Everything Changes: The Insider's Guide to Cancer in Your 20's and 30's by Kairol Rosenthal is an essential resource for any young adult living with a cancer diagnosis. Following the author's own diagnosis with thyroid cancer, she took on the daunting task of interviewing 25 young men and women, including 8 blood cancer patients, about their own cancer experiences. The result is an edgy, honest, and unsentimental companion for young adults making the treacherous and often lonely journey through cancer.
Author Kairol Rosenthal corresponded via email to answer questions about her new book and to invite readers to a special book signing. This is the first in a two-part series of interviews with Ms. Rosenthal.
Q: What was it like being diagnosed with cancer when you were only 27 years old?
A: I was living the holistic life when cancer smacked me in the face; I was vegetarian for 14 years, vegan for seven, doing brown rice fasts, and working as a choreographer in the dance studio six days a week. Suddenly I was in crowded hospital waiting rooms surrounded by AARP aged patients. I had to learn fast how to decipher medical speak, and fight for health insurance. Being diagnosed with cancer in your twenties is a completely jolting culture shock, and nobody was there to be my tour guide.
Q: How did you come to terms with your diagnosis?
A: The morning after my diagnosis, I laid in bed thinking, ‘I have cancer.’ There was no ‘Why me?’ Instead, I thought ‘Of course me. Cancer can happen to anybody.’ It was like I was caught in a game of tag and somebody said, “You’re it.” I got out of bed, put one foot in front of the other, and that was that. I came to terms with my diagnosis immediately.
Q: Why did you decide to write Everything Changes?
A: As source material for a modern dance performance, I began interviewing 20 and 30-something cancer patients. I became a one-woman cancer confessional. Young patients eagerly vented the intimate details of their cancer experiences that they had never told anyone else. Their gritty and raw words were too juicy to only translate into dance.
I had read about famous and fashionable people with cancer, but never about how everyday people lived with the uncertainty and intensity of this disease. No book supplied cancer resources on sex, college life, parenting or other young adult issues. Cancer needed a young adult reality check and these interviews were it. I never choreographed my dance. I got an agent and a book contract instead.
Q: How long after your own cancer treatment was completed did you start this project?
A: I’ve been in the trenches of scans, biopsies, major surgery, recovery, and hormone therapy while writing Everything Changes. My own struggle with cancer is the narrative glue that holds together the stories in this book. The interviews in each chapter were like a one-on-one support group that got me through my own tough times. I currently have two tumors perched near my jugular vein and have never been cancer free.
Stay tuned for more insight from Kairol Rosenthal in the next interview installment.
Join Kairol for a Special Book Signing:
presented by: I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation (Chicago chapter)
EVERYTHING CHANGES:
The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s (Wiley, 2009)
By Kairol Rosenthal
Wednesday, AUGUST 12, 7:30 PM
Women and Children First Bookstore
5233 N. Clark Street
Complimentary sangria and gourmet hors devours
For more event information 773-769-9299
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