classes a week, even though I was much more. My body was still working much better then than it is now, actually.
And I could do. I could do quite a few poses. There were still a lot of things that I just couldn't do. And I was figuring out that some bodies just won't do some poses and that I was not terribly old yet. I was, you know, by then maybe 52, I guess I was, or 53. But certainly there was things that I was. Had already stopped doing as well as I did a few years earlier. And a lot of it had to do with transitions between poses, you know, because some parts of my body have quite severe arthritis and various old injuries that are, were not really repairable at all anymore at that point. So I got to thinking, you know, a lot of these, these classes are good. I like what they're doing as far as the asana, the poses. But I think if it was just a little slower, I could get more out of it because, you know, you have that tendency to try to keep up. Even though teachers at Yoga Patch then were not saying, oh, you know, keep up, keep up. And I think that does happen in some studios. I've heard they try to go tell you to go faster, higher, stronger, and all that sort of thing. That was not the philosophy there by the prior owner or the current owner. But still people's natural tendency in this country, anywhere in this part of the world is to try to keep up, you know. And so I thought, you know, I'm not the only older person here and there's certainly people older than me. There was chair yoga, which I love and would go to chair yoga often. But I thought there should be something kind of in between.
And often now to this day, I have people looking for that, something that's in between. They're enjoying their chair yoga, maybe they've recuperating from something. It might be an age thing, it might be a recuperation from an injury or something like that that comes up quite a bit.
And so we thought about this slow moving class. I talked with the owner, who by then was Maria Murphy. The other woman had moved back with her family to the west coast and kind of started putting together in my head what that class might look like. I had by that time met my first teacher at Yoga Patch who held poses a long time, which I found was difficult even though I was again at that point in my life still pretty strong.
It's hard to hold, you know, chair pose for like 45 seconds if you're not used to it. And, and so I thought that was part of it too, because older people, people recovering, they need that slow approach and they can really build a lot of strength by holding poses in a safe manner with the correct alignment, extension, you Know, and all these different aspects and including the breath, by all means, as part of the pose, which is something that people have to learn how to do, you know, I think to get the maximum out of the pose. So I, Maria and I continue to talk about it a little bit, and I said, well, what if we get. Give it a try? And, you know, we both were kind of skeptical, honestly. So Maria, I said, well, how about if we make it a five dollar class, Maria? Because I don't, you know, if you're willing to give it a try, I don't even care if you pay me, honestly, let's make it a five dollar class like chair yoga was at the time and, you know, see if anybody shows up. They will or they won't. If not, then that's okay. And by golly, people did come, you know, they showed up. And I ended up getting some regulars. And I found that I had a niche, you know, a yoga niche for bringing some students in, which, of course, the owner needed and wanted that too. And it just kind of went on from there. And as the longer I taught that. All right. And longer I still do teach that slow flow yoga class, it becomes more and more personal to me. And then I started finding that I could mention bits and pieces about yoga philosophy in general without trying to ram it down anybody's throat, because of course, people mostly come to yoga in this part of the world for exercise. And that's okay, that's okay. But I'd like to put it out there and let people know that there are other things that you can. That you can study if you're interested in it. And something might ring a bell or it might not, you know, so it's little bits and pieces throughout my class. I'll just say a little bit here, a little bit there. It might be as simple as bringing hands to Heart center samastahiti and saying, this is a moment we can think about heart center and remember that when we strip away everything else, we're just all love. That's what we start with, and that's what we still are when we take everything else away and then we just go right on with class. Like, I didn't say anything, just reminders. And sometimes I might even say to the class, what I'm telling you is not new. I know that you know this, but shouldn't we remind each other once in a while of these basic tenets of happiness and community and love and this sort of thing? So, you know, I try not to get too drippy about it. But I think people like to hear it. It seems like they like to hear it.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: So Slow Flow with Joe was created to fill a gap. You noticed people feeling intimidated or incompetent, leaving classes, feeling humiliated. What were you seeing that other teachers and studios were missing? And why does moving slowly actually make the practice more challenging? In some ways, yes.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: I think people, you know, being in the. One of the people in the class, maybe I was hearing more than the teachers were hearing about people's other experiences at other yoga studios. And I still meet people often that say, you know, I tried yoga five years ago or two years ago or one year ago, and the teacher yelled at me. They told me I couldn't have a drink of water. They told me I, you know, they singled me out. They stood next to my mat for half the class correcting my posture. I hear these types of things, you know, but they say, I really wanted to try it one more time. And a lot of times they say, I saw the word slow in the name of your class, and I thought, well, maybe I could do that because it's slow. And of course, the name of that class, I started out as a joke because it rhymed with my name, Slow Flow with Joe and Maria. And I laughed about it. But then we thought, well, you know, it is kind of catchy, so maybe it would just try it and see if it works. And it does attract people so they can go slow. People that again, are older or have one condition or other. And some people just aren't very athletic. You know, I'm not very athletic really, even when I was younger.
