Tig Notaro On Surviving Breast Cancer

Shoshana Ungerleider: Hi, Tig.

Tig Notaro: Hi.

Shoshana Ungerleider: How are you?

Tig Notaro: I’m doing well. How are you?

Shoshana Ungerleider: Thanks for being here.

Tig Notaro: Thanks for having me.

Shoshana Ungerleider: I appreciate it. We’ve already chatted about this, but I felt like you probably wouldn’t remember the first time we met, outside the bathroom at the TIME100 event in New York City.

We talked for quite a while, and that stayed with me. I knew, of course, about everything you had been doing and talking about to destigmatize conversations around illness. But what struck me was how passionate you were while talking with a total stranger. It was incredible.

I want to back things up a little. I’m sure everyone in the audience knows who you are, but for people who may not know your full journey, tell us about that first performance. I think it was just days after your breast cancer diagnosis.

Tig Notaro: Do you want to hear about the actual performance or everything that had happened in my life?

Shoshana Ungerleider: Tell us all of it.

Tig Notaro: Okay. I had come back from a massive tour. I thought I had a cold, but I had a sinus infection and then pneumonia.

I took antibiotics for the symptoms, and that caused me to develop C. diff, which is an intestinal disease that just ate my insides up. It’s very deadly.

When I got out of the hospital after nearly two weeks, a few days later my mother tripped, hit her head and died. Then my girlfriend and I split up. Then I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.

This all happened within four months. It was quite a run, to say the least.

A few days after my diagnosis, I got onstage and talked about it. Seeing how quickly life and health could just slide away made me want to perform again because I really do love doing stand-up.

Shoshana Ungerleider: It was amazing. Tell us more about why you decided to share something so personal, scary and fresh. How did the audience react?

Tig Notaro: My comedy had never been that personal before. I wanted to perform again, and I knew I was about to disappear into doctor’s appointments and treatment. I also didn’t know what was going to happen with my health. I had cancer. I had C. diff. I was so ill.

I thought, “I want to perform again.”

Then, when I considered performing, I realized I couldn’t just talk about observational topics while holding onto my belt loop so my pants wouldn’t fall off. I was so sick.

I thought, “I’m going to see if I can make anything about my life or this experience humorous.”

It was really a leap. My fear, which was also a little funny in a dark way, was that if I bombed and then died, people would say, “Did you see her last show? I mean, I give her credit for the attempt, but she just didn’t nail it.”

Shoshana Ungerleider: You didn’t bomb.

Tig Notaro: I didn’t bomb. It ended up becoming the number one comedy album of the year.

I didn’t win the Grammy, but that’s fine.

Shoshana Ungerleider: In your Netflix documentary, which is wonderful, you talk about the fear of dying. Since this is End Well, we’re getting right into it.

Tig Notaro: Sure. That’s what I’m here for.

Shoshana Ungerleider: That’s what we’re here for. How has that fear evolved or shifted throughout your experience with cancer and grief? Have you found any unexpected sources of comfort or humor in confronting it?

Tig Notaro: My fear was so heightened. It feels strange to talk about it in the past tense because I’ve certainly had scares. I’ve had things show up and get removed, and I’ve had challenges over the past decade.

I recently had a conversation with my therapist because I felt frustrated. My story was so public through my stand-up, the Netflix documentary, my book and all the different ways it came out.

I realized people understandably think, “Oh, it’s a perfect, happy story. You got through it, and everything is fine.”

But the reality is that there are still health challenges. There are still those fearful moments. I’m still heightened. It isn’t something that is simply far in the past that I got through.

A few months ago, I talked to my therapist about the frustration I sometimes feel. I don’t remember exactly what she said, other than encouraging me not to enter every doctor’s appointment already expecting the worst.

As much as possible, I try to find a more neutral headspace rather than going in thinking, “What is this? What are you going to find? What does this mean?”

She encouraged me to clear my head and make space for the possibility that I’m not terminally ill and that this might not be anything to worry about.

Shoshana Ungerleider: Staying present in the moment.

Tig Notaro: Which is so hard to do. I’m going in thinking, “A lump appeared an inch away from my mastectomy scar. How am I supposed to be chill about that? What is it?”

It was nothing. It was removed, but it was nothing.

Shoshana Ungerleider: In your documentary, you mention sitting at your mother’s bedside as she was dying. How did that experience shape your understanding of care at the end of life and the importance of open conversations about it, which is so much of what we’re doing here today?

Tig Notaro: I remember being so hurt because my brother and stepfather both went home after my mother was taken off life support.

There was no world in which I was going to walk out that door, even though I was still very sick.

