Tom Brokaw: What it Means to Have Cancer | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

NBC News’ Tom Brokaw, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in August 2013, discusses his experience with cancer and shares advice for fellow patients.

Transcription:


Text:What does it mean to have cancer?

Tom:It’s a life-changing experience, and it certainly was for me. It was a trial. At the same time, I was always confident that I would emerge OK, and I was fascinated by the treatment that I was going through, because it’s not math—it’s a lot of sophisticated guesswork that goes on here and getting the right cocktail of drugs and so on. I was not prepared for how uncertain it would be, I guess, as much as anything, and how there would be lows and highs along the way.

Text:What were some of the challenges of your cancer treatment?

Tom:No one said to me, “It’s going to really knock you on your backside,” because it’s bone and blood. I developed compression fractures in my spine and in my lower back, and I was confined to my house. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t get out of bed. I wasn’t ready for that. I’m somebody who likes beginnings, middles, and ends—I want to know when things are going to end, so I can move on to the next. People kept saying, “A year from now you’ll be OK.” What does that mean if everything goes right? And then a couple of times during the year I got serious infections and had to be hospitalized under emergency conditions.

Text:Why is a support team critical during treatment?

Tom:I never broke down. I’ve lived a long time, and I’m a pretty tough guy. I’ve seen a lot of stuff around the world. I’ve been in wars and other things. So, I was mentally prepared, but I couldn’t have done it without my family. I couldn’t have done it without my wife, who is my pharmacist, sheriff, tough love, laughed at my jokes, got me out of bed—she was there for me. And then the family rallied around as well, so that’s also critically important.

Text:What advice do you have for other cancer patients?

Tom:Be careful of Google. Don’t go on and try to find about your cancer on Google, because it’s a wide range of stuff you can’t rely on. But with a couple of selective phone calls and going to a couple of sites, you can find out real information. In this cancer, for example, there was a woman by the name of Kathy Giusti, who was a… You probably know who she is.

Interviewer:I know her very well.

Tom:And right away people said, “You’ve got to go to Kathy Giusti, and you've got to talk to her. She’s got this great site called the ‘Multiple Myeloma Foundation for Research,’ and it’s clearinghouse—that’s reliable information. You can find out what’s going on. You don’t go to your doctor and say, “Kathy says I ought to do this,” but you have a better understanding of it at that point. And then talk to people who have had multiple myeloma. It turns out two of my friends were five or six years in, and I was able to call them and say, “OK, what am I in for here?” They said, “Every case is different, but here’s what we experienced.” And it’s everything from what your body goes through to dealing with insurance companies, frankly. You have to know all of that stuff. It becomes your whole universe, quite honestly.

Text:How is your health today?

Tom:I’m actually feeling good. The thing that I’m still working on is getting my physical reconditioning—as the therapist say—back in some shape. My legs lost a lot of muscle tone. I lost a lot of weight (which that was fine). I don’t have the cardio strength that I once did. I can’t run the way that I did and do other things, so I’m day by day trying to get in better physical condition and hope that that scrim through which I saw life of cancer is being lowered. I don’t think about it nearly as much as I used to.