So I think that's one thing that I was seeing that maybe the teachers didn't see. And I'm sure other people have thought of the same idea. I think there's, if you Google it, other people are doing slow flow yoga. It's not a new idea, but I guess maybe I've just got my own particular bent on it, like the other teachers teaching slow flow classes elsewhere. So I think, yeah, I think there was a niche there that was not being filled.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: Yeah, you play classical music during your classes, which is unusual, maybe, and you weave in teachings from the eight limbs of Hatha Yoga and the Yoga Sutras, letting students use it, ignore it, or investigate further as they see fit.
Tell us about your teaching philosophy and why you structure your classes this way.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Well, the classical music, you know, and I'm not a musician. I did not study music. I don't really know much about it. You know, I just have always been exposed to it, my parents listened to classical music. My mother pretended particular. And so I've always listened to classical music. Even, you know, I might listen to Bob Seeger in the morning when I was a young person and then that evening I might put on Beethoven's fifth Symphony. I just like it. And so I thought, well, this is an opportunity to try something different in class. If you have your yoga music that you hear all the time, maybe people might like to hear something a little different. Many of my students were older and that tends to be people who have been more exposed to classical music also. And I had listened to enough classical music over my life to know that it can be as many, many different types. I mean, people that aren't familiar with classical music at all, I think, tend to think it's all, it's all this long, boring, slow moving stuff. But it's not that way at all. If you get a little, even somewhat familiar with it, there's calming music, there's very exciting, you know, driving beats and all these sorts of things.
So that's where that came from, just to try something different and see if people enjoyed it. And they do. One woman in particular often jokes with me, a regular that she, she likes my yoga, okay. But she mostly comes to hear the music. She's a long time regular at, at Yoga Patch, a woman now in her 80s.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: Some honest feedback.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: Yeah, she's teasing, but I think, well, I hope she's teasing. I don't know, maybe she's not teasing. Either way, she comes to class, so I'm glad to have her. And then the rest of it, you know, it's just, it just kind of comes naturally to me. I guess I didn't really plan it. But again, as I mentioned earlier, I wanted to expose people to some of this just, just so they know it's there. Because again, people come to exercise and. But I, I couldn't imagine that I was the only one in the world who could find out that there was more there that I could learn than just how to do these poses and get those benefits. And the breathing, you know, that you learn in classes but you don't hear, at least I never heard too much talk about anything else having to do with yoga. So this is why I, I started doing that just kind of came naturally. I just find myself in a pause. And we do stop and breathe sometimes in my classes, sometimes just for two or three breaths between, sometimes during a series even or between series or between standalone poses. And we take a two minute meditation break about halfway through my Slow flow classes.
And that just kind of came organically too. I just thought, you know, why don't we just stop for a couple of minutes right here about halfway through and get in any position you want to be and just breathe and reconnect with your breath and why you came to class today. And if you're thinking any judgmental thoughts about how that last series of poses went or that last pose, this is an opportunity to let those go, just to, just to release that because it's gone. I wasn't watching you. I'm not judging you. I really don't even look out at the class all that much when I'm teaching. I'm giving pretty careful instructions. People will tell me that my instructions are pretty clear and I'm really not that interested as long as you're not hurting yourself and exactly how you look in your poses. Because everybody's just so different.