But now I understand that people deal with these things very differently. That’s why these conversations are so important. My brother and stepfather didn’t have the ability to stay, and that had nothing to do with whether they loved or cared about my mother.

I think it was when my cousin died of cancer a few years ago that it really became clear to me.

Actually, I do remember meeting you. I remember talking to you. I’ll share a weird thought that went through my head while we were talking. I remember thinking, “Is this the last person I’m going to see when I’m dying?”

You were talking to me about end-of-life care, and then you gave me your card. I thought, “Oh my God. I wonder if I’m going to call her and she’s going to be at my deathbed.”

Shoshana Ungerleider: Sorry I freaked you out.

Tig Notaro: No, I truly thought, “Whoa, I wonder if I’m going to give her a call and she’ll be at my deathbed.”

But when my cousin was dying, no one in my family was talking about the fact that she was dying. Everyone was still keeping the positivity going.

They were saying, “You’re going to beat this. You’re going to get through it.”

I was sitting there with a person who was ripping the lines out of her arms and asking, “Am I dying?” She wanted to get up, but her legs were like baby giraffe legs. She couldn’t stand.

I remember holding her and thinking that it didn’t feel like my place to say anything because her husband wasn’t saying it and her children weren’t saying it, even though everybody knew she was dying.

My mother was in a coma when she died, so it wasn’t like she knew she was dying. But my cousin knew, and nobody was saying it.

That was when I understood more than ever the importance of open dialogue.

I talk to people all the time about losing my cousin in that way. The conversation I had with you was major. I think that’s why you got that energy from me. I was in the middle of all of it, losing my mother and then my cousin, and I met you between those experiences.

Shoshana Ungerleider: You’ve also talked about the impact your mother’s death had on your decision to have children. Tell us about that.

Tig Notaro: I had always wanted children. Even before I knew I was gay, I imagined myself with a bicycle, a basket and a child in the basket.

It’s not too far off from my life now. I’m married with two children.

I never thought about how I was going to get that kid into the basket. I never pictured a man or anything else. I just thought, “I have to get a baby into that basket.”

It was just me and that kid, who was named Little Timmy. That is not the name of either of my children.

When my mother died, I immediately felt, “I don’t want kids anymore.”

I had wanted to share my child or children with my mother.

My very close childhood friend came over right after my mother died, and I shared that with her. She said, “You cannot think that way.”

This was before I met my wife. My friend Shannon said, “No matter how your child comes to be, you will always be able to see and feel your mother through your connection with that child. You must continue in the direction of having a child.”

I’m so grateful for that conversation, and then for meeting Stephanie. Now we have the little children in the baskets, although they’re almost eight, so it’s been a while.

Shoshana Ungerleider: I want to talk more about comedy, which often relies on shared experiences. How have your experiences with grief and illness influenced your comedy? Do you find that the work resonates differently with audiences who have faced similar challenges?

Tig Notaro: It definitely resonates with people who have gone through it.

The album I released in 2012 talks about the loss of love, the loss of my mother, my health and cancer. There are so many things people connect with in that set, even if they haven’t experienced those exact things themselves.

You have a mother. You have your health, or you have someone you love.

Over time, I understood that this was why people connected with it. At first, I was a little confused about why people were connecting with the show.

I also had an interesting experience after my double mastectomy. The comedian in me kept hearing this voice in my head saying, “You should do a show topless.”

I thought, “I can’t do a show topless.”

But the idea kept coming back to the point where I was distracted every time I performed. I kept thinking, “I should take my shirt off,” followed by, “I can’t take my shirt off.”

At that point, it had been six months since the surgery. I worried it would seem like I was trying to milk the experience, so to speak, long after the fact.

Then I thought, “No, this is still relevant, even farther down the road.”

So I did a show where I took my shirt off in the middle and didn’t acknowledge it.

What made it funny to me was that I talked about airplane travel, which is among the least respected comedy topics among comedians. I thought, “That’ll be great. I’ll do hacky material with my shirt off, reveal my mastectomy scars and not acknowledge it.”

That way, I could make a statement while hopefully still making it funny.

When I walked offstage, the comedian Bo Burnham was backstage. He said, “Put all female body issues aside. Put cancer aside. This is just the human body.”

He said, “I’m not a woman. I don’t have cancer. This is inspiring simply as a person. This is your body, and you’re out there with your shirt off doing comedy.”

That felt incredible because I hadn’t considered it from that perspective. I had only thought about women or cancer survivors. Here was this man saying it was inspiring simply as a human being becoming comfortable with their body.

