Today is my wife’s birthday. I shouldn’t tell you how old she is at this point, but I can rightfully brag about the fact that I’ve been in love with her for 44 years.

A year ago today, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. She was with me when we heard the news. It was not a happy birthday.

It’s been a tough year.  I retired, we moved away from a state where we’d lived happily for 34 years, and I began a three-phase therapy regimen that was, as best, fatiguing: six weeks of chemo, nine weeks of radiation, and eleven months, so far, of hormone therapy.   I also had a book published, contracted for a second book with the same publisher, and, as of last week, finished that manuscript. By “finished,” I mean that it was submitted, peer reviewed, revised, edited, and copy edited, all by June 6th. It’s currently being composited, and will be released on March 15th.

Exhausting. If a reviewer claims that “Farnsworth must have been dizzy or nauseous the entire time he worked on this book,” I will be hard-pressed not to deny it.

Tonight, we will go out to our favorite Seattle restaurant, a boathouse near where we moor our sailboat. Today, I want the world to know how much I love this woman. My prognosis, which they tell me is excellent, is all the better because of a helpmate who has been going through this process with me. She literally held my hand during the biopsies, was there when we discussed treatment options with half a dozen physicians, mixed her tears with mine when we fretted about an uncertain future together. ​

Cancer patients, and their caregivers, learn to celebrate small victories. Tonight, my love, let’s just celebrate that this year’s birthday is turning out better than last year’s.

Reblogging today's post from the Seattle Audubon Society, where I've recently joined the board of directors. 
http://www.seattleaudubon.org/sas/GetInvolved/Blog/BlogTheForestofNotre-Dame.aspx

Reblogging today's post from Sage House News:
​   https://sagehouse.blog/2019/04/29/mastering-natural-history/

I’m back, but then so is commercial whaling.

Apologies for my absence from this blog. I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer in June, and went through an intensive regimen of radiation therapy through early December. November was particularly difficult: while I patronized the radiation oncology clinic at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance five-days-per-week for a second month straight, Book #1 was being released and Book #2 was going through revisions and contract negotiations. I learned that it can be hard to focus on books when a linear accelerator is focusing on you.

As if cancer isn’t enough of a mind-blowing experience, the particular sequence of my diagnosis made it seem unreal. On June 11th I received a letter from the university president containing the welcome news that I was being granted the emeritus status my department had recommended me for. On June 12th, my wife’s birthday, we received the diagnosis. Commencement was on the 15th, and we began to clear out our dormitory apartment on the 16th, a process that involved donating 27 cartons of books to the university library. It some point during it all, we had to move a 46’ sailboat 900 miles to the north.

Since our arrival in Seattle in July, I would prefer to describe the ordeal merely as “onerous.” But herein lies the problem: I haven’t yet landed on a metaphor that accurately captures my experience of cancer.  “Ordeal,” employed above, seems a bit melodramatic. My lived experience doesn’t justify the use of the term. Other than for a few moments of sharp pain, I haven’t really been in agony.  I haven’t felt tormented, and it hasn’t been torturous, largely because of the genuinely passionate care extended to me by clinicians. There’s been a lot of fatigue, but this has been dealt with via frequent naps. Does one usually take naps during an ordeal?

Pugilistic and militaristic metaphors, similarly, fail to capture my experience with cancer.  Family members have encouraged me to “kick cancer’s ass,” and while I appreciate the sentiment, I’ve never really been much of an ass-kicker. I’ve cultivated pacifist leanings long enough to cringe at the thought of engaging in a crusade or a battle. Out of earshot, my wife tells family and friends that I’ve been a trooper, but this comes from a woman who employs terms of endearment that many of my associates would find questionable. Let’s leave it at that.

Some clinicians refer to the cancer experience as a journey, but I find this equally cringeworthy.  I indeed sometimes visualize my life as a journey, but at best cancer is an interruption of that journey. My metaphorical journeys are about places I want to go and goals I want to accomplish, and cancer isn’t one of those places.  My education has been a lifelong journey, and book authorship has been a notable destination; cancer is a freaking nuisance, albeit one that can kill you.

