Mary Talks about her Cancer
Mary Stuart has always been the furthest thing from high-maintenance, so when the Guiding Light publicist said she had a special request for this interview, I thought, "Uh-oh...."
I needn't have worried. Stuart requested lunch at a diner, not a restaurant, so she can order eggs. Because of her recent battle with stomach cancer, the popular veteran can only eat certain foods.
"Not everything tastes good yet," she explains, after I've located the diminutive star at a corner table. Despite her somewhat frail look, Stuart's film handshake communicates that under her small frame is a tough-as-nails interior. As Stuart tells the story of her illness--which she kept hush-hush--she confirms that, just like her alter ego, Meta "Don't Mess With Me" Bauer, she is a force to be reckoned with. Heck, not even cancer could keep her down.
After she orders her eggs, Stuart explains her new diet. "This week, peanut butter came back on the list," she enthuses. "I was finally hungry for peanut butter, which is fattening and that's wonderful. I went right out and bought it. They don't want you to have sugar, so you have to be careful of that. The kind of peanut butter I like has sugar in it. I don't like the health-food store. No, I want Skipp smooth peanut butter."
Stuart's tone is matter-of-fact, without a trace of self-pity or dram. She talks about her cancer as if it was just a minor obstacle--which is not a sign of denial, just her unwavering, inspiring strength.
In the spring of 1999, Stuart's stomach started bothering her. She thought she had an ulcer, but her doctor performed an endoscopy and discovered a tumor "the size of an eraser head" in her stomach. They caught it quickly, "so it was a blessing," she reflects. "I was operated on six days later. They took out most of my stomach."
Then came the chemotherapy. "I was on chemo until the middle of December (1999), about five months," she continues. "Chemo is interesting. I did acupuncture with it, so that helped with being sick. The chemo I had, you sit there with an intravenous for six hours, then go home, and the next day you start feeling sick. And you're sick for five or six days. Then you have two weeks off. You have it every three weeks, so it's not so bad.
"But it's cumulative," she adds, as the waiter places her scrambled eggs and toast in front of her. "When I finished, I thought I'd be fine. I'd be over it. I'd send out invitations and give a big party. Well, wrong. You're not through. I was sick to my stomach, not feeling well until the end of January, February."
Things turned around when Stuart began working with an herbalist. "I had no appetite and no energy, and a friend of mine who also had cancer told me about this person. So I called and started with this program of herbs. Within three days I felt like a different person," she marvels. "I cook up my little brew every other day. It is amazing. It's cancer prevention, and I have no idea what's in there."
Many of her co-stars had no idea she was sick, either, because Stuart chose to disappear during her illness. Some of her colleagues knew she had cancer, but didn't know what kind. Few of them knew how she was doing. Stuart maintains she wasn't keeping it a secret-- "I just didn't feel like talking that much."
Cast mates "sent lovely notes. And the fans sent me lovely notes. The children in schools sent me darling notes. I got hundreds and hundreds of cards they had made. That sustained me. That kind of affection, knowing people care...that helps a lot in getting well."
The children Stuart endearingly speaks of are involved in Book PALS, a reading program she launched in 1992. The cancer--and, on top of everything else, a bout with Lyme disease last summer--has compromised her immune system significantly, so she can't resume her visits to schools or read to the kids. "I can't get close to them yet, and there's no such thing as not hugging them. You can't say, 'Stay over there.' They inch up, and before you know it you have one or two in your lap. I love that, but not until I'm a little stronger."
Stuart pauses as she polishes off her food, then reveals something she's told very few people: "I've had cancer before. I had breast cancer (in 1988). Nobody knew. I didn't say a word when I had that. It wasn't serious like this. When I'm sick, I kind of go into another world. Your reality is your close family and the people in the hospital. I got to know the other women and men who were in chemo, because you spent the entire day with them. It's a whole different life."
This time around, Stuart leaned mostly on her husband of 20 years, Wolfgang Neumann. "He wasn't very busy [with work], so he could look after me. He was wonderful to me. I managed to cook the whole time. I couldn't eat, but I could cook. There are things you can't do. We were home for a whole year, year and a half. But we're good at that. They said, 'Don't go to the movies,' so we rented movies, which is fine."
She couldn't be around many adults either, due to her weakened immune system, so she and Neumann would take long walks alone. "Everything is a little more precious when you have a serious illness," she reflects. "Every day is a miracle. You're very grateful. When I was finally hungry, I was so grateful to be hungry."
Stuart, a published author (her autobiography is titled Both of Me), hasn't considered writing about her cancer. "It's not very interesting," she declares. "Wasn't dramatic. What I became aware of is that cancer is an epidemic in this country. Everywhere you look, you know somebody who has cancer. So we've go to do something about our environment and the foods we eat. People have got to take better care of themselves and breathe better air." She pauses. "Why me? Well, why not me? At my age, it's not a tragedy. It's a shame, but it's not a tragedy. I'll go on, I'll get through it."
Stuart "gets through it" by living in the moment, and not searching for tomorrow. "I'm very busy today," she states. "Staying very busy is a wonderful way to help yourself, because you don't have time to worry. Once you've had cancer, and everybody who has had it knows this, every little twinge is a possibility. That's when your mind goes straight there. But if you're busy, you don't know there's been a twinge. Of course, you can't help but have it in the back of your mind. But there are other things that are more important than yourself. Right now, I'm terribly upset about the election. I wasn't that worried about the Mets."
After the waiter brings the check and the tape recorder is turned off, Stuart has one more special request: that I escort her home. Outside the diner, I offer her my arm and we start walking down Madison Avenue. I make sure to walk very slowly, but Stuart will have none of that. "You can walk faster than that," she orders, yanking me forward. "Come on."
What a woman.
© Soap Opera Weekly 2001