I had been uncomfortable for a while after surgery. Then I realized my scars represented the fact that my body had healed.

That was what made me want to do the show topless.

Shoshana Ungerleider: We share that. I also had a double mastectomy for cancer prevention. What you said about the scars is really meaningful to me.

Tig Notaro: Thank you. I’m glad.

Shoshana Ungerleider: I want to return to something you said earlier in the context of your therapist. How do you deal with the very normal experience of waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, fearing a recurrence or that something has gone wrong?

You go to therapy. What else do you do? What guidance could you share with people facing that themselves?

Tig Notaro: The sweat I wake up in these days is menopause.

But I do have that fear. I try desperately not to let it enter my everyday life.

I know there are things I can do to try to prevent illness, and I do those things. I know people have very different views on this, but I personally found that changing to a plant-based diet was very helpful. It makes me feel really good.

Crowd goes mild.

But for me, I noticed a massive difference in pain, and all my levels shifted.

I exercise every day, whether I take a walk or tread water for an hour. Treading water is very meditative, and it keeps a lot of pressure off my body. I float, tread and think, or don’t think.

I try to sleep, but again, menopause.

I’m always trying to find a balance between work and my personal life. With touring, I’ll get a huge chunk out of the way and then take four months off, except for podcasting.

That’s what I do and what I stay focused on. Positive people are also crucial.

Shoshana Ungerleider: The things we can control.

Tig Notaro: The things I can control, man, do I control them.

Shoshana Ungerleider: I love comedy because it often seems like the first place people push against society’s blind spots and prejudices. That is not always the case, of course. There are certainly comedians who exploit prejudice, but that’s for another day.

What freedom does comedy give you compared with other forms of expression? You do many other things too.

Tig Notaro: Comedy is very one-sided. You get to go onstage. There are obviously interactive moments where people speak to you, and sometimes that’s all right.

But you go onstage with your rehearsed or thought-out ideas. Even if you come up with something in the moment that you didn’t plan, it was clearly bouncing around somewhere in the back of your mind.

You’re there talking to people and sharing your thoughts, and then you leave.

In other situations, like podcasting, there is more of an exchange.

And as I continue talking, I’m forgetting what you asked me.

Shoshana Ungerleider: All right, let’s move on. Let’s go back to meeting outside the public bathroom.

You and I talked for a good 15 or 20 minutes about all kinds of things. Because you have been so public with your experiences of cancer and loss, do people approach you and tell you what is happening in their lives? Do they share too much information? What is that like?

Tig Notaro: It happens sometimes. Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s hard because I’m just a person wandering around the world.

Sometimes I’m having a rough day. It’s a mixed bag.

I used to stand outside my shows and talk to everybody afterward because I felt so grateful for the response I received. I’m glad I did that.

Then I had a moment when I realized, “I’ve put out a television show, a book and all these different things that people can reference. I’m allowed to have some boundaries.”

I can say, “Now isn’t a good time.”

If people get upset with me, I just have to live with that.

Shoshana Ungerleider: You have to take care of yourself.

Tig Notaro: Absolutely.

Shoshana Ungerleider: It can be draining when people share their stories and want to relate to you.

Tig Notaro: Sometimes it’s completely fine and great. Other times, I’m caught in a very strange moment.

Shoshana Ungerleider: Final question. Tell us about a time when one of your jokes about cancer was too dark to be funny.

Tig Notaro: In the documentary, there’s a joke where I talk about how, before I was diagnosed with cancer and when I had breasts, they were very small.

After surgery, the surgeons were saying, “We’ll take this from back here, suction this out, cut this and put this here.”

I thought, “I barely had anything to begin with.”

It felt wild to choose anything other than scars.

I used to make jokes all the time in my stand-up about how small my chest was. After my diagnosis and surgery, I made a joke about how my boobs had overheard me all those years and finally decided to kill me.

That joke didn’t go very well in the beginning.

Shoshana Ungerleider: It seems like it went pretty well.

Tig Notaro: Thank you. But now I know how to deliver it. It was also written a little differently before.

In the documentary, you see the joke evolve throughout the film.

Whether it’s about cancer or anything else, it’s always awkward when a joke flops. It’s especially awkward when it’s about cancer.

That was my big fear before I did that show, which I didn’t originally intend to become an album. I kept thinking, “How do I get into this?”

But those moments become part of being a comedian. You think, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that just happened.”

Then two days later, something worse happens in life or onstage, and it’s like, “On we go.”

Shoshana Ungerleider: On we go. Tig, thank you so much.

Tig Notaro: Thanks for having me.

Shoshana Ungerleider: We’re so grateful. Thank you