by Hoda Kotb
JANUARY 28 (DAY BEFORE DIAGNOSIS)
SUNDAY
Don’t want to write much today. Good news: Hala came to visit. Bad news (which I hope turns into good news): I get results back tomorrow. Today I am cancer-free in my mind. I hope it is confirmed in my body. I am kind of nervous, but it has been nice having Hala here. She cooked Cornish hens and veggies tonight and we watched movies.
I am going to sleep now so I don’t obsess.
Sleep that night was virtually impossible. I had two life-changing events happening at the exact same time. My marriage was a lie and I possibly had breast cancer. That January, I thought I would drown in grief. But, thankfully, a weird internal game plan kicked in. I guess in the name of survival, human beings must only be able to generate a finite amount of grief. Since I had two tragedies flooding my life at once, I instinctively began to “part” all of that grief—to split the raging sea of crap. When I was obsessing about my poisoned marriage, I’d immediately say to myself, I pray to God it’s not cancer. When I was obsessing about my health, I’d think, How in the hell can my marriage be over? This kept me from getting too depressed about one or the other. It’s almost like having two kids instead of one. You don’t focus too much on the one who’s screaming because the other one is coloring on the walls with your lipstick.
The Diagnosis
You should know, I’m an apple-eating, Central Park–running, early-to-bed healthy woman. I thought I was doing everything right, living right. But life is funny, isn’t it? On Sunday, everything is perfectly normal. Then Monday comes and it all turns upside down. Monday is when I found out my lumps were bad actors. Malcontents. Badasses. I was in such shock that it took me until Tuesday to actually write down the C-word.
PAPER JOURNAL
JANUARY 30
TUESDAY
Okay—I have CANCER. That’s what Dr. Kwai said. At 11 A.M. yesterday, I was talking to an intern in my office when my cell phone rang. It said Mount Sinai and I froze. The intern looked at me and I asked her to leave. But first, she asked if she could hug me.
Dr. Kwai said, “I have some not favorable news for you—the cells are cancerous.” I asked, “Both lumps?” He said, “Yes.” What in the hell is happening? CANCER??
Dr. Andrew Kwai told me I needed to have an MRI in the next few days for a closer look at my cancer. In shock, my brain defaulted to work and I asked him if it would be okay if I flew to Boston tomorrow to cover a story. He said, “Why not?”
Why not, Hoda? Because, my dear, you are nuts right now and have a lot of nerve thinking you can focus on work. I called Hala, and she met me at Dr. Christina Weltz’s office, where we would learn about my biopsy results. “If you’re going to have cancer,” Dr. Weltz said, “this is the good one to get.”
Good cancer? (Who knew?)
I felt such a lack of control! Let’s put it this way: if they had done an MRI on my brain, it would have revealed a scorched matrix of question marks, exclamation points, and expletives. #@$%&#%! It was at this point that I began to write the word FORWARD a lot in my journal. A word that gave me a kernel of power, a tiny seed of control.
FORWARD.
I woke up the next day and headed to Boston to do a story for the Today show on “Rocker Moms”—older women who were slammin’ on their electric guitars and rocking tight leather pants. The whole experience was out-of-body for me. For them, it was a chance to tell me all about their music and their lives. They were so excited. I was so out of it. One minute I was laughing hysterically, the next I was just watching their lips move in slow motion.
Do I really have cancer? the floating me wondered.
The following day, I was back in New York for my MRI. I needed one to help doctors determine how they would rid me of the cancer. Was there cancer between the lumps? Could they just take the lumps or would I need a mastectomy and breast reconstruction? The whole experience was aggravating. Hala came with me and stayed, even as I was placed inside the tube. I was terrified because of what the MRI might reveal, not to mention my loathing of the tube-o’-claustrophobia. Right before the procedure, the technician told Hala she had to leave the room.
“The waves the machine sends out are not safe for you,” he explained.
My sister, as always, did not skip a beat in her protection of me. She pulled up a chair, sat down, and said, “I’m not leaving.”
