You were diagnosed with cancer at 27. How severe was it?
I must have been out of school only two or three years. It was pretty extensive. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. By the time I was diagnosed, it had already metastasized to 30 lymph nodes in my neck.
I’ve learned that it’s extremely typical for young adults who are in their 20s to be diagnosed at much later stages than folks who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s; those patients go to the doctor and tend to be taken seriously. When you’re in your 20s and 30s, often the doctors don’t take you seriously or you don’t take your symptoms seriously. Cancer’s the last thing anybody’s looking for. Often, by the time we get diagnosed, because we don’t have health insurance or a regular doctor to go to, it has spread to a more advanced stage. That was my case. Luckily it had not yet spread to any major organs, but it had spread very extensively through my neck.
I imagine it would be difficult to continue working – especially in choreography – when you’re suffering from cancer. How did your life change after the diagnosis?
I used to be an incredibly vivacious and outgoing person and someone who was out a lot. There was never a day of the week that I was home. I always had plans. My parents lived across the country and they would always complain to me, “We can never reach you! You’re always out doing something!” [Laughs]
With cancer I had to befriend my cabin fever and learn how to spend a lot of time by myself. It was a huge change for me. I spent a lot of time outside of the studio, which was another big shift for me. I feel like I still had a very vibrant creative life in my head. [Laughs] I constructed many great performances in my mind and would take copious notes hoping they would come to fruition some day.
I also started writing more than I had ever written before. Everybody kept saying, “My God! You should publish a book!” I eventually started thinking about that and realized what I thought needed to be published was not a memoir but an investigative book about what it means to live with cancer in your 20s and 30s. It had a really big impact on my career. I’m still a choreographer, but I’ve been focusing much more heavily on writing these days.
Do you think going to Naropa, a Buddhist inspired contemplative education school, helped you keep yourself together after receiving the diagnosis?
One of the incredible benefits of contemplative education is that I feel it’s the kind of thing that you keep learning from years after you leave the classroom. Most of what I learned there happened after I graduated. While I was there, I didn’t quite get what the point was of focusing so heavily on dealing with the unknown. I got that lesson big time when I was diagnosed with cancer.
One of the basic precepts of Buddhism is that suffering is at the root of the human experience. While that may sound very morbid from the outside, it was profound to experience that as a truth. A lot of people who have cancer focus so much on, “What can I do to get out of this? I want to be better.” For me, having had this education, I felt, OK. I learned somewhere that I cannot run from the suffering but just be in it. Being able to be present with my suffering was painful and hideous, but it was real and I could pass through it more quickly than if I was trying to kid myself and think that I’m always reaching for the sunshine.
In the end, it enabled me to move forward more easily than trying to ignore challenging things and deny them. In some ways, I do feel it’s a backdoor to hope. Experiencing ones own suffering is not necessarily what the culture gravitates to when they think about hope, but it’s what enabled me to get through.
You spent five years writing and traveling the U.S. interviewing other young cancer patients for your first book, Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20’s and 30’s. Can you tell me about that?
I wanted to connect with other cancer patients and learn about their experiences. It’s so isolating being in your 20s and 30s, because you’re surrounded by people who are the age of your parents and grandparents. It was a very lonely experience. I wanted to hit the road and find out what other people my age were discovering about this experience.
I got myself a tape recorder, and I was really on a shoestring budget. I would find people through the Internet or networking, and we’d chat on the phone once or twice. Then I’d get a plane ticket and drop into their life for a day. They would confess to me these experiences they had never told anyone else. It was shocking how very personal and deep people were. They told me about their sex lives or lack of and the pressure they felt to succeed in the workplace when sometimes they didn’t want to get out of bed. People talked about pain and what their suffering was like. That was something they often didn’t share because they didn’t want the people close to them to have to suffer, too. We were able to talk about end of life issues and what it means to face mortality at a very young age. Regardless of how good your survival rates are when you’re diagnosed, just finding out that you have cancer brings about issues of mortality. What are your desires around death and end of life, god forbid this should happen? And it did, as five of the patients in my book have passed away. It was very meaningful for them and their families, and for me, to be able to pass their stories on in my book.
To read more from Kairol Rosenthal, visit her blog at everythingchangesbook.com.
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