{"id":10371,"date":"2012-01-09T16:46:50","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T21:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=10371"},"modified":"2012-01-19T11:13:02","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T16:13:02","slug":"giving-death-the-brushoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2012\/giving-death-the-brushoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Death the Brushoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Daily News Record, Jan. 9, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n

Somewhere in the middle of talking about her stage four terminal cancer and an upcoming play documenting her life, Sarah Pharis, 32, begins striking her \u201cKatherine Hepburn face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting beside her on a deep purple velour couch at her Harrisonburg home, Ingrid De Sanctis, 46, launches into details of writing the play, called \u201cSarah and the Dinosaur<\/a>,\u201d a funny and sometimes heartbreaking look at her former theater assistant\u2019s battle with ocular melanoma.<\/p>\n

In conversation, the duo \u2014 who met in the late \u201990s at Eastern Mennonite University \u2014 are a constant flurry of eccentricities and excitement.<\/p>\n

Chatting about hopes for the play and making jokes, their dialogue often builds into hearty laughter and, only briefly, the two share moments of solemnity.<\/p>\n

Which is why it\u2019s hard to believe anybody\u2019s talking about cancer at all. But as De Sanctis and Pharis are quick to point out, the cancer is just a bizarre, unexpected catalyst in Pharis\u2019 life that set the two friends on a journey to rekindle their friendship and create a play about \u201cchoosing life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me personally to be able to step out of [the play] and go, \u2018OK it\u2019s my name and it\u2019s based on my story, but it\u2019s a story that a lot of people are living;\u2019 it changes it for me somehow,\u201d said Pharis, of Staunton, who was told she had six months to live when the eye cancer spread to her liver in 2010.\u00a0 \u201c[The play is] not about me and it\u2019s not really even about cancer it\u2019s just about\u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChoosing life,\u201d De Sanctis says, finishing the thought.<\/p>\n

Yes, Pharis has terminal cancer and yes, that\u2019s the basis of the play, but \u201cSarah and the Dinosaur\u201d is really a larger metaphor for something that Pharis seems to demonstrate so well in her own life \u2014 overcoming hardships and living life to the fullest.<\/p>\n

Coping Mechanism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Up until last week, the play was nothing more than a script filling about 50 pages, but EMU\u2019s Lee Eshleman Studio<\/a> and ShenanArts Theatre<\/a> in Staunton have recently agreed to host the play, funded entirely by donations, this spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for our community to hear this story about this very courageous woman,\u201d said Diane Stewart, vice chair of the ShenanArts Theatre board of directors. \u201cI think [the board] just felt like she\u2019s a strong and important person in our community, it\u2019s important that her story be told.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play, De Sanctis says, is her own way of coping with Pharis\u2019 illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you watch a young person get cancer and know that their years are limited, you do want to do something and for me the only something was [writing this play],\u201d said De Sanctis, just before drawing a parallel between a Mitch Albom book and her and Sarah\u2019s own loving friendship. \u201cYou know the book \u2018Tuesdays with Morrie\u2019?\u00a0 \u2026 Here we have our some days with Sarah, where we\u2019re going to put on a play and I get all this extra time with her. It\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah\u2019s Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the drawing Sarah made for the play\u2019s website, she is wearing a crown as she shakes the hand of a giant dinosaur, naturally, wearing Converse high tops.<\/p>\n

The drawing echoes Pharis\u2019 own sentiments about her cancer. You just can\u2019t take it too seriously.<\/p>\n

Pharis was first diagnosed with ocular melanoma in 2006 at the age of 26. Though symptoms had been present for four years, doctors were unable to diagnose the melanoma until a tumor grew to 15 millimeters. Pharis had the tumor removed, which can blur vision or leave victims blind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my case, if I look at you through my right eye, it looks as though Picasso was left in charge of your face,\u201d writes Pharis on her blog, \u201cLove x Infinity2<\/a>,\u201d which originally began as a way to update friends and family members about her cancer and evolved into a resource for people with ocular melanoma.<\/p>\n

Living Life \u2018Awake\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cancer spread to her liver in February 2010, which is when the melanoma is considered terminal. Almost two years after being told she had six months to live, Pharis is still proving doctors wrong. Pharis has had tumors removed from her liver and left ovary, which is the only way to treat the kind of cancer Pharis has.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith any hidden illness, I don\u2019t look like a cancer patient. The kind of cancer I have, radiation and chemo don\u2019t work on it,\u201d Pharis says, like she\u2019s mocking the words she\u2019s likely had to say a thousand times, tired with the sound of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, personally, and privately struggle with a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear and it\u2019s debilitating and chronic.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the inside, I look like one of those people who are incapable of getting dressed and bathing and being themselves, it\u2019s a true disability,\u201d she says, just before she drops a line that has De Sanctis smiling ear to ear and scrambling for a pen and paper. \u201cBut my vanity is a lot stronger than my cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

And though one may wonder how Pharis can be so whimsical and blunt in the same breath, that\u2019s just the beauty of Pharis and her uncharacteristically good attitude, says De Sanctis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard for me not to add to the play,\u201d said De Sanctis. \u201cThat\u2019s the hard thing about being around Sarah; she\u2019s constantly kind of magical.\u201d<\/p>\n

A list of 35 things Pharis wants to do before her 35th birthday, reads just as one would expect: \u201cParticipate in an act of guerilla gardening, take a chocolate bath, see Tom Jones in concert, reconcile with my \u2018enemies,\u2019 send a message in a bottle, go sailing, live to be 35.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[If] you walk out [of the play and] after 90 minutes are more awake to your life, that\u2019s why I want to tell this story,\u201d said De Sanctis. \u201cIn a moment where death is right in front of her, [Sarah\u2019s] just chosen to be really awake in her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

More information<\/h3>\n

“Sarah and the Dinosaur<\/a>,” will be performed March 14-18, at EMU, and April 26-28 at the ShenanArts Theatre. Show times for the EMU performance are 7:30 p.m., March 14-17, and 3 p.m., March 18. For more information contact De Sanctis at 540-560-6626.<\/p>\n

In addition, more information on “Sarah and the Dinosaur,” is available on the play’s Facebook website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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