The machine cranked up and drummed “Rat-a-tat-tat . . . tat-tat-tat” for a solid forty minutes. I felt rat-a-tat-rattled. So many forms to fill out, questions, a dye injection, the tube, more forms. Finally, we bolted out of there and I headed to work. I had to tape two Your Total Health shows for NBC. Getting my makeup done and hair blown out felt ridiculous. Trying to make pretty out of such an ugly situation. I got into the studio and we began taping. As I read the teleprompter, every story seemed to be about a devastating illness. I was reading the words and once again floating above it all, wondering whose life I was watching.
“We’ll be right back with a woman and her sister’s battle with cancer,” I read as we rolled tape.
“Hoda,” a producer said, “Can you do that again? We had a glitch with the camera.”
“We’ll be right back with a woman and her sister’s battle with cancer.”
“Hoda, just one more time. Sorry.”
I wanted to scream.
Finally, the taping was over. I went back to my office and saw the red light on my desk phone blinking. I knew it was the results of the MRI. “Hoda,” the message said, “the results of the MRI are incomplete. Please call us.” When I finally reached the doctor, he told me the two cancerous lumps were farther apart than they originally thought, but that there was no cancer, thankfully, in between them. But they found another lump in the same breast.
God. More anxiety. More #@$%&#%!
February 2007
All of the doctors said the same thing: I needed a mastectomy, no choice. Three lumps, spread out—they could not save the breast. No more breast? We have to annihilate my left breast?
One doctor asked, “Do you identify with your breasts?”
Huh?
“How attached are you to your breasts?”
“Well . . . I like ’em. I mean, if you showed me twenty breasts in a lineup, I think I would be able to pick mine out.” (I think they’re those . . . but they mayyy beee thoossse . . .)
This seems like a good time to talk about my video journal. After all, there are some things—like your breasts—that you only want to ruminate about with yourself. The video journal was the brainchild of Your Total Health executive producer Betsy Wagner. She offered a smart approach when she found out about my diagnosis: “At least give yourself a choice. You can decide later whether you want to air any of it.” She gave me a home video camera and told me to record as much or as little as I wanted, whenever I wanted. We thought perhaps the videos could one day help our Your Total Health viewers. Ironically, that camera turned out to be a good way for me to vent without having to burden anyone.
VIDEO JOURNAL
ONE WEEK BEFORE SURGERY
(IN MY BEDROOM, LYING ON THE BED)
“What woman has really stared at her breasts long enough to know what they look like? I know I haven’t. So, most of the time during the day, I forget I have breast cancer. I just forget—because I lived forty-two years and some months without it. I lived most of my life without it, so that’s why it makes sense that just like that (I snap my fingers), everything changes.
“Last month, I forgot that I have breast cancer. And then one guy made a chemo joke, like, ‘Oh, that guy looks so bald, looks like he had chemo.’ They were talking about someone on American Idol. And I immediately got this, like twitch. (I twitch my eye.) I have a weird way I deal with things, and I remember this from when I went to Afghanistan or Iraq. I just don’t think anything bad is going to happen to me. Just like that. I really don’t. I think I can go into a dangerous place, or be put into a dangerous situation, and for some reason, nothing will happ
en to me. Now, maybe that’s arrogant or ego. I really hope it’s not. But I really don’t think about it—I just don’t obsess about it.”
Why obsess? There was nothing I could do. My left breast had to go.
It took me about a month to find the right doctor and hospital. The scary surgery was only a few weeks away. And that’s when I had my dream. Have you ever had a dream that is so vivid you’re sure it’s true? In my dream, I was lying in bed and the doctors were surrounding me. They said, “Hoda, we are so sorry. We made a mistake.” It felt so real. I believed it. The doctors were wrong. I knew it! But when I woke up, I pulled down my T-shirt and there they were. Three black X’s—marks the doctor had made on my chest to identify the location of the lumps. Damn the luck! It was all too real.