I don't go around and correct people. I'll mention sometimes that if you want a hands on adjustment, I know how to do that. I'm perfectly willing to do it. You just let me know. And one time in 13 years has somebody asked me to do a hands on adjustment. And that was after class. And also being a male teacher in an environment that's mostly female, and whether it's mostly female or not, people don't always want you touching them. I had teachers come adjust me before and one fellow hurt me kind of badly. A bad knee that I had that since has been replaced. And he would not leave me alone. He was a very much liked teacher. He was not a regular teacher at Yoga Patch and he wanted, he felt like he needed to adjust my left leg. Pigeon pose, I think it was. And I said, please don't touch my leg. It's like that for a reason. My knee's bad. And by golly, he moved it again and it hurt. I had to get just a little stern with him, you know, this is, this is not a joke, young man. My knee is quite injured and it's. What do I know how to move it and you don't. He finally looked at me kind of sidelong and got up and left. I think he wasn't used to being corrected, but I tried to be subtle about it. I didn't want to have to do it, but he was hurting me. So this is an example. So stuck with me too. Working with children, many of them trauma survivors, I guess you would say. I'm trauma informed would be the modern parlance for that. So I know that it's you know, you don't know what people have been through and what's happened to them or who you remind them of. Especially if they don't know you very well yet. So yeah, I believe in hands off. People announce sometimes before classes they're a hands on yoga teacher. I sometimes announce I'm a hands off yoga teacher. Unless you invite me to your mat, I will not leave my mat. I'll be right here. And if you want to ask me something, want me to come over, I will do so.
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Part 2 why not me Facing Cancer with Yoga.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Joe let's go back to June 2019.
Stage 4 prostate cancer, Gleason Scale 10, the most aggressive kind.
Cancer in your bones and lymphatic system.
Doctors gave you one and a half to five years.
You write in your substack post that your first plan was suicide.
Take us into that moment and how your wife saved your life.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Yes, well, that was. That was quite a day. And by all means I I had found out by then that I had cancer and that it was an aggressive cancer, but I did not know yet if it had spread or not. That's when they stage you by how much it spread as far as I know. So I had gone in for these scans and then I had another doctor's appointment for a related issue and I was up there meeting with actually one of the nurses and there was a student doctor that came in and took it upon himself to read my scans and interpret them for me and come into the room and tell me that my cancer had spread and I had. I did not know what that meant. I'm not sure he exactly knew what that meant. He had absolutely no business talking to me at all and certainly not telling me about my cancer situation. He was not an oncologist, he was a student urologist and I imagine he got in a Great deal of trouble for that. But there I was by myself, sitting in this room, and he just comes in and blurts all this all out to me, you know, and my mind just went back to what I had always thought over the years. You know, we all hear about cancer and have had probably a relative or a friend that has had cancer and how the terrible end that they come to and all this sort of thing. So in the back of my mind, I always thought, well, if this happens to me, a really bad cancer, then I'm probably just going to go to California and get an assisted suicide. There's no use punishing everybody in the family if it's that bad. And I'm going to just, you know, I'm going to die at some rate of speed, and it's not going to be pretty. So that's. My mind immediately leapt to that. So I called my wife. She worked in that same building. She's a nurse practitioner in another department.
And she was like, what? What are you talking about? So she came over, and as we're walking to the car, I tell her that I wasn't going to put her through this and that I was going to go to California and she wouldn't have to go through all that. And she got a little mad. She was not happy. So she said, absolutely no, you're not, or my dead body, you have to kill me before you're going to get on that plane. So I stopped and thought. And of course she was right. She said, you haven't even talked to an oncologist yet that was a student, a student urologist. He doesn't know what he's talking about probably at all, and he certainly shouldn't have even been talking to you to begin with. And of course, I learned very quickly when we did get to the oncologist, that I knew absolutely nothing about cancer, particularly the modern world of cancer and what was going on and what the possibilities were. And even though they did not give me a long life's expectancy, that there was possibilities, you know, there was treatments, there was new things coming out all the time. And there still are, of course, here. Here I still am six, over six and a half years later, still right here. Not that the cancer is gone, not I necessarily going to live a whole lot longer. I may or may not. We don't really know. As I talked to my doctor recently, I said, you know, I'm on my own borrowed time here. He says, where? Where do you think I am, Doc? And she said, well, we didn't Think you'd make it this far? So I wouldn't worry about it yet if I was you, because you're still doing okay. You're still hanging in there. So, yeah, she absolutely saved my wife. Had she my life, had I not talked to her, I probably wouldn't have called a friend. I probably wouldn't have called a brother. I would have probably just gotten home and, you know, made the arrangements, and gone. And that would have been the end of it. Left a note and just. Gone. Yeah. Thank goodness for her.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:32:18] Speaker C: You describe having a conversation with your oncologist where she had to shoot straight with you.
