Joel Siegel's Cancer Battle Prompts Book for Son

June 26, 2003 — -- Spend an afternoon with Joel Siegel and his 5-year-old son Dylan, and you can see it — just below the surface of the laughter and the goofing around: There is in this relationship a desperate urgency.

Because Joel, who's nearly 60, is not just an older dad. He's an older dad with cancer.

So now Joel is trying to convey what most dads do in, say, 20 years — into 2, or 3, or well, he doesn't really know. And that's why he has put it all in writing — his life, his beliefs, his family history — in Lessons for Dylan, a book for Dylan to read whenever he's ready.

Standing Up for What’s Right and Keeping a Sense of Humor

Humor is one of Joel's great lessons for Dylan. It's gotten Joel through tough times — humor and his own personal Rat Pack, which includes people like CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

"He did not need his friends to remind him that he was going through a tough time. We're there for him to be friends and to throw the proper level of insults at him and all that," Greenfield said.

Another lesson: understanding Joel's own up-from-the-bootstraps history: his Jewish heritage, growing up poor in East L.A. and heading to the South as a student in the turbulent '60s.

That's another lesson for Dylan: standing up for what's right.

Joel recalls, "I was a civil rights worker in 1965 — I'm really proud of that. I knew Martin Luther King — even more, he knew me — incredible! … I wrote jokes for Bobby Kennedy."

Appreciating the Highs, Accepting the Lows

Joel began his career as a writer but soon found himself on television. He hardly looked the part, but he's stayed on the air for more than 25 years, most of it as ABC's entertainment editor.

Appreciating the career highs … that's another lesson for Dylan. And so is learning how to cope with the lows. Like the death in 1982 of Joel's wife Jane from brain cancer. She was only 31.

"I told my shrink that I was feeling angry and she says yeah, you're angry you didn't get to grow old together," he said.

In 1996, Joel found someone else he hoped he could grow old with. Ena Swansea, an artist. They married, and began to plan a family. But that's when life again trumped Joel's plans. To quote something Joel might say in one of his movie reviews, Hollywood couldn't make this stuff up!

His wife got pregnant — and Joel was diagnosed with cancer. "She got cheated out of all of the things pregnant women deserve," he said, not focusing on his own plight, but on Ena's.

"I had cancer surgery, a temporary colostomy, I was on chemotherapy and radiation. I was half dead," he said.

Although debilitated by the cancer drugs, Joel went back to work. Ena saw firsthand how hard Joel struggled. "He was leaving for work, and I came around the corner in our loft, and he was lying down beside the elevator. He had not felt strong enough to stand up and wait for the elevator," she said.

Because of the chemo Joel lost his hair. He got a wig. He kept working — and joking. Joel recalled interviewing Billy Crystal's manager saying, "'well, at least you kept your hair.' And I said, 'yeah, you want it?' and I took it off and I gave it to him."

The Best and Worst of Times

Joel's last day of chemo was Dylan's first day home from the hospital.

Ena said those days were like being in a bad novel. "I was nursing a baby. And it made it harder for me to share his pain, and harder for him to share my joy."

By Christmas 1999, Joel was doing better. And Dylan was thriving. But two months later, a CAT scan showed Joel's cancer had spread to his left lung. The next year, they found cancer again, in the right lung.

At this point Joel began to think about how Dylan would be affected. "By the time of this third surgery, Dylan was old enough to know that something was going on. He certainly wouldn't know what cancer was. But he knew I was gonna go to the hospital. I didn't know what to tell him."

So Joel looked for advice from his colleagues at Good Morning America. And that would be a lesson for Joel.

The show's parenting contributor Anne Pleshette Murphy addressed Joel's concerns about Dylan, who was then 3 years old, saying, "Joel is so right to want to talk to him. He absolutely has to be told," she said.

Although he's facing his battle with incredible stamina and humor, Joel admits cancer is frightening. "I'm goddamned scared. … I'm fine until the doctor calls and says it's time for another CAT scan. And then I just panic," he said.

And that happened last April, when Joel went in for his annual CAT scan.

"My stomach is doing 2 and a half gainers and the East German judge is going '0.4' and I just go nuts. Somebody I don't know is going to tell me in a couple of hours if my cancer is back. Intellectually, I understand that if I do have cancer, I want them to find it here, because then they can deal with it and then they can cure it. But I don't want to have cancer and I don't want them to find it here," he said.

This time around, a reprieve: no cancer, which gives father and son some time to do the things they like best — like go to the movies.

Living for Dylan

Joel may be OK, for now. But his marriage isn't.

"Dylan explained it to me recently by saying 'Joel gets mad and Ena gets sad.' And that's it in a nutshell," Ena said.

The couple hasn't divorced or legally separated.

Tackling that topic with Dylan was difficult for Joel. He said, "That was the toughest chapter to write. I told Dylan we decided that you were more important than we were. And we couldn't live together. So we're living apart, but we're living for you."

Joel also thinks he wouldn't have battled cancer as well as he has, were it not for Dylan.

"I think I would be angry, and I think I would be sad, and I think the odds are I might be sick and it might have got me. … What I did for Dylan is — I lived."