Those weeks leading up to my surgery felt surreal. Like I was living someone else’s life. I remember flying to London for work, listening to the Jo Dee Messina song “Was That My Life” over and over again. I’d been diagnosed on paper, but my brain had not yet gotten the memo. Very little was getting through to me despite the very big effort made by others. Thoughtful people were plying me with dozens of books about surviving breast cancer and getting healthy, but only one made an impression. One I had bought for myself. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes, “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly.” I liked that. Stop wasting time. Unfortunately and unavoidably, most of my time during those weeks was eaten up by consultations with doctors, delivering work speeches, and meeting with my divorce attorney. I was sick—physically and emotionally. I tried to focus on what my Dateline boss, David Corvo, told me. He said, “Hoda, all the women I know who’ve had breast cancer have one thing in common: they’re still here.”
March Begins
The first few days of March, NBC asked me to shoot a pilot for a morning show tentatively called Fresh Squeezed. My coanchor was Touré, an author, TV personality, and contributing writer for Rolling Stone magazine. We had fun and the project was a good distraction. When that ended, I knew I had just one thing left to focus on: my surgery.
VIDEO JOURNAL
MARCH 1
(IN MY OFFICE AT NBC)
“The good thing about focusing on this (I roll out a poster for Fresh Squeezed), is I’m not focusing on the bigger thing. And the bigger thing is, I’m having surgery on . . . Tuesday? Listen to me . . . like I don’t remember. Of course I remember. It’s Tuesday. Tuesday’s the day.
“But I’m weird about big things. Sometimes with big things, I table them. I don’t think about them. I’ve only had three big moments in my life. And every time, I’m just sort of, I’m out.
“There was one time in Burma. We were lying in a canoe, it was nighttime and rebel soldiers were paddling the canoe. And if we got caught, we were going to jail for seven years. And I’ll tell you one thing, I was Steady Eddie. I was calm because you know what, I was out, I was completely out.
“We were in Baghdad, they were shooting bombs all around us, it was like, bang-bang-bang! and you know what? I was completely out. I felt completely calm.
“And that’s what I feel on this one, with the surgery. I’m out, like what can I possibly do? Seriously? I can’t study up on it, because what does it matter what I study? The more I read, the more freaked I get. I keep praying to God that my doctor gets good rest, she sleeps well, has a good dinner, wakes up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and does the surgery . . . because there’s not really a thing I can do.
“The weird thing about me is, I’m a control freak. I’m a control freak about everything, except when I’m completely out, which is what I am about this surgery. I’m out.”
Sometimes I just wanted to be alone with the camera or completely alone, but mostly, I was grateful for the company of my sister. Thank God for Hala. She had swooped in like a mother bird to protect me the minute I was diagnosed.
PAPER JOURNAL
MARCH 2
The pregame has been easier than I thought, thanks to one person. Hala. She has been a godsend and I will be forever in her debt. She has been an incredible support. She keeps my mind off everything bad. We laugh at home, she cooks great meals, we talk, I don’t focus on surgery or my marriage, and that’s the key. I don’t know what I would have done without her.
On March 5, the day before my surgery, my mom flew in. I could tell she was worried. She was thinner and there was a lot of arguing—fear’s disguise. Still, I was so glad she was there.
PAPER JOURNAL
MARCH 5 (DAY BEFORE SURGERY)
I feel strangely calm. There’s not a single thing I can do about this. I love this feeling of surrender. Today I will go to the park, get my hair done, then go to the hospital for pre-op stuff. I don’t know what to expect, but the nurse said, “You’ll feel like you got hit by a Mack truck.” That’s never happened to me so I don’t know what that feels like, but I imagine it’s not pleasant. I don’t want to delve too deeply here because I’m afraid I’ll get scared, and who wants that? More later—off to the park for a run.
My surgery was scheduled for two o’clock, but I had to be at the hospital by noon. The three of us spent the morning together trying to relax. It was one of those almost artificial mornings. No one wanted to pet the giant elephant in the room.
“Okay, is everyone ready? Did we pack the Oil of Olay skin cream?”
We were talking about ridiculous things, because what else are you going to talk about?
