19 Months (don’t believe it)

I’m not fond of Dr. Chan.

Since I was diagnosed in 2020 with a particularly medically aggressive prostate cancer, UCLA has been my primary treatment Ground Zero. 

Showing up over the years for treatment has been weird.. I graduated from film school there in 2002, an unlikely and fortuitous success story nobody saw coming (least of all myself). Only 15 people were chosen throughout the world.

AND my mom also received cancer treatment there when I was a kid in the early 80’s. A mixed tradition. 

Still, despite his UCLA pedigree, Dr. Chan does not come across as a hopeful guy. 

“It appears your cancer is becoming resistant to the hormone therapy. Our current standard of care is now chemo (I had already had surgery, daily radiation, targeted radiation, and over two years of hormone therapy). Based on our studies, the average lifespan if you do chemo is 19 months.”

When confronted with unexpected tragedy or bad news, my usual response is to become very businesslike and grumpy. I was expecting this appointment would be about me trying to get off the hormone therapy. Lupron essentially chemically castrates you, messes with your life force, and sabotages your ability to function the way Shannon likes to function. 

“And, you should continue the hormone therapy. It may not be as effective, but it will be doing something.”

Ha. 

Walking back to my happy blue Prius in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles was one of those moments where everything seemed overly real; one of those situations where the mundane act of strolling to your car will be burned on your brain forever. Snapshot: danger. 

Still in grumpy mode, my surly outlook against the onslaught of fortune was also likely the stoic Colorado boy in me. When things like this happen, I sometimes revert back to ancestral coping strategies. Mom finally died of cancer when I was 18, fighting it for years, a significant trauma in my already trauma saturated adolescence. My aunt used to tell me “Bonnie really showed me how to die”. Meaning: tough. 

I didn’t tell my partner Mark for a few days. The emotions were starting to stew and ferment a bit, some anger, distraction, paralysis. I’m a slow processor. And, yeah, I’ve been navigating this for some time, but haven’t the dozens of different treatments, the barrage of supplements and lifestyle interventions, the literal thousands and thousands of dollars spent on infusions done anything?

Shall I tell you something?

I’ve become really good at cancer.

I don’t even call it cancer. I call it my diagnosis, and usually I don’t really believe it. I think of myself as healed, and try to burn channels in my brain that tell me that constantly. 

But, I cheat a little. Prostate cancer removed some of the most pleasurable things in my life (sex and food, hello), and my journey towards sensual austerity has been harder than it might be for most. Sure I can eat and have sex, but it’s not the same. I believed I was an artist in both - and now my artists’ pallet has been replaced by a broken pencil. So, if I have an artfully created Pain du Raisin, it’s my life gusto wanting to create a bit of an oasis of delight in the adult desert of duty. 

But, I don’t cheat often, I forgive myself, and I also excel. I’m a high performance coach, and Lord I’m quite spectacular. Ten years of creating content and events for the best life coaches in the world turned my brain into Super Coach. Maddeningly and tantalizingly, the only people who really know this are those I facilitate in the spiritual psychology group I run, or the relatively few I now work with as a coach. At present, I still am mostly known as the Tech Guy of the coaching community. A large part of recovery for me is getting a third act away from the computer, dear God, away from the computer, and plunging deeply into what I do best. 

Plunge. 

I recently moved to a mountain resort town above Palm Springs called Idyllwild, away from an LA that was becoming increasingly noxious and oppressive. To heal near trees, mountains, and nearby streams, to jump in to and freeze my cells back to harmony. 

And, I have an A-Frame! That little guy inside me who drew pictures of A-Frames as a kid is loving it. 

Significantly, healing from cancer is about radical transformation towards living the life you wish to live, and knowing what that is. One of the innumerable wise teachers in my life told me once that “Cancer is always about resisting something.” What in your life are you tolerating, lying to yourself about, that you really want to escape?

As I write this, one month has passed since that fateful appointment with Dr. Chan (so, I guess we’re on Month 18, right? I scoff, I tell you, I scoff!). 

I had another appointment with Dr. Beleaguered a few days ago to discuss the more definitive test, a PSMA Pet Scan result, which showed six bone metastases (over five, and they say you’re eventually a goner, it’s just a matter of time). Do chemo, he stressed, while neatly either minimizing or eliminating all of the researched options me and Mark, who was on the call, floated optimistically. 

Time for a new doctor. It’s important to have hope. Sure, I’ll probably do chemo, but I need a team that excitedly tells me about new treatments, new clinical trials, and believes in miracles. Because, I do. 

I’ve become very good at crying. I’d probably give Julianne Moore a run for her money, because I can cry quickly and easily. All this week I’ve summoned heaving sobs of wailing despair. So deeply painful, so cleansing. The trick is to allow dramatic self-pity, and after the storm, you clear everything up with the magic wand of reality. And the reality is this: it’s all happening FOR me, not TO me (thanks Byron Katie)!

And, there’s even more to cry about…woe is me! (ha ha) The good news/bad news of prostate cancer is it’s slow growing…meaning years of accumulating medical costs. A business I really believed in and thought would work went skedaddle (another factor that drove me out of high cost LA), and now bankruptcy actually seems viable. Who knew?

My brain is also not quite as sharp after years of hormone therapy. I’ve got a tricky backlog of work I’m trying to get under with the help of coaching (I’m an evangelist for coaching, can you tell?). But, I still really love running live events, and I’m still really good at it; pushing all those buttons and throwing those levers, a high wire act of neat adrenaline. 

But still, on paper, broke and sick. Would you want to be me? 

But, you should. I’m a happy, joyful soul, full of song and dance, and my superpower is a high propensity for tolerance of others and a gift for unconditional love. I rarely get triggered anymore. I meditate a lot. I’m funny, and a bit wackadoodle. I’m giddy with gratitude.

And, here’s a secret: I’m not broke or sick, because I create my future daily with the power of my mind. Shhhh!

And, I want you to hear me sing a bit before the door is, gently, terrifyingly, and oh so softly, slammed into unbearable, seductive oblivion. 

And really; who knows when that will be?