{"id":4720,"date":"2016-07-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/2016\/07\/06\/this-hospital-life-cancer-patient-finds-life-is-his-canvas\/"},"modified":"2022-08-18T10:09:45","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T16:09:45","slug":"this-hospital-life-cancer-patient-finds-life-is-his-canvas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/this-hospital-life-cancer-patient-finds-life-is-his-canvas\/","title":{"rendered":"This Hospital Life: Cancer patient finds life is his canvas"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Early in 2013, Arturo Garcia lay in a room at University of Colorado Hospital. A few weeks before, Garcia, then 38, had undergone surgery to remove a malignant tumor near his pancreas. Now he was battling what he described as a \u201cnasty infection.\u201d Weeks of grueling chemotherapy lay ahead \u2013 if he could survive the infection. Drains protruded from his body.<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t the worst part. Garcia sat on his bed, his eyes closed. When he opened them, he saw\u2026nothing.<\/p>\n

\"Arturo
Arturo Garcia (far right) and his family with one of the paintings he donated to the Cancer Center during a reception May 26. Left to right: Garcia\u2019s mother, Maria Torres; wife Erika Tejeda; son Arturito.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere was no floor,\u201d he recalled, \u201conly a huge abyss.\u201d He drew up his legs and called for his wife, who had spent every night with him in the hospital, sleeping in a chair, sometimes using the wall as a pillow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going on, Mama?\u201d Garcia asked his wife. It\u2019s only a bad dream, she told him.<\/p>\n

But in one important way, it wasn\u2019t. The abyss, Garcia realized, had presented a message that was terrifyingly real.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought about how meaningless my life had been,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n

He recounted the experience on a warm afternoon in early June. Thin but healthy and brightly engaged, he spoke with a visitor near an alleyway behind one of the galleries on Santa Fe Drive in Denver that displays his artwork \u2013 vividly colored paintings of famous figures, animals and landscapes. He sat astride a folding chair, his feet planted firmly on the ground.<\/p>\n

After his brush with darkness in the hospital, Garcia said, he made a decision \u2013 one that saved his life just as surely as his surgery and chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a deep internal dialogue,\u201d he said. \u201cI asked myself, \u2018What feeds your soul?\u2019 The answer was my art. I realized that every time in my life I have been depressed, I found refuge in art. I said to myself that whatever time I have left, I will do my art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back from the brink<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Garcia recovered from the infection, completed his cancer treatment and is now free of the disease. In appreciation for the lifesaving care he received from UCH and the University of Colorado Cancer Center, Garcia recently donated a pair of his paintings. The Cancer Center unveiled the paintings, now hanging in a conference room, during a reception May 26. One can appreciate Garcia\u2019s art for its own sake, but on a deeper level it represents a much larger body of work: his life, defined by purpose.<\/p>\n

Garcia\u2019s drive for meaning was integral to his recovery, said Colin Weekes, MD, PhD, Garcia\u2019s medical oncologist and a specialist in pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have a defined life expectancy, but when one comes to an appreciation that the clock is ticking, it\u2019s important to set goals for what you want your life to be,\u201d Weekes said. \u201cThe transition for Arturo is that he realized he had taken his life for granted. He made a decision to live it differently and more actively. He put a different level of emphasis on his art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Guevara\"
Garcia shows a print of a painting of Che Guevara that he completed at the start of his recovery from cancer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just before his cancer diagnosis, Garcia was on a path that seemed to hold few prospects for new beginnings. He was a bartender at 3 Margaritas restaurant in Lakewood, a job he described as \u201ca no-brainer.\u201d He had left Mexico in 2008 following a divorce from his first wife and a recession that derailed his work selling real estate at Lake Chapala in Mexico, a popular community for U.S. and Canadian retirees. Neither of the jobs had provided much \u201cfulfillment for the soul,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n

On a Saturday night in December 2012, Garcia was less concerned with seeking fulfillment than with fighting abdominal pain that he said nearly paralyzed him. It was a busy night and at his boss\u2019s request, Garcia battled through physical agony for another hour before going home, showering and then getting himself to the Emergency Department at UCH \u2013 he doesn\u2019t remember how. He was admitted with a raging fever and was later diagnosed with an enlarged pancreas. An endoscopy procedure and pathology test showed he had a malignant tumor in the ampulla of Vatar, a small opening into the duodenum, the top part of the small intestine.<\/p>\n

The tumor, about the size of a grape, prevented Garcia\u2019s pancreatic and bile ducts from emptying their secretions through the ampulla of Vatar into the intestine, said Barish Edil, MD, associate professor of surgery and director of the Pancreas and Biliary Surgery Program at UCH. Ampullary cancer, which is rare, can be deadly, but in at least one respect, Garcia was lucky: his had not metastasized, Edil said.<\/p>\n

