A singer focuses on hope
Cancer can't stop Storm Lake teacher from singing about miracles
By Tim Gallagher Journal staff writer | Posted: Thursday, April 03, 2008
Anita Coon of Storm Lake, Iowa, will sing as Mother Mary on Saturday in a musical production of "Calvary: The Resurrection Story" at Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Storm Lake. Coon, 56, is battling pancreatic cancer. The Storm Lake High School art teacher has a banner from students displayed in her living room at home. (Photos by Tim Gallagher)
STORM LAKE, Iowa -- It's 10 a.m. Tuesday and brilliant music fills the front room of a home by the lake here. Anita Coon plays Mother Mary in a musical Saturday. She's cramming. Her soprano voice bounces up and down the scale.
"I'm getting close," she says when I ask about the solos and duets among her six songs in "Calvary: The Resurrection Story."
She had a chemotherapy treatment Thursday. She feels like she has the flu for three days after chemo. The next few days are OK. That's where we are Tuesday.
By Saturday, the veteran singer hopes to be strong in song.
Hope. It's Anita Coon's buzzword these days. It's how this 56-year-old battles the pancreatic cancer doctors diagnosed Jan. 31.
"If we didn't do anything, I was told I'd have six months," she says. "But please don't write this as a doom-and-gloom story. We're hopeful the tumor shrinks through chemotherapy to give us a chance at resecting it. We're hoping for a miracle."
The woman playing the Mother Mary focuses on a miracle.
"When you're faced with a terminal illness, it gives you a different depth of life," says Coon, an art instructor the past 33 years in Storm Lake and at nearby Schaller-Crestland High School. "The bottom line is that I choose life."
The numbers are daunting. Pancreatic cancer is rarely discovered early. Coon noticed stomach aches last fall, but the plum-size tumor wasn't diagnosed until January. Resecting it presents a challenge as an artery and a vein grow through it and into the stomach.
All that's pretty technical. Pretty scary. And pretty uncontrollable.
But Coon can control this: May 6. That's the date she has circled. It's when a CAT scan will show if the tumor has shrunk. She has two chemotherapy sessions remaining.
"It's a countdown, I'll tell you," says Coon as she laughs and humorously pounds the table.
There's also a countdown to this production. Coon sings as Mary on Saturday, one night after the musical opens at Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Storm Lake. Friend Kathi Buckingham, Coon's understudy, will play Mary on Friday, opening night.
"When I found out about my cancer, I went to the directors and asked them if they wanted someone else for the role," Coon says. "I wanted to do the part, but the last thing I wanted to do was put them in a bind if I couldn't sing."
"We came up with a plan to have her share the role with Kathi," says Phil Havens, a Storm Lake attorney who created the production with longtime pal Tom Quiner of Des Moines. "We certainly wanted to give Anita the option to continue or not."
The old teacher determined she'd give it her best. Her work Tuesday morning at the piano shows she's in control of something else: Her voice.
"Clearly, every second she has where she has the energy she has devoted to learning her role and rehearsing with us," Havens says. "There were nights after her treatments that we didn't expect to see her there and she was there. We're all very supportive of Anita and her road to recovery. I know that music is therapy for her. She loves it."
Music and art rate close among her passions, perhaps trailing only her family and her students. The love that has surrounded her the past two months allows her to pursue both passions as she attempts to fend off this disease. She will continue to sing. She will continue to paint.
"If you follow your passions, you will not go wrong," she says, taking a seat at the piano. "Music and art are passions for me and that's what I save my energy for now. They give me such great pleasure."
With that, Coon continues to cram. She's excited about Saturday, especially the chance to perform "It Starts," a song Mother Mary sings to John and Peter.
"It's about peace," says Coon. "And hope."
If you go...
"Calvary: The Resurrection Story," a new musical by Phil Havens and Tom Quiner shows at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Lakeside Presbyterian Church, 110 E. 3rd St., in Storm Lake, Iowa. Tickets are available at the door, or by calling (712) 732-2076.
"I'm getting close," she says when I ask about the solos and duets among her six songs in "Calvary: The Resurrection Story."
She had a chemotherapy treatment Thursday. She feels like she has the flu for three days after chemo. The next few days are OK. That's where we are Tuesday.
By Saturday, the veteran singer hopes to be strong in song.
Hope. It's Anita Coon's buzzword these days. It's how this 56-year-old battles the pancreatic cancer doctors diagnosed Jan. 31.
"If we didn't do anything, I was told I'd have six months," she says. "But please don't write this as a doom-and-gloom story. We're hopeful the tumor shrinks through chemotherapy to give us a chance at resecting it. We're hoping for a miracle."
The woman playing the Mother Mary focuses on a miracle.
"When you're faced with a terminal illness, it gives you a different depth of life," says Coon, an art instructor the past 33 years in Storm Lake and at nearby Schaller-Crestland High School. "The bottom line is that I choose life."
The numbers are daunting. Pancreatic cancer is rarely discovered early. Coon noticed stomach aches last fall, but the plum-size tumor wasn't diagnosed until January. Resecting it presents a challenge as an artery and a vein grow through it and into the stomach.
All that's pretty technical. Pretty scary. And pretty uncontrollable.
But Coon can control this: May 6. That's the date she has circled. It's when a CAT scan will show if the tumor has shrunk. She has two chemotherapy sessions remaining.
"It's a countdown, I'll tell you," says Coon as she laughs and humorously pounds the table.
There's also a countdown to this production. Coon sings as Mary on Saturday, one night after the musical opens at Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Storm Lake. Friend Kathi Buckingham, Coon's understudy, will play Mary on Friday, opening night.
"When I found out about my cancer, I went to the directors and asked them if they wanted someone else for the role," Coon says. "I wanted to do the part, but the last thing I wanted to do was put them in a bind if I couldn't sing."
"We came up with a plan to have her share the role with Kathi," says Phil Havens, a Storm Lake attorney who created the production with longtime pal Tom Quiner of Des Moines. "We certainly wanted to give Anita the option to continue or not."
The old teacher determined she'd give it her best. Her work Tuesday morning at the piano shows she's in control of something else: Her voice.
"Clearly, every second she has where she has the energy she has devoted to learning her role and rehearsing with us," Havens says. "There were nights after her treatments that we didn't expect to see her there and she was there. We're all very supportive of Anita and her road to recovery. I know that music is therapy for her. She loves it."
Music and art rate close among her passions, perhaps trailing only her family and her students. The love that has surrounded her the past two months allows her to pursue both passions as she attempts to fend off this disease. She will continue to sing. She will continue to paint.
"If you follow your passions, you will not go wrong," she says, taking a seat at the piano. "Music and art are passions for me and that's what I save my energy for now. They give me such great pleasure."
With that, Coon continues to cram. She's excited about Saturday, especially the chance to perform "It Starts," a song Mother Mary sings to John and Peter.
"It's about peace," says Coon. "And hope."
If you go...
"Calvary: The Resurrection Story," a new musical by Phil Havens and Tom Quiner shows at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Lakeside Presbyterian Church, 110 E. 3rd St., in Storm Lake, Iowa. Tickets are available at the door, or by calling (712) 732-2076.
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