With her bare feet crossed and propped up on her desk, KathyLaTour sighs as she looks around her office filled with lessonplans and ungraded papers.
“I never clean my office until someone is in hereinterviewing me,” said the corporate communications andpublic affairs professor. Between appearing on “The TodayShow” and CBS News, editing for Cure magazine and heading thenonprofit emphasis in the corporate communications and publicaffairs department at SMU, the professor keeps busy. She is alsothe author of a breast cancer survival guide for women and stars in”One Mutant Cell,” a one-woman show she wrote. With allof this to keep her occupied, it is no wonder LaTour has difficultyfinding time to clean her small office.
In 1993, LaTour released a journal-style book, using theexperiences of 120 women who had breast cancer. She interviewedeach woman and compiled the information into a book about theprocess of emotional healing. The book’s success led LaTourto spend the next 10 years touring the country speaking on the samesubject.
“The things that my audience liked the best were my humorand my inside jokes about having cancer,” she said.
While teaching in Taos over the summer of 2002, LaTour had whatshe refers to as an “a-ha!” moment. She sat up in bedin the middle of the night and decided to write her one-woman showinspired by her book.
“It kind of hit me. I could do a stand-up comedy routineout of this. And so I wrote a show based on the timeline of readingin my journal and then talking about it — where I was in thecancer journey,” LaTour said.
Her film, “One Mutant Cell,” premiered at theGreenville Avenue Theater as part of a fundraising event forGilda’s Club of North Dallas. Since it’s opening inMarch of 2003, LaTour’s show has toured to Houston,Charlotte, N.C., Baton Rouge, La. and Tucson, Ariz.
“There’s a movement toward using humor to cope.There’s things that laughing and humor do inpsycho-neuro-immunology to kind of relax you. It’s great tolaugh. It makes you feel better too,” LaTour said.
LaTour’s book and show are about emotional healing. Shedescribes the healing as a painful process of actually feeling whatyou are going through with the cancer. She said instead ofresisting the changes that are taking place in your life, youshould grow with the changes and embrace your feelings about thatchange. Without acknowledging your true feelings about your cancer,you cannot mature beyond that point in your life.
LaTour is used to situations that caused her to mature more thanothers around her. With a father in the Navy, LaTour believes sheand her siblings matured faster than most children, because oftheir excessive traveling and relocating. Born in the small town ofAstoria, Ore., LaTour was the middle of four, with an older brotherand younger set of twins.
“We certainly were not ‘Father KnowsBest,'” LaTour said, referring to the stereotypicalfamilies from black-and-white sitcoms, but she believes she hasbeen able to accomplish so much during her life because of the loveand support she received growing up. She now shares that love andsupport with her own daughter, Kirtley.
After a fairly recent divorce, LaTour is leading what she refersto as a “great life.” Through her work as ascreenwriter, actress, speaker, journalist, editor, professor andmother, she is able to act on every single thing in her life thatshe loves. She could not pick just one profession to fit into, shesaid.
“I’m certainly one of those people who is excitedabout the rest of her life, because I have no idea what’sgoing to happen next, and it’s like, ‘Boy. Ican’t wait,'” she said.