It didn't look good.
But then she mentioned there was a very slight chance you could beat the odds.
You wrote, hope. That was just what I needed. How did that shift from despair to why not me happen?
[00:32:41] Speaker A: Well, yeah, that. You know, I had to kind of drag it out of the doctor. She's very. She's not a negative person by any means. I'm very, very fond of her. My W and I are both very, very fond of her and our whole oncology team.
But, you know, doctors are. They're scientists, and it's all hard fact to them. So she was just telling me, you know, what it looks like. That's what it looked like, what happened, statistically speaking. So I had to kind of drag it out and said, doc, you mean there's nobody ever in my condition can beat this thing or even do better than expected? And she finally runted and said, well, there are a very, very few people who do. I said, well, that's what I needed to hear. You know, I felt like, tell me I've got some kind of chance. Don't just tell me there's no chance. And, I mean, truthfully. And then she did do that. So I said, well, okay, if there's a chance, then I've got a chance. And why can't I be one of the ones that makes it? Why not me? You know, I actually went to a. An ENT Right around that same time, oddly. And I said I'd been going to for years, just for an annual year, you know, cleanup checkup thing. And. And he looked at me, and he also said, well, why not you? You know, why wouldn't it be you?
So that was kind of stuck with me, too. I've always thanked him for that. So, yeah, it was just something inside me that said, well, you know, you don't have to give up. After all, there are things to learn here. There are.
I feel good. I did not feel Sick. I had no idea that I had any kind of cancer. I was still working, you know, at that time. I was right in the middle of remodeling this guy's kitchen. I just went in for an annual checkup, you know, they had actually forgotten to do. The lab did not run the PSA test, prostate specific antigen. And the doctor himself called me up. My general practitioner said, you better come back. We should probably do that. You know, it's your age. I said, oh, come on, doc, I got to finish this guy's kitchen, right? Which, which is more important here.
But he convinced me that I should come back. And of course, the number was elevated just almost a year to the day. It had about tripled, you know, so anyway, there's. There's another little story there. But he saved my life also by catching that had he not seen that at the rate that cancer was moving, you know, it would have been a little different story even a few months later, because I had no symptoms. I felt 100 fine, and I still felt good. So, yeah, it's.
That was the transition there to feeling like I had some hope and to just give up and go cash in was not really being fair to myself or others either. There was some chance, and if I could do it, then that was going to be a help, not just to me, but to other people that I knew and other people that I didn't know. Maybe I could contribute to some of the science of it by being in a clinical trial. You know, there's things that you can do if you've got an opportunity going back to the yamas. You know, if you have an opportunity to help, possibly help yourself while you're helping others, or just to help others in any way, really. Why would you not take it as long as you're not harming yourself? You know, we take care of ourselves first so we can better take care of others and help others. And that's what I. So I saw how that fit into my practice, my yoga practice, and it all started making some sense to me then. My emotions, I was quite emotional still, but it was starting to kind of heal over a little bit and give me some space and perspective to think about what was really going on and what my possibilities were. So I decided to take the. The more positive road and say, let's, you know, let's try it and let's just see what happens. And the docetaxel did a wonderful job. It surprised even the doctors how much of that cancer it knocked out over the space of 18 weeks.
And it completely cleared it out of the lymphatic system, and most of the bone tumors disappeared. I think there was three left, including the prostate itself. And there was no change in any of those for years and years and years.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: You decided that cancer may kill me eventually, but it was not going to kick my rear up and down the street for the rest of my time on this planet. That's such a powerful stance. Joe, how did your years of yoga practice prepare you mentally and spiritually for this fight?
What did yoga teach you that helped in that moment?
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Well, you know, I think we can look very broadly at that.
