Recovery after treatment is a vital part of the healing process and caretakers play an invaluable role in providing support and strength throughout the entire journey.
When Meghan Baylor, a high school French teacher and professional dancer and choreographer, began experiencing unusual exhaustion and bruising in late 2021, she initially did not dwell on it. She and her twin sister, Caitlyn Baylor, were busy wrapping up choreography for a demanding dance project.
“We were doing a lot of high-impact things with our bodies, so [these symptoms] didn’t seem like anything too alarming at the beginning,” Meghan said.
When her blood counts came back low during her routine check-up with her primary care physician, she visited a hematologist at the UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center. In February 2022, Meghan was diagnosed with aplastic anemia at 31 years old. This rare condition means the bone marrow does not produce enough blood cells.
Meghan’s treatment would require a bone marrow transplant, which she received from a matched donor through the National Marrow Donor Program in August 2022. Her transplant care was managed by Natalie Callander, MD, a hematologist at Carbone Cancer Center who is renowned for her expertise in blood disorders and multiple myeloma research and care.
Although the diagnosis was a shock, Meghan felt grateful to have such a wonderful medical care team at UW and to have Caitlyn by her side as her caregiver. The two often collaborate on choreography and they navigated the uncertainty of Meghan’s health together, giving each other strength and comfort.
As dance has been their shared passion, they thought about how they could use that to showcase their journey and heal.
“I was very frustrated by having to scale back on my physical activity during this process,” Meghan said. “But Caitlyn was there with me in the hospital every single day. We started envisioning when we could dance again, how would we use our art to capture this experience of going from health to sickness, and then starting to return to that place of strength?”
To honor both patient and caretaker perspectives, the sisters choreographed a duet, “All Will Come Again,” over the course of 18 months. They found inspiration from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, “All Will Come Again into Its Strength.”
“We were interested in using an embodied art form to talk about the fragility and vulnerability of the body,” Meghan said. “We were also passionate about exploring our twin relationship throughout this experience, and the way that, for both of us, this was the most difficult thing we have ever been through in our lives.”
When the Baylor sisters finally performed their duet in May 2024, Meghan was overwhelmed with emotion. The performance was made extra special by Callander’s support and enthusiasm in the audience.
“It was a beautiful feeling to share something so personal with an audience and feel so supported,” Meghan said. “The way that it was received felt really gratifying because so many people connected with the piece. It meant so much to me that Dr. Callander had come to see it, too.”
Meghan has been feeling well in the two-plus years since her bone marrow transplant. She is grateful for Caitlyn and that they can channel their experiences into dance yet again.
“With dance, we are always so interested in how you can create work that tells a story that cannot be told in words, something that is more powerful than language alone,” Meghan said. “This piece looked at the journey as a whole, going from health to sickness and then starting to return to that place of strength.”