By: Shreya Rana

She stepped into the spotlight of the square stage at the back of the coffee shop in Alden, New York. The chattering that had just been drifting happily throughout the room stopped instantly. Rocking back and forth, she counted to three as she took a deep breath in and peered out at the overflowing room. Her forehead grew wet with sweat as she questioned if she was ready for this moment. 

She hadn’t just competed against the other teenagers at her school; she had competed against an entire community of Dorothy wannabes for this role. She sacrificed sleep to practice so that she could make sure her pitch was perfect. She took callbacks as seriously as she could, so that she was performing to the best of her abilities. It paid off. After getting the role, she had spent months and months preparing for the lead role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. 

It was time to prove to her director that she wouldn’t let him down and she was cast for a reason. She was going to do this. Finally, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and was ready to exhale greatness. 

However, when 18-year-old Erin Matthewson got on stage, she completely blanked. 

“Everything went black and I had to completely make everything up, it was terrifying,” said the actress, now a junior in college. 

Unfortunately, this was just one of the many occurrences that happened to Matthewson where she suddenly became forgetful of what was happening. 

When she entered high school, she started noticing lapses in her ability to remember. All of the sudden, someone who used to be a straight-A student and who could memorize a

textbook by reading it, was having trouble memorizing simple terms and remembering to do homework. 

Short term memorization became blurry to Matthewson and her grades started slipping. “It all hit me at once. I was just bawling my eyes out to my mom and telling her that I think something is wrong with me. I had no idea what was happening to me and it was so scary.” 

Although Matthewson tried to discover what was causing her memory loss, it was her mom who finally cracked the case. 

*** 

Living with memory loss is a common side effect of chemotherapy. More than 70% of cancer patients have cognitive problems and a third of them continue to suffer the side effects after treatment has ended. 

Erin has had cancer twice, which means two intensive rounds of chemotherapy. With each round, she was weakened as side effects were making themselves present. The chemotherapy was an aggressive source of treatment that damaged cells in Matthewson’s body. The most harmful long term effect for her was memory loss. 

Mayo Clinic defines brain fog as a term cancer survivors use to encompass thinking and memory problems that occur during and after chemotherapy. 

Cleveland Clinic examines this phenomenon by explaining that brain cells called microglia may orchestrate the memory loss symptoms by disrupting other cells that help maintain the brain’s communication system.

It is still largely unknown how and why cancer patients still experience brain fog years after treatment. Matthewson is still discovering the boundaries of her own memory loss. 

She has discovered that she has trouble memorizing things short term. Taking tests and performing simple monologues prove to be a challenge because of the struggle to drill terms into her brain. 

Matthewson has recently realized that she can’t remember any details in her life before the age of 10, and even after that, it is splotchy. She describes her memory loss as frustrating and devastating. It hits her hard out of the blue when her whole family fondly and with ease recalls memories that are like little black holes in her brain. 

She vividly remembers the moment when she realized that her memory loss was a problem she had to live with long term because of the chemotherapy. 

“I had an hour and a half long conversation with my doctor before surgery; we were talking about everything with my health and I don’t remember a single second of it,” Matthewson said. “It was like I completely blacked out. That day, I knew I was going to have to live with this long term. It is spooky to me to have someone else remember something that you did and you do not know about it, that is just scary to think about.” 

*** 

Despite not being able to memorize, Matthewson is a theater performance major with a deep passion for being in the spotlight. 

She has been in multiple shows since her memory loss has come into her life and it has been a long and difficult journey.

She described being on stage “a power move” because she gets to be so close to something that is so tough for her. 

She used to have big dreams of becoming a doctor, but she had to come to the realization that the career was an impossibility for her because of her memory loss. 

However, in theater, there are months of world building and character development. That complexity that goes along with the memorizing is what makes Matthewson so confident in her abilities to do theater. Even if she does forget a line, she has the knowledge of who she is emulating to make something up on the spot. 

Being held to professional standards in college has made her come to terms that even though she loves theater, she has limitations that she must work around. While most people can memorize a minute and a half monologue in two days, it takes her three weeks. 

Learning choreography takes her double the time as everyone else and she prefers being in a musical over a play because memorizing songs is exponentially easier for her, as she can replay the songs over and over in her head. 

Matthewson has been involved with two musicals that have both been directed by Professor Doug Brown. Brown has spent countless hours directing and teaching her in multiple theater classes. 

However, he was completely in the dark when it came to knowledge of Mattewson’s struggles. “I knew she had cancer, but I never knew she had a problem with memory loss. I never saw her struggle with it.” 

A graduate of the theater program, Jackson Barnes, recalls his time working with Matthewson on a musical. “She never came to rehearsal with her lines unmemorized. I never realized until the end of the show that she had a memory loss. She puts her all into what she does and always gives 110%. She is a powerhouse performer who brings a level of resilience and determination to her work that is unmatched.” 

*** 

Matthewson’s ultimate goal is to book a national tour with Broadway. She is determined to keep pushing herself until that dream is a reality. “I will hear one hundred no’s but all I need is one yes.” 

Matthewson expressed that she does theater because she is passionate and feels incredible joy from doing it, despite the challenges. For her, that joy is worth the extra hours of work to measure up to the level of talent around her. 

It doesn’t matter how stressful her day is if she gets to unwind and pour herself into the art form that makes her feel like herself. “It is the hardest thing I have ever done, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop pursuing it.”