I had become a happier, less angry person through my yoga practice.
A person who kind of understood how the world worked a little better. That, plus my years of work in mental health and social services. I learned so much doing that type of work about how the world works, how people think, and how it can be affected. And then learning my own personal practice and proving myself was the last piece of that, you know, learning how to take care of myself better and have better perspective on things.
And so I guess that was really the. Where that. Where yoga particularly fit into that. All the things I had learned gave me that perspective. I needed to be able to go down that road in a positive manner.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: You went through chemotherapy with Docetaxel, wearing a different Hawaiian shirt to each treatment.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:40] Speaker C: Playing cards with your wife, cooing at the docetaxel like it was a magical new friend.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: It was.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: How did you maintain that positive, even playful attitude through something so difficult? Was that natural, or did you have to work at it?
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Well, once I've wrapped my head around something and know what I'm trying to do, then. Then that's very natural for me to laugh and joke about things, you know, because also having gratitude at the same time that I was not feeling horrible. You know, chemo's hard. Chemo is hard. But nowadays it's nothing like it was 20 years ago, 15 years ago, probably even they figured out the dosages and things much better. And I. So a lot of the horror stories people my age at least grew up hearing and even witnessing in family members or loved ones, you know, that's really mostly a thing of the past for most people in my experience.
So, yeah, I mean, I wear a Hawaiian shirt, have a little fun, be a character for the nurses to have some fun with and joke with the nurses.
And Docetaxel was my friend, you know, it was. It was saving my life. It was going to make me feel kind of cruddy for A while. But it was going to clear out of my system and I was going to make sure it cleared out of my system by doing what I was told to do, which was to stay active, drink lots of water, stay positive, and don't just sit there and, you know, wallow in it. You got to move that stuff around and out of your system. And that's exactly what I did. So, yeah, I'd hold. I'd be playing cards and, you know, have that thing looped around my arm with my. That I was holding my cards and playing, watching while my wife thromped me at gin rummy and various other card games. And we'd have some goofy show on the TV there and laughing and joking and it certainly made the time go faster. I think the nurses enjoyed it, having somebody who was, you know, and I'm. I work up there now myself as a volunteer and you know, it's. They like having somebody who's trying to. Trying to be positive and have a little bit of fun up there. So again, was an opportunity to help myself do what I needed to do and help others.
So why wouldn't you? I guess, you know, once you, once you get your. An understanding in your head of where you're trying to get to and you know, if you start feeling kind of cruddy, then just close your eyes, take a little nap, you know, you'll feel better later. And I did.
So, yeah.
[00:39:56] Speaker C: You and your oncology team agree that your overall fitness and positive attitude have contributed to your extended survival and quality of life. From your perspective, Joe, as someone living this, how do the eight limbs of yoga specifically help you find stability and positive energy to deal with the stressors of cancer?
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's. It does make a big difference if you're physically fit. And they told me that in the very beginning. You know, even though I had a, you know, all these orthopedic problems, I was still very active, obviously doing a lot of yoga, walking, weightlifting, lightweightlifting nowadays. Very lightweightlifting nowadays.
You know, in doing all these different things I can do to maintain my body. And it's amazing what the body will do if you treat it just right and get kind of.
I don't know if scientific is a fair word to use. I'm not a scientist, but you just very carefully think about what you're doing. You know, I have various things, parts of my body that really function way more than they should. If you look at the MRIs, my right shoulder in particular is one that theoretically shouldn't work hardly at all. But yet I can do quite a bit with it. And that's just some luck and some persistence, I think, you know, and just knowing what you can and can't do, taking care of yourself, keeping that positive attitude. And that's something I talk about with my fellow patients when I'm going around with my snack card up there, you know, and talking with people. It's. The upbeat ones are a lot of times, the ones that I see people coming out of there with unbelievably hard cancers, and they're saying, this is my last one. I beat it. The reading said, no cancers. I'm not showing it. Doesn't mean it won't come back. And they all understand that. But, you know, it can be done. So then you can spread that to other people, you know, because people are mighty upset, especially they're in there for their first time or two.
