What Is Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Really?
Looking at SCC through medical, terrain, lymphatic, and energetic lenses.
One of the biggest things we’ve learned since Ron’s diagnosis is this:
Everyone talks about cancer.
Very few people talk about the body.
Or terrain.
Or why some things heal and others don’t.
Or why two people can receive the same diagnosis and have completely different experiences.
Or why, in moments of crisis, some people immediately surrender their power — and others get curious.
After Ron was diagnosed with Stage 4 Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC), we found ourselves asking a question we suspect many people ask quietly:
What exactly are we dealing with here?
Not just medically.
But biologically. Emotionally. Energetically. Spiritually. Systemically.
Because while we deeply respect modern medicine and the incredible advances it has made, we also knew — almost immediately:
We wanted a broader conversation about healing.
Not instead of medicine.
Not in rebellion against medicine.
Alongside it.
A conversation big enough to include the whole person.
The body. The mind. The nervous system. The terrain. The microbiome. Emotions. Stress. Relationships. Beliefs. Meaning.
And yes — consciousness itself.
Before we talk about Squamous Cell Carcinoma specifically, we want to share the lens we’re looking through.
Because how you understand healing almost always depends on how you understand reality itself.
Newtonian Healing vs. Quantum Healing
For years, Ron has loved talking about the difference between a Newtonian worldview and a Quantum worldview.
(His forthcoming book (currently Substack musings) calls it: Woo Woo Is the New Nerd. 😄)
A Newtonian lens sees the world like a machine.
Something breaks. You fix the broken part. Cause → effect. Problem → solution.
And to be clear — there is real value in this.
Modern medicine has saved countless lives. Surgery matters. Emergency medicine matters. Diagnostics matter. We are genuinely grateful these tools exist.
But when we entered the cancer conversation, something in both of us kept asking:
What if the body is more than a machine?
A Quantum lens sees the body differently.
Not as separate systems loosely stitched together — but as an interconnected ecosystem where everything influences everything else.
Biology. Stress. Sleep. Inflammation. Relationships. The nervous system. The immune system. Food. Beliefs. Emotional history. Meaning. Environment. Community. Hope. Fear.
Nothing exists in isolation.
So healing becomes less about:
“What do we attack?”
And more about:
“What conditions support the body in remembering balance?”
That question changed everything for us.
Because through a quantum lens, the conversation expands.
Healing isn’t only: What drug?
It also becomes: What terrain? What environment? What emotional load? What stress patterns? What is the body actually trying to communicate? How do we support the whole human while they heal?
Not because we believe illness is “all emotional.”
Not because we think positive thinking fixes biology.
And definitely not because we believe people somehow fail spiritually and “cause” their disease.
We don’t believe that. At all.
But we do believe the body is intelligent.
And sometimes symptoms arrive carrying information.
Consciousness, Wholeness, and Why Healing Is Bigger Than One Lens
At the deepest level, we personally believe consciousness connects us all.
Some people call this God. Some call it Source. Some call it Christ Consciousness. Some call it the Unified Field. Some call it Love.
For us, it points toward something simple:
Nothing is truly separate.
Not the body from the mind. Not emotions from physiology. Not biology from energy. Not healing from relationship. Not people from one another.
When we speak about Christ Consciousness, we’re not talking about religion in the traditional sense.
We’re talking about a lens of wholeness.
The understanding that beneath fear, fragmentation, illness, and struggle — there is still something fundamentally whole. Still intelligent. Still worthy. Still connected.
This lens invites a different kind of question.
Instead of: “What’s wrong with me?” Or: “How do I fight my body?”
The question becomes:
“What might my body be asking for?”
“How do we support healing from every angle available to us?”
That doesn’t mean abandoning science — actually, we’d argue the opposite.
Curiosity and science belong together.
Just as researchers study physical reality to understand the body, others have spent decades mapping emotional patterns, symbolic meaning, consciousness, stress physiology, terrain medicine, metabolic healing, nervous system regulation, and the body’s astonishing capacity to adapt.
We don’t see these perspectives as competing.
We see them as additional lenses. Additional questions. Additional ways of understanding what healing might ask of us.
Not certainty. Not dogma.
Curiosity. Compassion. Discernment. Hope.
And maybe most importantly — a willingness to ask:
What else might be true here?
Because once we began asking better questions…
The healing conversation became much bigger than cancer.
What Is Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Medically Speaking?
Let’s start with the medical lens.
Because understanding the physical reality matters.
Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) is a type of cancer that begins in squamous cells — thin, flat cells found in the skin and in the tissues lining parts of the body.
It is one of the most common forms of skin cancer, and many cases are relatively treatable when caught early.
But some cases behave differently.
More aggressively. More persistently. More invasively.
In Ron’s case, this looked like spots that simply did not behave the way previous skin issues had.
A spot on the back of his shoulder. A spot on the crown of his head.
Treatments that had worked before suddenly didn’t.
