Our Cancer Year Book

DISCLAIMER: The only way that I can write about this book is through the lens of my own fight with cancer. In point of fact, that's what drew me to the graphic novel in the first place. I have never been one to shy away from difficult subjects. Reading about cancer and how other people have handled the physical and emotional stresses of the disease are cathartic to me. My hope here is to compare and contrast my experiences with those that were documented in "Our Cancer Year." Some people might not want or appreciate that level of personal recollection, and I get that. People come here for book reviews, they don't necessarily expect to get a confessional to go with it. There you have it. Caveat emptor.

Harvey Pekar was, of course, a real person. A file clerk living in Cleveland, he documented his life through the pages of an underground comic book titled "American Splendor." You can get all of the details of his life easily enough. His Wikipedia article is actually pretty accurate, so I'm just going to link you to that if you need to know more about him. Harvey died in 2010.



Harvey (yes, we are on a first-name basis now) was living with his third wife, Joyce Brabner, when "Our Cancer Year" was released. Joyce is still with us. Joyce has been a peace activist and writer for most of her career. She also has a decently detailed Wiki page, so if you need to know more, here you go…



In 1990, Joyce and Harvey were in a whirlwind of activity. Joyce was busy travelling with a group of youth activists from war-torn countries, and at the same time she and Harvey were preparing to move out of their cramped apartment and become homeowners for the first time. Harvey also has a swelling in his groin that he has tried very hard to ignore.

I was diagnosed with my cancer in November of 2016. I didn't ignore my symptoms per se, it's more a case of not knowing what we were really up against. Most of my indicators for disease pointed to ulcerative colitis, and in fact that's what I was initially diagnosed with. It wasn't until we did a proper colonoscopy that we caught the tumor, which by then had spread to my liver. And, yeah, I did dawdle quite a bit about going to the doctor in the first place. If I had gotten my scope at 50 years of age like I was SUPPOSED to, this would be a much different story. Thus the lesson. Get checked when you are scheduled to. Don't put it off. Do it.

The first three chapters of "Our Cancer Year" deal mostly with Joyce's story as an activist. Though both she and Harvey are billed as co-authors, it quickly becomes apparent that this is really Joyce's tale to tell. And that's ok. Listen, I'm sure that my wife could write a memoir of the past year and a half that would be more emotional and uncompromising than anything I could write. That difference in perspective is important. So we view that introduction to the book through Joyce's experiences of activism and travel to dangerous parts of the world, all while Harvey stays home and frets and worries. It's a good way to introduce Harvey and his mixed bag of neuroses and compulsive habits to the story.

Harvey's health issues begin to take shape in Chapter Four. The lump in Harvey's groin has grown and become impossible to ignore. Exploratory surgery is scheduled, which drives Harvey up the wall with worry. There is also an odd subtext in this chapter about dealing with their former friend and handyman, Slim. Slim kind of seems like a dick.

My health finally reached a point where I couldn't continue the long hours and the long commute back and forth to work every day. My mother passed away in December of 2015, leaving us a portion of her stock funds in her will. That enabled us to pay off our house and cars and credit cards, the plan being that I would see the doctor, get whatever was behind my health problems dealt with, and then find a job close to home with less stress and travel involved. That plan didn't exactly pan out like we thought that it would. In hindsight, I do think that stress was a big driver for my disease process. My old boss was a big swinging dick.

The big cancer diagnosis bomb drops on Harvey and Joyce in Chapter Five. Fortunately, Harvey's cancer is a type of lymphoma that can be treated and has a high rate of survival. Better yet, the cancer was encapsulated, so Harvey's surgeon removes the mass during the exploratory surgery. But Harvey will still have to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments to make sure that the disease has been fully eliminated.

No such luck with me. My gastroenterologist called me with the bad news the week after I had my colonoscopy. I had a very malignant rectal tumor that had spread to my liver and was beginning to encroach upon my lymph nodes. Then we had to do a serious dance to find insurance coverage so that I could get treatment. From the time that I was diagnosed to the time that we actually began treatments was close to two full months. I was in a lot of pain for that time period…..I'll leave it at that.

Harvey and Joyce meet their oncologist and begin chemo in Chapter Six. It's a pretty realistic interpretation of what happens when one is faced with deciding on how best to attack a cancer treatment schedule. Fortunately, Harvey and Joyce meet with a good doctor who explains the process and options clearly.

I cannot stress enough the value of developing a strong relationship with your primary care physicians if you are ever faced with something like this. I have been lucky enough to find great rapport locally with a care team that I trust and can clearly communicate with. When I was initially diagnosed I was given between four and six months to live without treatment. With treatment my life expectancy could jump as high as five years and then some. We obviously chose to treat…….