So, yeah, you got to stay positive. You got to stay active. And it's. It's. I just see it over and over again in myself and in other people, other patients up there. They're. They're the ones that are doing better. You know, One woman I met up there, and she come with her husband, and they were nice couple, but she just.
She made her husband push her in a wheelchair. And she said, well, I can actually walk, but, you know, I just don't feel like it. You know, she was just depressed and. And, you know, and I don't think her treatment was going all that well in particular. And then one week I came in, and she looked completely different. And I said, wow, did you get some. Some good news? You look like a different person. I'm always glad to see you, but you look fantastic today. She said, well, you know what? My doctor told me if I was going to go around with that bad attitude to just come back, just go home and die, if that's what I was really wanting to do, if that's all I want to talk about. And she said, that really woke me up, you know, so her attitude changed, and I believe her outcomes were starting to change, too, from what she and her husband told me. So that was a really dramatic example of it. Over the space of some weeks, everything changed for her when that doctor. I don't know if doctors are supposed to do that or not, but that's what that doctor said. But, you know, they're busy there. They've got a lot of patience, and he felt strong enough about it to tell her that, you know, if she wasn't gonna try to try to help herself, Then why. Why was he spending so much time and resources on it? So that was, that was an interesting thing. I couldn't believe the doctor would actually do that. But maybe it happens quite a bit. I don't know. But you know, it's just like. And it's true in any part in your life really. The more positive you are and active, the more you're doing good for yourself.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Hey listener. If you enjoyed this episode and are enjoying the show, you may also be interested in Padmasana Media's other shows, Yoga Scussion and My Mindful Moment.
Yoga Scussion features conversations with yoga practitioners, teachers and researchers.
My Mindful Moment features short listener submitted recordings of profound and insightful moments in their life.
You can find both shows wherever podcasts are available and@yoga scusion.podmasana.com and podmasana.com mymindfulmoment. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy checking out those other shows.
Part 3 Volunteering, living fully and Choosing Life.
[00:44:10] Speaker C: Joe, you now volunteer at the Kansas University Cancer center where you receive treatment and visit patients with a cart of snacks and drinks.
What made you want to do this and what have you learned about hope from being on both sides as a patient and as a volunteer?
[00:44:30] Speaker A: Yes, that's a, that's an excellent question. You know that one of the first times I was down at the cancer center, a fellow came around another volunteer with that card and he just gave me a big smile and offered me a bottle of water and a some crackers or some things like that. They're just basic little, you know, actually not particularly healthy snacks, to be honest with you, for the most part. And I took him up on it. They did not have a volunteer up in the treatment area at that time. This was just a fellow working down in the waiting, going around with all the waiting rooms and just talking with people. I noticed that he had, he took his time and visited for those people who wanted to visit.
So I kind of even told myself that very first time, I said, you know, if I, if I get to it, if I get make it here, I'm gonna see if I can't maybe help with that too. And so sure enough, I got stable. And then in 2020 I applied to help at the cancer center. And the day I was supposed to get my badge made was the day they closed down all the volunteer services for Covid. So I've actually been on volunteer staff there since then. But then they allowed the volunteers to come back. I believe it was in 2020.
So I've been down there since I think fall of 22, when they allowed the volunteers to come back in. And it's, it's just, you know, you, we're all looking for hope, all of us there, you know, whether you're have a very good prognosis or a very difficult prognosis. So we, it kind of becomes like a big cancer support group in there. And so I go around room to room and some people aren't too interested in talking to me, and that's okay. They don't want a snack, they don't particularly want to talk to me. They've got a book, they've got their maybe ear pods in. And I say just, you know, thumbs up or thumbs down, show them the card and they might just send me on my way and that's perfectly fine. But other people do want to talk, whether it's with their family member or loved one in there or if they're by themselves. Certainly it's a long time there. Some people are there, you know, for eight or nine hours. You might have your labs at 7am, your appointment at 8am and you might be in chemo for six or seven hours with this stuff going into your system. It's a long day, you know, and they, for one thing, they're hungry.