Garcia needed a surgical procedure known as the Whipple<\/a>. It\u2019s essentially a gastrointestinal replumbing that involves removing the tumor along with the head of the pancreas, the duodenum and the gallbladder, then sewing the bile duct into what remains of the intestine to allow it to empty its secretions. Edil, who arrived at UCH from Johns Hopkins in 2011, is an expert in the procedure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no alternative to the Whipple for this cancer,\u201d Edil said. \u201cWe can\u2019t cure it with chemo or radiation alone. Without it, the patient would have died.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lincoln\"
Garcia\u2019s interpretation of Abraham Lincoln reflects his return to the vivid colors of his early life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Edil called Garcia\u2019s prognosis very good, but added that skillfully delivered clinical care does not alone guarantee a successful recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe passion to live is extremely important,\u201d Edil said. \u201cArturo is grateful to be alive. He realized the magnitude of what he was up against. He found that passion and put his energy into what he now does as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old memories, new life<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Following the surgery, Garcia was tested by the infection fight and the challenges of 12 rounds of chemotherapy. The experience, he said, opened doors for him in unexpected ways. After coming home from the hospital the second time, he got his art supplies out, but struggled to paint still-lifes and landscapes realistically. With time, he found that the past found its way into his work. Increasingly, the colors in his paintings harkened to those used by the Huichol Indians of Mexico who are indigenous to the area of Mexico where Lake Chapala sits. Garcia recalled as a boy seeing the colors\u00a0\u2013 ultramarines, violets and magentas \u2013 in caves and on a small island in the lake. Images of deer, sun and water, sacred elements for the Huichols, also crept into his paintings and his consciousness.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething shifted inside and I began to look at life differently,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cIt was a psychic change \u2013 a change in my soul.\u201d He began using meditation as a form of self-healing and painted with commitment and determination. He completed two portraits in the new style, one of Abraham Lincoln and another of Che Guevara, then a flood of new work.<\/p>\n

New dedication<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Weekes
University of Colorado Cancer Center medical oncologist Colin Weekes, left, and Maureen Shul of Wings of Hope have played important roles in Garcia\u2019s new life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cancer opened other doors in unexpected ways. In 2012, Maureen Shul had formed Wings of Hope<\/a> after pancreatic cancer took the lives of her brother and mother only months apart. Shul, a former mayor of Castle Pines and a business owner, had little experience with not-for-profits, but created Wings of Hope to raise money for pancreatic cancer research and to increase awareness of the disease. Well before they met, Shul\u2019s motivations hewed closely to Garcia\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t go on without finding meaning or purpose,\u201d Shul said in a phone interview. \u201cI knew I had to honor their lives and give meaning to the horrible thing that had happened. In doing so, I met like-minded people.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of them turned out to be Weekes, whom she met through a mutual friend at a Pancreas Cancer Action Network meeting. After building a close relationship with Weekes and many of his colleagues, including physicians Richard Schulick<\/a>, Tom Purcell and Wells Messersmith<\/a>, Shul forged a formal partnership with the CU Cancer Center in 2013. Wings of Hope has since raised and donated more than $400,000 for research into the disease, and Weekes serves on its board of directors.<\/p>\n

Unfinished business<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Shul eventually connected with Garcia at a Wings of Hope event, and the two formed a strong bond and friendship. He\u2019s a highly valued regular at the organization\u2019s fundraisers and a source of inspiration for others facing deadly disease, Shul said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a patient goes through what Arturo has gone through, there is a state of grief, hopelessness and confusion,\u201d she said. The challenge for many patients, Shul added, is finding a way forward from \u201cgrieving the old way of life\u201d and finding new purpose. She recalled him meeting at her request with a woman recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer who was afraid of treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was something to behold to see him share his experience and give her hope and a basis to fight,\u201d Shul said.<\/p>\n

Weekes and his colleagues share a similar commitment to meeting patients on their own terms and helping them face their disease with \u201can innate empathy and compassion,\u201d Shul said.<\/p>\n

\"Edil\"
Barish Edil, MD, performed a lifesaving Whipple procedure on Garcia in 2012.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It can be no other way with a disease like pancreatic cancer, which continues to exact an enormous toll in life and suffering, Weekes said. One-year survival rates are only about 20 percent, while five-year rates remain in single digits.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople come to see me for opportunities for better outcomes, but almost all of them will die of cancer,\u201d Weekes said. \u201cWe try to give people an opportunity to live life on their own terms and treat them with respect and let them know that we are here for them. Even if they won\u2019t survive, they can live as best they can and with a positive lifestyle. We will be aggressive in therapy, but realistic, because it\u2019s not just about treating the cancer. It\u2019s about treating the whole patient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arturo Garcia is acutely aware that he received a rare opportunity to begin life anew. He\u2019s not going to waste it. He vows to continue using his paintbrush to complete the grand work that is his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am here for a purpose and that is to help others,\u201d he said. \u201cArt helps sick people. The very least that I can do is to try to give back what was given to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

—Tyler Smith. Smith is a writer and editor for the UCHealth Insider. To comment on this article, contact him at tyler.smith@uchealth.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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