Redtree Times

There’s an inherent limit to the stress that any material can bear. Water has its boiling point, metals their melting points. The elements of the spirit behave the same way. Happiness can reach a pitch so great that any further happiness can’t be felt. Pain, despair, humiliation, disgust, and fear are no different. Once the vessel is full, the world can’t add to it.

–-Stefan Zweig, The Post Office Girl

This has been a stressful year.

I could probably leave that sentence hanging in the air alone and hardly anyone would disagree. It’s been stressful for most folks, with political upheaval and economic uncertainty across the board.

Those have been stress-inducing for me as well. The thought of our movement toward some form of authoritarian police state and the anxiety of trying to make a living as an artist in an economic downturn would provide more than enough stress for me in any year.

This year also had other stressors.

Some were emotional as I saw a number of friends pass away, some well before their time from disease, while at the same time, some family members were experiencing severe, life-threatening health crises. Again, that would be enough for most years, especially when you add in the current political and economic atmosphere.

But that just didn’t seem like enough stress for this banner year. I had some physical blips to throw into the pot.

I limped into the year with a fully ruptured tendon on in my ankle then suffered a mild concussion on a fall on the ice a couple of months later. I then had a bout with a tick-borne illness, anaplasmosis, that went undiagnosed for over 5 weeks in the summer. Throughout that time, I suffered severe symptoms– fever and chills, night sweats, body aches, headaches, extreme fatigue, dizziness when moving at more than crawl, disconcerting brain fog, etc– that left me feeling like a zombie. It was only diagnosed and treated at my insistence that I be tested for tick-borne illnesses. 

In late May, a month before the anaplasmosis, routine blood work revealed that I had an elevated level of PSA, which is the protein produced by the prostate. A higher level may indicate cancer. At this point, I kind of shrugged it off, figuring that it couldn’t possibly be serious.

Rookie mistake.

I am not going to go into the complete timeline and the battles I had to wage to get things moving. It was slow going and was frustrating, often infuriating, and sometimes demoralizing. I may go into at some other time here if only to serve as an object lesson that people must be prepared to serve as their own outspoken advocate, something I learned from my run in with a case of anaplasmosis.

The short version is that my high PSA levels led to a long-delayed appointment with a urologist who found that my PSA had once more elevated.

That sent to another long-delayed MRI of the prostate which showed tumors indicating a high probability for prostate cancer.

A biopsy was ordered and took place 5 weeks later, in early October. It was originally scheduled for December, three months after the MRI, which I refused to accept. The biopsy results, which I received just days before my West End Gallery opening, revealed that I had an aggressive form of prostate cancer, indicated by a high Gleason score.

The next step would be a PET scan to determine if the cancer had moved beyond the prostate. This took place last Friday (which also took a major protest to get this scan moved back from December) showed that the cancer had spread to two spots in my bones, one in my rib and the other in my pelvis.

Though this technically makes it a Stage IV cancer, because the spread is showing in only two locations it is considered oligometastatic disease— kind of like Stage IV Lite. As I understand it, this may indicate that the spread was in an early developmental phase. Treatment for Stage IV cancer would normally consist of chemotherapy for a systemic attack on the cancer, whereas oligometastatic disease is treated with an aggressive mixture of hormone therapies and radiation treatments, often concurrently, on the affected areas. 

It has been a rollercoaster of emotion since last Thursday when I learned that my protests after they tried to delay my scan two more week resulted in moving my PET scan up several weeks to the next day, last Friday. Lots of ups and even more downs. Lots of frustration with the lack of communication and guidance. I often feel like I have been dropped into a wilderness with which I am unfamiliar without a guide or assistance of any sort.

But at the moment I feel like we are close to being on a path through the wilderness. I have two appointments this coming week, one with my Radiologic Oncologist here and another in NYC with an Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering who will review all my tests, scans, and pathologies as well as any plan of attack recommended by my Rad Oncologist here. I then see a Medical Oncologist the following week, the day before Thanksgiving. 

At that point, hopefully, we will, have plan in place and treatment will get rolling.

I have some optimism. While it is serious, my prognosis is fairly good. I am in relatively good shape and have been steadily increasing my workouts to build up strength (which was still lacking from the earlier bout with anaplasmosis) to better withstand the coming treatments. Plus, recent studies provide evidence that intense workouts are truly effective in combatting certain cancers. I actually feel pretty good at the moment with practically no pain.

To be honest, I feel fortunate, almost embarrassed, since there are so many others out there experiencing much worse health episodes. I really feel for those folks, especially those trusting souls who passively go through the system, accepting that the delays and long waits for testing and treatment are just the way it has to be. I know there are people on the same timeline as me who, because of this trust in the system, are still waiting for biopsies and scans, putting them at risk of much worse outcomes for their health. 

It shouldn’t be this way.

I am also fortunate to have a wonderful support system of family and friends that have become much apparent to me in recent months. Working alone and seeking solitude often hides the fact that there are people there for you.

One is my niece-in-law who is a highly respected Oncologist who has been advising Cheri and I as we stumble through the wilderness in which we find ourselves. It was at her recommendation that we seek a consultation with Memorial Sloan Kettering. As we near Thanksgiving, I couldn’t be more grateful for her keen guidance and her caring nature. 

I hemmed and hawed about writing this, with revealing my diagnosis here. But sharing this came down to the fact that I have written this blog for over 17 years now and it has served in some ways as a diary for me. I have shared a lot of personal details, feelings, and opinions.

Probably too much.

However, there is a freedom that comes with this transparency. I have said before that my life is divided into two distinct halves, in which the first half consisted in trying to hide things whereas the second half has been devoted to revealing those same things and more. With this transparent attitude, I am infinitely happier now than I was in the first half of my life.

If you have been a regular reader for much of that time you most likely feel like you know me and, for the most part, you do. This diagnosis is now part of my life, much like my work, and most likely will be with me for at least a few years.

Maybe more. 

The point is that it will affect my work in ways I do not yet know. On one hand, I am scared for what might transpire between this cancer and my work. On the other hand, I am kind of excited. It might be revelatory in ways I can’t imagine.

Or not. We won’t know for a while.

But we will know.

I used one of my most personal paintings at the top. It is A Prayer For Light from my early Exiles series. This piece was painted in 1995 as my mom was dying from metastatic cancer in Florida, far from her family. This past Monday marked thirty years since her death. Looking at it yesterday morning, this painting resonated in ways that it had not for me before. I couldn’t help but cry, imagining with a better understanding now of the loneliness and loss she must have been experiencing at the time as she struggled through the last months of her life. 

I feel her experience as the Exile in the wilderness much more profoundly now. And though I sometimes have felt the same over these past several months, I know now that it is not the case for me.

I have guides and companions to help me find my way out of the wilderness and home once more.

What more could I ask?

In parting, let me just add this: Don’t worry about me– I got this covered.

I probably don’t need to throw in a song on a post like this. But this came on yesterday while I was thinking about how to address my situation on the blog and I found myself once again tearing up, especially at the first section of the medley. This is the medley Golden Slumbers/ Carry That Weight/The End from the Beatles off their Abbey Road album.