We have box lunches as well as the snacks that come up from the cafeteria. But then if they find out that you're a cancer survivor too, and I wear a button on my badge that says survivor strong. And sometimes they notice that and ask about it or I'll just tell them, you know, I've never been one to keep my a cancer secret or much of anything else secret. You know, I'm trying to be right out front with people because it interests them. They want to know what your experience has been. And it's very easy to get an opportunity to start talking about the positively, the positivity, the exercise and just encourage them. You know, of course I always stress I am not a medical person. I'm just an old retired carpenter who's just down here trying to help out. I don't really know anything from a medical standpoint, but I know what's happened with me and I think your doctor would probably tell you too, to get up and move. Get up and move. Even if you're just walking back and forth in your bedroom or living room, going into, you know, getting up from your nap and going outside, once around the yard, make sure you're eating right, drink all that. Nobody, nobody wants to drink a gallon of water. A day or whatever your doctor might tell you, but it's going to wash that medicine out and you're going to feel better, so just drink as much as you can. And just encouraging people to do the things they already know to do. It's kind of like mentioning something in class like we talked about earlier, you know, about how to get along in your world, how to take care of yourself, basic things. But people tend to forget about those things, especially under duress. And so it's just an opportunity to do that. And sometimes we don't talk anything about cancer. We'll talk about sports or, you know, other things. I talk about yoga. People are interested, you know, they don't expect somebody that looks like me to be a yoga teacher. And they. They find that entertaining and interesting and they want to hear about that. And. And sometimes they say, well, you know, maybe I could give it a try, you know, or are there other ones who have tried it before and had problems like we talked about? Many people do going to classes that. Where they don't. They feel like they don't fit in and they're frustrated with it. But there's all kinds of different things you can do for exercise and for positivity.
[00:48:39] Speaker C: You write that when patients learn you're also a patient, they're often very open with you. You describe it as being in the same club, even one that nobody wants to belong to.
What kinds of conversations do you have? What do people need to hear when they're scared?
[00:48:57] Speaker A: Well, they like to have me, first of all, tell them that I should have been dead a long time ago, that I. I probably was not. Should not have made it this far. And they look at me and say, well, you don't even look sick, you know. And I said, well, I don't feel sick either, and I can't explain that. And some of that's probably luck, and some of it's probably, you know, because of the things that I do. And my doctor agrees with me that it's largely due to the things that I do. So that's a little piece of hope there, because I'm, you know, there's nothing special about me. I'm just a. I'm just an old guy, you know, pushing this card around. I'm not.
I'm not anybody special. I'm not a super athlete. I'm not a. You know, I'm just a guy, just a regular person. So.
And they feel. Most people feel like that's what they are, too. So I think it gives them a little bit of hope that, you know, why not me Might apply to them like it did to me. Why couldn't I make my. Even if it doesn't extend my life a long time, might I feel better during the meantime, you know, including today and tomorrow, if I just do a little bit more, if I spend some time doing some positive things with family and friends, you know, going to lunch, sitting and talking about something besides the cancer, it can become overwhelming. All you think about is your cancer and all your symptoms and all these different things. Well, there's other things still to talk about. You're still alive, you're still here, you know, and there's other things you have to offer yourself and others than to sit and talk about cancer all the time. And it can become an obsession. I think that's a lot of it right there. Just knowing that there's. It is a kind of a club in a way. You know, you don't feel like anybody really understands you unless they've had cancer too, or have cancer too. So that club that nobody wants to belong to for sure.
[00:50:34] Speaker C: Joe, in your substack post, you write about meeting other patients during your hospital stay who are going through much worse than you.
You saw that sometime in the not too distant future I could be in a situation similar to theirs. How do you hold that awareness of what may come while staying present and positive today?
[00:50:55] Speaker A: Yes, that was quite an experience. The very first chemo treatment I had six and a half plus years ago, or yeah, six and a half plus years, completely took out my neutrophil as part of the body's defense system against infection.