I’ve been subjected to a gamut of inadequate metaphors: marathon; roller-coaster; struggle; quest; character test; crusade; disability, job.  Yes, it’s had its ups and downs, and it’s been intense, especially from an emotional standpoint. It’s also been a tedious, frustrating, rewarding, nauseating, stimulating, confusing, fulfilling, love-filled and yet hard-to-describe process. Got a metaphor for that? Throw in hot flashes and some diarrhea and you’re just about there.

Here’s the good news: my prognosis at this point is excellent. Having completed radiation therapy, I’ve got a greater-than-90% chance of surviving more than 15 years.  That’s pretty much the best odds that I can be given for something that’s considered a life-long disease. I’ll continue with hormone therapy for at least another 18 months, but at this point that’s mostly about making sure the cancer never returns. I’m down for that, whatever the metaphor. ​

Like I said, I’m back.

Comstock Publishing Associates (an imprint of Cornell University Press) released its sampler this morning.  Scroll through the sampler to COVES OF DEPARTURE, and you'll find the first seven pages of the book.  


​sampler

catalogue


Use the coupon code 09FLYER for a 30% discount pre-ordered here

It’s been less than a month now since I was diagnosed with cancer, but it wasn’t until today that the diagnosis became technical.  As of this morning I officially have stage T2C prostate cancer, which means that the cancer has spread throughout my prostate, but it hasn’t yet spread beyond the prostate.  I’m told that I have greater than a 90% chance of surviving for more than 15 years, given the therapy we opted for today, which sounds like pretty good odds at this point in my life. 

So here I am, outing my Cancer. Beginning next week, Carol and I will be wearing cancer awareness bracelets designed by Good Hope, an organization founded by cancer victims that raises funds for cancer research. The color for prostate cancer bracelets is light blue, and it’s a color that Carol has alway thought looks good on me. 

I ask forgiveness for keeping this situation secret up until now. The symptoms became apparent right around the time of my last lecture and my amazing retirement party as were were approaching commencement and other end-of-year celebrations in academe. Commencement has always been an emotional time for me—too many goodbyes to too many great kids—and my retirement festivities had already been befogged by the passing of my mother-in-law. I didn’t want the uncertainties about my diagnosis and treatment options to mar the various celebrations. 

Life goes on.  Our sailboat is in the process of being recommissioned in Seattle, and our powerboat is ready for the opening of crab season this Saturday up in the San Juan Islands.  Construction on the new writer’s shack is right on schedule, and last week I was able to proof the galleys on the new book, due out in a few months. Things will probably slow down this fall when I go through radiation therapy, which will probably be administered five days a week for the better part of the fall quarter. I’m hoping to catch up on my reading, finally.
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Please know that I'm in good hands: the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance is one of the top treatment facilities in the country. My doctors are great, and they know what to do.

Prayers are always appreciated.  A niece has already lit incense for me in her temple, the best man from our wedding has performed Reiki for me, a dear cruising buddy has been wearing a bracelet for me, and candles have been lit. Mom is sending her constant vibes. I embrace it all, and appreciate every gesture that propels creation toward good health. 

Coming to bookstores nationwide November 15, 2018

I’ve just received a press release from the National Parks Conservation Association, of which I am a member, informing us that 9 of the 12 members of the National Park System Advisory Board have just resigned in frustration. Despite repeated requests to meet with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, the NPSAB has not had the opportunity to advise the secretary through all of 2017.

Founded in 1935, the NPSAB is entirely non-partisan. One of its major concerns, the past few years, is that our national parks currently have an $11 billion maintenance backlog.

Members of the NPSAB serve without compensation. Like me, they’re park service volunteers. Most of them, like me, are entitled to an NPS Volunteer Pass, given annually to NPS volunteers who have logged more than 200 hours the previous year in service. Year after year, around 250,000 citizens, 40% of whom are seniors, donate more than 6 million hours of service to the system.​

And now we’ve lost nine of our most expert volunteers.

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist”

                                    Hannah Arendt,  The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951