Instead of healing, things escalated. Grew. Returned. Demanded more attention.
Eventually, Ron’s diagnosis involved lymphatic spread — which shifted the medical conversation into what is classified as Stage 4 disease.
And this part matters. Because the term “Stage 4” can sound terrifying.
Honestly? For us, it did.
When most people hear Stage 4, what they often hear is: hopeless.
But medically, Stage 4 simply means the cancer has spread beyond its original location. In Ron’s case, through lymphatic pathways.
That distinction matters.
Because language shapes emotion.
And emotion shapes experience.
We quickly learned that fear can become its own kind of diagnosis.
Which is part of why we became committed to understanding not just what is this — but what conditions actually support healing.
The Terrain Question
One of the biggest shifts in our thinking came from a surprisingly simple question:
Why do two people with the same diagnosis sometimes have completely different outcomes?
Same cancer. Different body. Different resilience. Different healing response. Different story.
Conventional medicine often focuses on the disease itself.
A terrain perspective asks: What is happening in the environment of the body?
Think of it like this — if you planted seeds in depleted soil, would you only blame the seed?
Or would you also look at the nutrients, the water, the sunlight, the toxicity levels, the drainage, the overall health of the ecosystem?
The body is not so different.
This perspective invited us to start asking:
What is the state of the immune system? What level of inflammation exists? How well is detoxification functioning? How healthy is the microbiome? How much chronic stress has the nervous system been carrying? How much burden has the body been quietly compensating for over time?
This doesn’t replace medical treatment.
It expands the conversation.
Because if healing is happening inside a body — then the body itself matters. Deeply.
This was one of the things that resonated so strongly with Dr. Livwel’s approach.
Instead of looking at Ron’s body as a problem to attack, he approached it as a system asking for support.
Drainage. Microbiome restoration. Inflammation. Lymphatic movement. Metabolic flexibility.
Supporting the terrain so it becomes more hospitable to healing.
That framework made intuitive sense to us.
Not because it promised certainty.
But because it treated Ron like a whole person — not just a diagnosis.
Why the Lymphatic Conversation Became Impossible to Ignore
Of all the systems in the body, the one we became unexpectedly fascinated by was the lymphatic system.
If you’re unfamiliar with lymph, think of it as one of the body’s primary communication and cleanup networks — a drainage system, a transportation highway, a filtration process, and a bridge between immunity, inflammation, and fluid movement throughout the body.
And once Ron’s shoulder began hurting, something in me immediately paid attention.
I remember thinking: This feels lymphatic.
Not from fear. Not from a diagnosis. Just intuition. Something felt like it was no longer flowing the way it should.
That instinct eventually became a big part of why we pursued lymphatic support so intentionally.
And one of the frameworks that resonated most deeply with Ron came from The Encyclopedia of Ailments and Diseases by Jacques Martel — a book that explores the emotional and symbolic dimensions of illness. Not as blame. As inquiry.
One perspective that particularly landed for us: the idea that lymphatic congestion can sometimes symbolically reflect emotional overwhelm — difficulty processing experiences, carrying unresolved burdens, stagnation, a sense of being blocked in forward movement.
Do we think that means emotions cause cancer?
No. Absolutely not.
But did it invite meaningful questions?
Yes.
Because if the body is intelligent — and we believe it is — then maybe symptoms aren’t only problems.
Maybe they’re also messengers.
And sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do is get curious enough to listen.
The Body as Messenger: Skin, Shoulders, the Crown, and the Bigger Questions Healing Invites
At some point in this journey, we found ourselves asking a different kind of question.
Not just: “How do we treat this?”
But: “Why here?”
Not from blame. Not from shame. Not because we believe illness is punishment.
But because we’re curious.
Because if the body is intelligent — what if symptoms sometimes carry information too?
Not the whole truth. Not the reason. But part of the conversation.
For us, that opened the door to exploring symbolic, emotional, energetic, and even astrological perspectives alongside the medical ones.
And honestly? Some of what we found felt strangely meaningful.
The Skin: Our Boundary With the World
Squamous Cell Carcinoma begins in the skin.
And symbolically, skin is fascinating.
Skin is boundary. Protection. Interface. The place where self meets world.
In many symbolic and metaphysical traditions, skin issues can sometimes invite questions like:
Where have boundaries become strained? Where has stress lived too long beneath the surface? What has someone been carrying while trying to stay strong? Where has adaptation quietly become exhaustion?
These are not accusations. These are invitations.
Places to get curious.
Because when we zoomed out, something became clear: Ron has spent much of his life caring for others. Holding things together. Making sure everyone else feels okay. Carrying responsibility with more quiet devotion than most people around him ever fully see.
The Shoulder: Carrying the Weight of the World
The first major spot appeared on the back of Ron’s shoulder.
Which — if we’re being honest — felt symbolically loud.
Shoulders are associated with responsibility. Burden. Pressure. What we carry. What we shoulder.