So I had to go to the hospital. I was in the hospital four days under, getting IV antibiotics the whole time. But I actually felt okay. And they said it was fine if I wanted to get up, put on a mask and get up and walk around the unit because I like to move, I like to get exercise. And you'd see other people out in the hall walking to, or you'd pass a room and see somebody in there that they just come from radiation and they did not look good. And talking to people and they've got, you know, hoses and bags and things, and they're trying to move around a little bit, but they really look just terrible. So I thought to myself, man, look how lucky I am, you know, to not. To not have that happen to me. But at the same time thinking, well, you know, this guy's probably had cancer a lot more than a few months like me, a couple of months or however long I had been since I'd been diagnosed, not very long at all. So it's something you have to be aware of. But just try to do live for today. I guess, you know, you can't really predict what's going to happen to you. You don't know that you're going to end up like that anytime or when, if so, when. So you just have to kind of keep going, you know, and do the best you can every day and just live for that day and make plans for tomorrow, but positive plans. You have to have some sensibility about financially being prepared for that sort of thing and all of that and what you will do if it goes that way. But once you've got some ideas and some things set up, then back to today. You know, live in the present moment and take care of yourself, take care of others. The greatest gift that anybody can give you is to let you help them. So when I go around and talk with people, that's what they're doing. They're allowing me to help them. But it's harder for me to remember that I can do the same thing and I can let people help me. But once I have learned to do that, it's been really quite late in life. When I got better at that. It helped letting people help me. Then I started to see how much they appreciated it.
That all fits together in my mind to make it bearable to move forward and not worry too much about that. Just do what you can do to help.
[00:53:03] Speaker C: You say cancer may eventually kill me before I can kill it, but it can't break my spirit.
I choose life and love.
After six years of living with stage four cancer, what does choosing life in love actually look like day to day?
What are the practices, yoga or otherwise, that keep your spirit unbreakable?
[00:53:27] Speaker A: Well, yoga is a big part of it because I think that I get good feedback from people that I'm helping them, you know. And again, as we began really this, our interaction today, talking about that helping people is what I like to do. It's kind of what I'm intended to do. Apparently. It's. My mother told me that when I was a kid, you know, that's what you like to do, isn't it? Just like to help people? I guess it is. You know, I didn't really fully get that until I was older.
So when I'm helping others, then I'm helping myself and I take good care of myself. I exercise more. Beyond the yoga, the exercise part of yoga, I do lots of things for exercise. I take care of My home.
You know, I live my life and try to be positive and just try to be positive. I am positive. And take care of myself, take care of others, be kind, try to spread goodness around, try to have good conversations with people that about the state of the world and the state of the neighborhood and the state of the house and everything. And try to think about what can be useful to the world.
[00:54:31] Speaker C: Joe, looking back on your journey from social services to carpentry to yoga teaching to cancer warrior, how do you understand the thread that connects all these chapters?
And what would you say to someone who's just received a devastating diagnosis and doesn't yet know if they can face what's ahead?
[00:54:55] Speaker A: Well, that's a tough one. You know, I think it comes back once again to just encouraging people to take care of themselves and to get information not from the Internet, not by googling things, but by talking to their doctors. Get in a cancer support group, maybe a volunteer job like that's my cancer support group is volunteering up there for couple times a week for a total of six hours a week. It's not that many, but I get a lot of interaction with people in six hours a week at the cancer center. So again, these are opportunities to be with family, to be with friends, to help other people and to show them things that I know that they can use or not use, and to take good care of myself and try to feel as well as I can feel every day, you know, if somebody's got that fresh diagnosis. And I certainly do meet people at the cancer center there for their first time, and some of them are open to some joking. You can kind of learn to tell, you know, which of the patients you're going to walk into the room. You pretty much know right away, usually if they want to. If they want to joke around or not. It's surprising how many do, even if they're there on their very first day. But of course, it's not all joking. You also talk about Gary business. You know, you don't know what's going to happen. It's confusing. We talk about the importance of having a someone with you when you go to meetings with your doctor because it's very difficult to understand what they're saying and to remember it all. And your brain's not really in a place to absorb all this information about something that you really, really wish did not happen. And without someone there to help you, it's easy to get confused and get things wrong. So we just talk about the practical side of it quite a bit. And that's a big part of it, especially in the beginning, I think, when you've just been diagnosed as getting a handle on where you are, where you can go, what your options are, and what can you do to have a positive effect on your outcome and on your daily life and how you feel.
Yeah.
[00:56:46] Speaker C: Well, Joe, it's been wonderful talking to you today. Thank you very much for being on Padmasana.
[00:56:52] Speaker A: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: If you enjoyed this episode, please share.
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