Harvey chooses a harsh 12-week program of chemotherapy that is really, REALLY hard on the body. Chapter Seven documents him losing his hair and going through terrible periods of weakness and nausea. You also begin to get a sense of what a primary caregiver like Joyce has to go through when dealing with a stubborn and neurotic patient and partner like Harvey. To be fair, Joyce has her own unique set of neurotic and obsessive behaviors to work around, but don't we all? It's a reasonably accurate depiction of what harsh chemicals can do to a human body, though. Chemotherapy can be brutal, and for Harvey it's a bad, bad trip. Harvey also has to deal with a horrible breakout of shingles as his immune system begins to collapse from his treatment.

My initial treatment was a 12-session chemo program designed to attack the primary tumors. My advantage was that I got to rest for a week between treatments, so my side-effects were mitigated somewhat by the fact that I could take it easy and regain some measure of strength during the off-weeks. My worst side-effect was neuropathy, a numbness in my hands and feet that made me a bit more clumsy when walking or holding things. That has pretty much healed itself now, except for some residual numbness on the front pads of my feet. Chemo works, man…..it really does…..but that shit ain't no walk in the park.

Chapter Eight is more chemo drama as the stubborn Harvey is told to take a leave of absence from his job and stay home and rest while he completes chemo. He and Joyce must deal with a grumpy chemo nurse and the daily demands of the whole process of dealing with the new "norms" of life. Harvey and Joyce are both stressed and exhausted by this time, and the wear and tear on them as depicted is pretty true to life. It doesn't help that Harvey is frequently depressed and often plays the victim game with Joyce…..leaving her to pick up the emotional and physical pieces of Harvey as he tries to make sense of the things that are happening to him.

Ummmmmm, yeah. A lot of this rings real, real true. I had my periods, especially early on, where I was a drama llama and just wanted to retreat into myself and fade away. It's dumb and selfish in hindsight, but it's very difficult to control one's emotions when faced with a life-threatening disease. I put my wife and some of the other people who are close to me through hell at this stage of the game. That got better after we got a few weeks into treatment, but I get what Joyce and Harvey are trying to communicate here.

In Chapter Nine Harvey goes into the hospital and deals with a new medication that leaves him disoriented and unable to cope with reality. He gets a bad hospital doctor who seems indifferent to his case. Joyce reaches a breaking point. It's a tough chapter to read.

By this point in treatment I was actually very stable. My side-effects were few and other than being tired a lot, we mostly just meandered through. We had a LOT of support and help available to us, though. I cannot stress how important that is.

By Chapter Ten Joyce and Harvey get some much-needed help from a psychiatrist and a home-health aide who comes in to take care of Harvey's daily needs while Joyce rests and recovers from her own bouts with depression and physical exertion and illness. Radiation begins once the chemo portion of the treatment is over.

I had a 35-session round of radiation a few weeks after my chemo was done. This included ANOTHER session of daily chemo designed to "soften" the tumor and make the radiation more effective. I was again lucky in that I had few side effects to the radiation other than the skin burns right around the primary radiation sites. It was described to me that it would feel like a bad sunburn. Yeah, if you got a sunburn from actually STANDING ON THE SUN. Not gonna lie, that shit hurt.

Chapter Eleven is a wrap as Harvey and Joyce welcome some of Joyce's young activists into their home and the after-care healing process begins in earnest. We say goodbye as Harvey and one of the youngsters visit a waterfall near Harvey and Joyce's home. It's a serene setting after all of the wrenching drama that has come before.

"Our Cancer Year" is part and parcel of the "American Splendor" canon, although it is obviously set apart from it as well. You either dig this sort of "real-life" comic-book thing or you don't. I've never encountered much middle-ground where Pekar and "American Splendor" are concerned. Personally, I always admired the neurotic obsession that led Harvey to chronicle his life to such excruciating detail. We all have stories to tell, and the fact that Harvey got to tell his is still a victory for the Everyman in my book. Frank Stack's artwork seems to polarize people a bit where this book is concerned. His artwork is disruptive and somewhat sloppy, but it also fits the narrative. Cancer is disruptive and sloppy, an unwelcome visitor that can change our perceptions of what is "normal" in a heartbeat. I simply saw the art for what it was, one man's outsider depiction of the transformative effects of a life-changing disease….with all of the confusion and rushed details left intact.

I'm done for now with my major treatments. I had five surgeries on my liver to deliver radioactive pellets to my tumor sites. I'll have a PET scan soon to determine how effective that was, and we will map out a maintenance regimen of treatment from that point. I will have to live with cancer for the rest of my life, as liver cancer is not yet completely curable. The hope is that we have knocked it back far enough that I can gain a number of relatively healthy years to come before the disease once again progresses. New treatments in development provide hope that we may still beat it completely at some point, but quite honestly I am happy to have been given this extra life...this extra time to keep going. I hope you have been rewarded if you had the patience to read this far. Harvey and Joyce's story resonated with me. I hope our shared stories will resonate with you.