And if you know Ron, you know: he carries a lot.
Responsibility. Family. People’s emotions. The invisible labor of trying to protect the people he loves.
He’s the kind of person who quietly absorbs stress so others can feel safer. Who steadies the room. Who wants everyone okay. Who just... takes care of things.
And while those qualities are beautiful —
Bodies have limits.
Even loving ones. Even generous ones. Especially generous ones.
And Then There Was the Crown…
The spot on Ron’s head felt almost mythic.
We joked — because humor helps — that it felt like a crown chakra awakening gone a little sideways.
But also... kind of not joking.
Because the symbolism here became impossible to ignore.
The crown is traditionally associated with perspective, meaning, consciousness, connection to something bigger. Identity. Beliefs. How we understand life itself.
And if there’s one thing Ron has always loved, it’s asking bigger questions.
He’s always been someone willing to reconsider assumptions. To challenge old ideas. To ask: “But what is possible here?”
Which brings us to something unexpectedly fascinating.
Ron’s Blueprint and the Way He Moves Through Life
For those unfamiliar, we also work with systems like Human Design and Astrology — not as fixed fate, but as pattern recognition. Another lens. Another conversation.
And when we looked at Ron’s energetic blueprint, some things stood out immediately.
Ron’s Human Design centers around the Left Angle Cross of Dominion — a life theme involving stewardship, responsibility, leadership, and learning wiser ways to manage energy, resources, and influence.
Not domination. Dominion. Which feels important.
Because Ron has always had protector energy. Provider energy. The kind of person who instinctively thinks: “How do I take care of everyone?”
His chart also reflects strong themes of responsibility and carrying weight — balanced with sensitivity, intuition, and a deep desire for meaning and harmony.
In astrology, Ron carries a strong Pisces influence — deep empathy, porous emotional boundaries, intuition, sensitivity to environments and people. Feeling everything. Sometimes carrying more than is visible.
Alongside that, strong Capricorn energy — responsibility, endurance, duty, the tendency to quietly keep going no matter how heavy things get.
And a strong Libra influence: harmony, peacekeeping, wanting others okay, holding relationships carefully.
Do we think astrology caused cancer?
No. Of course not.
But did it give us language for understanding how Ron moves through life?
Absolutely.
And sometimes understanding someone’s patterns helps you understand what healing may actually be asking of them.
What We Believe (And Don’t Believe)
Let us be clear.
We do not believe people create illness because they failed spiritually.
We do not believe cancer happens because someone had bad thoughts.
We do not believe healing is as simple as “raise your vibration.”
Life is more complex than that. Bodies are more complex than that. People are more sacred than that.
What we do believe:
The body is intelligent. Healing is multidimensional. People deserve support from every angle available. And curiosity is more useful than fear.
We believe medicine matters. Biology matters. Food matters. The nervous system matters. The immune system matters. Relationships matter. Hope matters. Community matters. Meaning matters.
And maybe most importantly — we believe healing becomes more possible when someone feels supported instead of broken.
So when people ask us: “What do you think caused this?”
Our honest answer is: we don’t know.
But we’re deeply interested in: What might support healing now?
And that question continues to change everything.
A Few Resources That Expanded Our Thinking
If you want to follow some of the threads shaping our thinking, here’s where we’ve been exploring:
Medical Understanding The Emperor of All Maladies — Siddhartha Mukherjee
Metabolic & Terrain Perspectives The Metabolic Approach to Cancer — Nasha Winters Tripping Over the Truth — Travis Christofferson
Mind/Body & Nervous System When the Body Says No — Gabor Maté
Symbolic & Emotional Perspectives The Encyclopedia of Ailments and Diseases — Jacques Martel Metaphysical Anatomy — Evette Rose Human Medicine — The Lost Manual for Your Emotions
You don’t have to agree with everything. Honestly, we don’t either.
But curiosity has become one of our greatest companions through this.
And maybe that’s the whole point.
Not certainty. Not perfection. Not having all the answers.
Just a willingness to keep asking: What else might support healing here?
If this resonates and you’d like to follow along as we navigate this journey — the hard days, the hopeful ones, the healing experiments, the questions, the wins, the setbacks, and the unexpected moments of grace — make sure to subscribe so new updates land straight in your inbox.
We’ll be sharing honestly.
What’s helping.
What we’re learning.
The things we’re trying.
The moments that surprise us.
And maybe, along the way, a different conversation about healing than most people have ever been invited into.
We’re learning as we go.
And we’re deeply grateful not to walk it alone 💛
P.S. Many of you have asked how to support Ron’s healing journey and treatment costs. If you feel moved to contribute or share, you can find his GoFundMe page here. Every message, prayer, laugh, donation, share, and moment of encouragement means more than you know.
5 melanomas and 28 + squamous and basal carcinomas later I am with you on this journey - have they discussed Keytruda with you? I know good thoughts, laughter, and positivity are critical to healing.