Austin photographer documented his friend's cancer journey. He was diagnosed a year later.

When Dimitri Staszewski craved spontaneous freedom from his parent's organized home, Thomas Mann was there, taking him roller skating on the San Francisco beaches.

When Staszewski wanted a meal he normally couldn't access, Mann was there, helping him make coconut shrimp and ahi tuna and teaching him how to season food.

When Staszewski wanted to become a jeweler like his father, Mann was there, bringing him on as an apprentice in New Orleans.

But when Mann received a stage 3 prostate cancer diagnosis in early 2021, things shifted. It was Staszewski's turn to be there for his longtime mentor — in a very special role.

Mann wanted Staszewski, who ended up becoming a photographer instead of a jeweler, to help document his treatment journey.

Then another shift came in 2022.

It was a strange twist of fate, one that tied the strings of both men's lives into an even tighter knot. On Jan. 4, 2022, almost a year to the day of Staszewski beginning the photo project, he received a testicular cancer diagnosis.

"Just witnessing (Mann's) experience and the way that he handled and managed it, even though my own experience was unique, just having that understanding or the knowledge (that), 'I watched Tom do this, I know I can do it, too,' was definitely there for me," Staszewski said.

The making of the bayou

Staszewski, who's done freelance work for the American-Statesman, touches very briefly on his diagnosis at the end of the project he made for Mann: a photo book called "Close to the Bayou." The name comes from Mann's deep connection to his home of New Orleans, even as he underwent treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

This New Orleans closeness actually stretched beyond Mann's own "frenetic, bayou energy," as Staszewski describes in his book. It physically presented itself in Spanish moss located at a park next to MD Anderson. Staszewski said he had to do all his photographing at that park and Mann's temporary Houston home, as COVID-19 protocols wouldn't allow him in the hospital.

"That really changed what I was able to capture," Staszewski said. "In a lot of ways, I think it was a positive thing because it forced me to focus more on the internal and emotional journey that Tom was going through as opposed to this medical, more practical thing that he was experiencing."

Staszewski said he drove from Austin to Houston every Friday for a weekend with Mann, who continued making jewelry. All the while, Staszewski found himself diving deeper into the concept of the bayou through his work.

"What does it mean to be close to the bayou?" Staszewski said. "For me, it was about being close with death, being close with life, just thinking about themes of love and light and artmaking, and specifically artmaking in the face of death, which is kind of what I was witnessing."

From witness to patient

The ideas of death and artmaking became more real to Staszewski when he received his own cancer diagnosis. Just weeks before his 30th birthday, he grappled with his mortality, and despite his confidence that he'd be cured, the thought still came: "Am I going to die because of this?"

"I just had this heightened awareness of bringing what I had learned from Tom into this new experience of my own treatment, but then also kind of having to relearn what I thought I had learned and realizing that until you kind of go through something like that yourself, you're not really going to fully understand what someone else has gone through," Staszewski said.

Fortunately, both Staszewski and Mann are now cancer-free. But the cancer journey doesn't quite end with remission. Staszewski said he still goes to the doctor every few months for CT scans and check-ins.

"I feel very confident that it won't come back, but there definitely is like some insecurity or lingering fear of the cancer returning," Staszewski said. "It's more of a fear of, 'When is that going to happen again?' Maybe not this type of cancer, but a different type of cancer, and... I'm definitely trying to kind of quiet those voices."

Staszewski is now focused on publishing "Close to the Bayou," which he said isn't a coffee table photo book as some might suspect. The book itself, the way the text and photos are laid out, the sequencing and editing, are all part of the larger art.

The book will hopefully go to press early next year with order shipment occurring in the spring. Staszewski wants to pre-sell 250 copies to help pay for printing costs.

"To me, it's really important that this work is shown and experienced specifically in Texas and just the south more broadly because while it's about a lot of different things, I think that feeling of being close to the bayou is something that is very specific to East Texas, just the bayou region and Louisiana, too," Staszewski said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin man gets cancer while documenting friend's cancer journey