VIDEO JOURNAL
DAY OF SURGERY
(IN MY BEDROOM)
“They said I’m supposed to go into surgery at two o’clock. It’s supposed to be an eight-hour procedure, and they’ll cut out the cancer in the breast, and then they move belly fat up into the breast area.
“Nasty, nasty to think about. (I laugh.) In fact, when the doctors try to tell me details, I go, yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah, go. Just do it, you do it. I just want to come out with bandages on. I’m not one who loves to know, ‘ . . . and then we’re going to take your belly fat and tunnel it up into your breast area and fuse . . . ’ I was like this: blah-blah-blah. (I shiver.) Ugh. I just don’t like to hear it. So anyway, they’re going to do what they have to do, I’m going to lie there, I’m going to wake up, I’m going to take morphine, drip-drip-drip-drip, and hopefully just heal and everything will be better.
“I mean I think I’ll be five days in the hospital, so it’s not going to be simple, obviously. I don’t know, it’s weird. It’s like when you’ve never ever been through something and people ask, ‘What do you think it’s going to be like?’ I’ve never been cut at all, I’ve never been under anesthesia at all, so I don’t know. But I feel okay right this second.
“I’m thinking when you don’t know what to expect, you expect the worst . . . like someone is sawing you, or the recovery’s going to feel like this . . . or post-op will be like that. I’ve kind of almost avoided talking to people who have had this, and I don’t know if it’s a smart thing or not. But, a lot of people are saying to me, ‘Hey, call me—I’ll tell you. I did this, I did that . . . ’ But, sometimes you know, some people just . . . they make you more scared. Because my mom and my sister are here and they’re completely hilarious, it’s just been fun. We’re doing stupid things, watching American Idol, reading the paper, you know, they’re both cooking.”
(I WALK OUT OF THE BEDROOM WITH THE CAMERA ROLLING AND HEAD TOWARD MY KITCHEN AREA)
“Oh, hold on, come here, there’s something I need to show you . . . let me tell you what we’ve been doing.”
(I WALK INTO THE KITCHEN)
“This is very important . . . what I’m about to reveal on the videotape.
“Where are the Mega Millions tickets? Wait, let’s see.
“My sister has hidden her Mega Millions tickets, which we just bought today. Here they are.”
(HALA LAUGHS)
“Twenty dollars, is that what you got? Twenty bucks’ worth. Were they quick picks? Because Hala is very luc
ky and so is my mother, who is hiding under the cabinet. And Hala is very lucky. And I’m usually—when it comes to lotteries and jackpots—not. So I’m using The Secret, Oprah’s pick, and I’m welcoming all good things. So what’s the jackpot again?”
HALA:
I don’t know, three hundred and some . . .
ME:
Three hundred and three hundred fifty-five, so when I come out of the surgery, we’ll have four hundred million dollars to spend, and don’t reveal where we’re hiding our Mega Millions tickets.
HALA:
Don’t show anything.
ME:
When’s the drawing? Tonight?
HALA:
Tonight.
ME:
What time? Ten? Eleven?
HALA:
When you come out of surgery.
ME:
I come out of surgery and then we win the Mega Millions.
HALA:
That’s right.
MOM:
But we won’t find out until tomorrow.
ME:
We won’t find out until tomorrow. But they’ll have a TV in the hospital.
MOM:
But we can’t take them with us.
ME:
Yeah, we can’t take them with us. Nobody take the Mega Millions. Leave them here. We have our priorities set.
HALA:
Yeah, surgery? What surgery? We’re thinking ahead to the . . .
ME:
Yes, the spending of the Mega Millions.
Late morning, my mom, Hala, and I took the subway to Columbia University Medical Center and had some good laughs en route. A few blocks from CUMC, we walked by a street cart filled with falafel balls and all the spicy sauces. Man, did that smell good! I was not allowed to eat since the day before, so I was starving. Once inside, staff began to prepare me for surgery. Dateline and Your Total Health producer Katherine Chan was in the room shooting video with a hand-held camera. Weird. A video starring my breast.