Life, Illustrated with James Burns, Artist and Prostate Cancer Advocate
What happens when a graphic designer decides to document his own cancer diagnosis in a comic, panel by panel?
Georgia-based artist and prostate cancer education advocate James Burns joins Leah to talk about his autobiographical medical graphic novels “The Death of Me” and “The Half-Life,” which chronicle his stage 4A prostate cancer diagnosis, treatment, and life after.
James shares why he posted his diagnosis publicly on Instagram and how he pushes back on the expectation that men need to stay stoic through illness. He talks about his earlier comics that documented the time he had treatment for detached retinas, losing his voice following thyroid surgery, and a fall that lead to a completely unrelated surgery.
He also gives specifics of this diagnosis and treatment, from an elevated PSA to MRIs, biopsy, and PMSA PET scans to 28 fractions of radiation therapy. James talks candidly about ADT side effects including brain fog and hot flashes, and how he uses exercise and weightlifting to combat the muscle loss from taking hormone blocking medication.
Head to his website https://burnscomics.com/ to download PDFs of his comics.
Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jpburns
and on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jpburns.bsky.social
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Learn more about prostate cancer at malecare.org
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