Kingston Common Council President Andrea Shaut revealed publicly for the first time her two-year battle with breast cancer at a meeting last week of the council’s Public Safety and General Government Committee. Shaut made the remarks while speaking in support of a resolution calling on Westchester Medical Center to drop plans to close a cancer support house in Kingston, which, she said, provides critical services to individuals and families struggling with the disease and its psychological impacts.

Shaut was elected to the post of deputy mayor and Common Council president back in 2019. She is the first woman to serve as the city’s second highest-ranking elected official. In 2022, she began a career shift from professional musician to attorney when she enrolled in Albany Law School, taking on a full courseload while continuing her work as a music teacher and performer and council president.

At the March 25 committee meeting, Shaut spoke as lawmakers were set to discuss a memorializing resolution calling on HealthAlliance Hospital parent company WMCHealth to drop plans to sell the Herbert H. and Sofia P. Reuner Cancer Support House on Mary’s Avenue and shift its services to a new space at a planned “medical village” at the former Kingston Hospital campus on Broadway. In her remarks, Shaut detailed her 2024 diagnosis of breast cancer, which came just seven months after her mother died of the same disease and a few years after her best friend died following a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.

Along with the physical trauma of multiple surgeries, Shaut detailed the intense psychological pain and alienation that comes with a cancer diagnosis. Shaut spoke of the intense anxiety of waiting on the results of the next scan, the isolation she felt as the youngest person in the waiting room at the oncologist’s office, the feeling that no one who had not experienced a cancer diagnosis could possibly understand what she was going through and the strain of maintaining “the mask” as she presided over council meetings.

“Cancer is unimaginable — the anxiety, the pain, the procedures, worries about finances — because cancer is expensive even when you have insurance,” said Shaut. “The fact that your body is changing before your eyes, the pity you receive, the guilt that you have that you aren’t the same person to your loved ones and the absolute fear.”

Shaut said that when her depression spiraled into dangerous territory, her surgeon referred her to the Cancer Support House. The program, which has been around since 2003, offers free counseling, support groups, education and financial guidance and other services to cancer patients in a home-like setting. Most of all, Shaut said, it offered an opportunity to share their experience with fellow cancer patients.

“The fact that Kingston has this beautiful community and the cancer support house is a such a blessing,” said Shaut. “They offer so much to so many through their programs and most importantly, in my opinion the opportunity to share, learn from and support the people who understand them, who get it.”

Speaking with Kingston Wire this week, Shaut spoke openly about something that had been, until last week, largely hidden from public view. Shaut said she had disclosed her diagnoses to fellow councilmembers, Mayor Steve Noble and a few other City Hall employees. But she had asked them not to discuss the matter publicly because she did not want it to become a distraction from carrying out the business of municipal government.

She also did not allow the diagnosis or the accompanying depression push her off the path to her law degree. While undergoing treatment for cancer she graduated law school with a 4.0 average, passed the bar exam, was sworn in as an attorney by City Court Judge Phil Kirschner and secured a prestigious judicial clerkship with the Appellate Division of the state Third Judicial District.

“My whole law school career was full of cancer between taking care of my mom and then, right at the beginning of my last year, my own diagnosis,” Shaut said. “I think it’s actually something that helped me get through it because it was just tunnel vision and saying this is what I’ve got to do, because I was passionate about graduating with the highest honors.”

Now Shaut is channeling some of that passion into saving the Cancer Support House. Shaut said that while she had not availed herself to its services — her depression was too overwhelming despite multiple outreach efforts by staff there — she wanted to ensure they remained available to members of Kingston cancer survivor community. Shaut said that she had attended a meeting where WMCHealth officials showed plans for a new facility to replace the cancer support house — a converted locker room on the former Kingston Hospital campus close by an infusion center, the last place a cancer patient seeking respite wants to see. A newer proposal, she said, was little better.

“It’s still a windowless room that looks like a medical center versus this warm and homey environment at a place that is literally a home,” said Shaut. “I just don’t understand the lack of heart that is going into making this decision.”

On Tuesday, however, Shaut said that she was holding out hope for the program. Shaut said that she had just had a “productive call” with WMCHealth Senior Vice President for Government and Community Relations Thomas Scaglione about the future of the cancer support program. WMC officials did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Tuesday but a spokesperson for the hospital said that they would answer written questions on the issue. Meanwhile, the Kingston Common Council is set to vote on the memorializing resolution calling on the hospital chain to maintain the Cancer Support House when it convenes on April 7.