On the north side of Vancouver Island, alone in the biting cold of a coastal Canadian winter, Nicole Apelian found herself in a predicament. While gutting a salmon she’d caught to eat, she’d cut deep into the forefinger of her left hand. The wound was to the bone and had all the potential, if not properly treated, of leading to infection.
Learning From the Land
Nature had always been with her.“I was always a feral child,” she said with a chuckle. Her childhood had been one filled with the joy of natural discovery. Whether she was off hiking with her family or running through the neighborhood of her hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, the outdoors was always near.
Nature followed her move across the country to the West Coast, where she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in biology. Yet for all her appreciation and time spent out-of-doors, Apelian did not learn what it took to truly connect with nature until she journeyed to Africa in the 1990s as a member of the Peace Corps. Operating as a game warden, she explored the wilds of southern Africa, tracking lions and a variety of other wildlife.
In Botswana, Apelian encountered the Kalahari San Bushmen, one of southern Africa’s last remaining indigenous hunter-gatherer tribes. “I learned everything from them,” said Apelian. So entranced was she by their culture that she based her entire doctorate in cultural anthropology around her experience with the tribe. Going far beyond a simple academic interest, however, Apelian became incredibly close with the members. She began learning the fundamentals of wilderness survival, so indicative of life in the bush. She learned the language of birds and how different calls alerted one to the presence of specific animals. She learned to forage for medicinal plants. She learned how to start a fire by friction. All of these skills, derived from thousands of years of gathered wisdom, provided Apelian with an arsenal of survival knowledge, as well as a deep sense of place and purpose, the likes of which she had never before experienced.
Far away from that African landscape, huddled in her makeshift shelter on Vancouver Island, Apelian tended to her lacerated hand. Calling upon her knowledge of foraging for medicinal plants, she got to work. “When you know what’s there, you look at the forest in a completely different way,” Apelian said. Being able to identify nearly all of the island’s plants, including two dozen edible species and helpful medicinal herbs such as yarrow and usnea, she created water bath infusions with which to soak and clean her hand.
“You get awfully dirty out there,” Apelian laughed. “Had I not known about medical herbs, my hand would’ve been infected and I would have been out.”
Out of the competition, that is—she was competing on the second season of the History Channel survival show “Alone,” aired in 2016. In total, she spent 57 days isolated in the wilderness. Though she was not the eventual winner—he lasted 66 days—she remembers the experience as one of the most enjoyable of her life.
Conquering Her Diagnosis
Until “Alone,” she’d gotten out of the habit of talking about it. If whomever Apelian was speaking to was not already aware that she had multiple sclerosis (MS), there was no reason to bring it up. The television show had revealed her autoimmune disease to the world, ushering in a rush of more than 10,000 emails, all asking the same question: How on Earth was she able to be so active with what can be such a debilitating condition?The flurry of interest inspired Apelian to share her health journey with the wider world.
Diagnosed with MS in 2000, at age 30, Apelian quickly fell into the throes of her illness. She lost sight in her left eye. There were very clear lesions on her brain.
“I got sicker and sicker, to the point where on a very good day, I was using a cane during the day and a wheelchair at night, and on a lot of days I was bed-bound,” Apelian said. “This went on for a couple of years and it was not the way I wanted to live my life. … I was a shadow of my former self.”
The course of medications Apelian was taking during this season of constant pain affected both her cognitive and physical functions. For one who had been so active and mentally connected to the natural world, to be bedridden and addled with brain fog was to be imprisoned in her own suffering. And so, she decided to take charge of her own care. Thus began her deep dive into the world of alternative medicine.
In the early 2000s, alternative, natural medicine was still very much outside the sphere of mainstream American medical practices, barely a blip on the radar. Apelian threw herself down the proverbial rabbit hole, searching for scientific studies. Most of what she found had come out of Asia.
She changed her diet, cutting out gluten and other inflammatory, processed foods and increasing her intake of fermented foods and probiotics. She then began to work on shifting her mindset. She added daily gratitudes, practiced living in the present moment, and made sure to spend time in nature every single day. However, her most important revelation, the one that aided her so well on Vancouver Island, was the introduction of herbal remedies.
Recalling her experiences in the bush and her education as a biologist, Apelian’s initial wading into herbal medicine became a passion with the energy equivalent to steaming across the ocean.
“I was never once nervous about working with herbs,” she said. “Once I started deep-diving into scientific research on the power of herbal medicine, I started … using herbs; growing and foraging plants, lichens, and mushrooms; and making my own medicine.”
The apothecary products include much of her MS management kit, such as her Mushroom Fourtress, a dual-extracted series of medicinal mushroom tinctures derived from cordyceps, reishi, lion’s mane, and turkey tail. Each mushroom has its own medicinal properties, Apelian said, including fighting bacterial and viral infections, improving brain function, lowering inflammation, reducing stress, and even working to repair and rebuild damaged nerves. Lion’s mane, in particular, has properties linked to reducing brain cell degeneration, a primary symptom of MS.
Forgotten Healers
The amazing thing about this herbal medicine, and integrating all of these changes step-by-step into her life, Apelian said, is that it all works.Herbs are “so effective,” she said. “Why aren’t we using these more on a daily basis? They’ve really been forgotten in a lot of ways. And now, I’m really glad [they’re] having a resurgence.” Though she’s not remotely against mainstream Western medicine, her first instinct is to go to nature, and to herbs, and to living a life of gratitude and community—instead of reaching for over-the-counter pills with innumerable side effects.
And that is Apelian’s true mission: to bring herbal medicine to the world and get people to start thinking more about holistic wellness.
“Holistic wellness is the whole picture,” she said. “It’s your lifestyle. It’s what you put in your body. It’s how you spend your day. It’s your mind-body linkages. People who are starting out need to go piece-by-piece, integrate change one step at a time.”
“People want to learn this information,” she said, citing more and more people coming to her and her workshops over the last few years. “They’re excited about it, and they’re looking for more natural ways of healing. And that just thrills me.”
