by Hoda Kotb
Once I was prepped, my plastic surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Ascherman, came into the room. He asked me to remove my gown and began drawing on me with a magic marker. (If only that marker was magic, right?) With purple ink, he drew a shape—sort of like an eye—on my belly. I assumed that was targeted for removal, as the plan was to use my belly fat to reconstruct my breast. He drew dotted lines down the center of my chest and across my hips. I was a human blueprint, about to be reconstructed. I kept looking at my body—this body—one last time.
Next, my surgeon appeared—Dr. Freya Schnabel. She held my hand and told me everything would be fine. When my mom saw Freya, she started bawling. This woman would have the fate of her daughter in those hands. They were the first tears I’d seen from my mom since she arrived. Seeing my mom cry made Hala cry. The doctor reassured them both she would take very good care of me.
On to the operating room—cold and stark. I climbed up onto the table, where nurses wrapped my legs in something, then covered me with a blanket that blew out puffs of warm air. I looked up at the bright light overhead and got scared. That’s when I really got scared.
Dr. Schnabel took my hand again. “This is the flurry of activity I was telling you about before we operate. Don’t worry,” she said calmly. “Everything will be fine.”
Something covered my mouth and I began to relax. I was told the surgery would take about eight hours. My mom and Hala were waiting outside.
• • •
The surgery to remove the cancer took about two hours. It was the reconstruction that ate up the next 360 minutes. I remember waking up to the anesthesiologist telling me I was okay. Groggy and doped up, I slowly realized I was in the recovery room. My mom and Hala came in to say hello, but looking back, it’s still pretty fuzzy. When they rolled me into my hospital room, the nurse told me I had to move from the gurney to the bed.
“It’s easy,” she said, “Go shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, then inch your way over.”
I was still high as a kite from the anesthesia, so I did it and didn’t feel a thing. Sleeping was harder. I just couldn’t do it. People were checking on me constantly, which is a good thing, but not for sleeping. Somewhere in the early-morning hours, a nurse came in and said she wanted to clean me up a bit. She helped me get up from the bed and walk to a table. I saw spots and felt nauseated. Everyone around me was telling me how good I was doing, cheering me on.
“Look at you! You’re in the top three percent when it comes to postsurgery recovery time!”
Barf. Drains in my breast, a catheter. Everything was coming out of my body. This was all a shock to me, considering I’d never had surgery before. Not for tonsils, not for wisdom teeth, no broken bones, nothing. My body was officially jumping into the deep end with no swimming lessons. You know my morphine button got a workout.
“Tap . . . tap . . . tap-tap-tap.”
At one point, I pressed the button and nothing came out. I thought it was broken, but the nurse explained that it would only administer morphine every six minutes. I’d been asking for it at four. The medicine made me feel awful, but it did relieve the pain.
“Tap . . . tap.”
I was mostly out of it as people came by to visit. Fuzzy, fuzzy, and fuzzier. At one point, I felt so overwhelmed that I asked everyone to please leave the room. I asked for a sleeping pill, too. I needed to rest my mind. I woke up the next day wanting to stretch, like any normal morning. Bad idea.
Post op with Mom
VIDEO JOURNAL
DAY AFTER SURGERY
(LYING IN MY HOSPITAL BED)
“It’s the day after. It’s been, uh, how long . . . two-thirty now . . . so I was out of surgery last night. I think I was kind of remembering where I was about midnight. So today’s the pain day. It’s the day where you feel like—I mean they kept saying you’ll feel like you got hit by a Mack truck, and of course, I didn’t know what that felt like until today—and now I do.
“They say the cut across my abdomen is twice as long as a C-section. And then there’s the cut where they took the entire breast out. And then they moved everything up. So, I feel kind of groggy, just out of it and, um—you know, I stood up today, which was a big deal, and walked over to that table over there and had breakfast. Came back, sat down, and I think the lady’s going to come back today and walk me around, which I’m dreading. The idea of walking, just the idea of getting up. Think about it—if you have an incision hip to hip, I’m not trying to complain or whine, but you’ve gotta swivel your hips to even hoist yourself up—you can’t lean, you can’t do anything.
“This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt. I mean, I haven’t given birth so I don’t know what that feels like, but this is pretty crummy. And this here is the magic button—it’s the morphine drip. You see? (I press the button and the machine beep-beeps) When you hear those two beeps—beep-beep—I think it’s going into me somewhere . . . I don’t know where it’s going . . . I think it’s maybe that IV. Who cares? It’s in there. You’re supposed to use it as often as you want but it regulates, so if I continue to push it as I want to, it won’t give me anything. Bastard.
“They said it went really well. I mean they were all talking about how the first part of the surgery took an hour and a half, and that was good. They said it was supposed to take longer. And the guy was really proud of his reconstruction . . . he kept saying how quickly it went and that was great. I mean it wasn’t quick—it took freakin’ eight hours—but to him I guess it was. He said they took out all the belly fat they could find, I guess, and moved it up. He said that it was tight in there. It’s so tight. It’s how it feels now. It’s so tight you can’t stand up fully. You’re supposed to sit hunched over until it pulls. It’s almost like getting a nip-tuck in your stomach, which is the fringe benefit of this surgery. But they have to have enough fat to put in your breast, so that’s a lot, so they’re digging around trying to find it.
“Dr. Ascherman gave me a big gold star for the surgery. He kept saying because I’m healthy, I think, aside from the cancer, because I’m a healthy person, I think, in terms of exercise and eating right, it was easier for them to do the surgery. I guess that made it less difficult, less painful. I’m so glad it’s over. I am so glad it’s over. I mean, I feel like shit right now and everything, I feel terrible, but I am glad it is over, it is out of me, it is over. And that’s probably the main thing I’m feeling, just relieved that it’s over. And then you know, there’s always the next phase about the pathology and what is that going to do, and who knows? But I’m not even caring about that right now. I just want to stand up and walk around, do the little things.
“They took out a big clump of lymph nodes, six of them, and checked them. So I don’t know when they come back with the results. I haven’t seen the doctor today. I think we’ll know in a few days.
“I cannot believe I was running in Central Park yesterday. It’s weird. One day you’re in Central Park; the next day you’re laid out.”
Where’s the morphine?!
All the routine things, like sitting up and getting up to go to the bathroom, were a struggle. A nurse helped me into the bathroom, and there it was—the mirror. Slowly, I took off my gown and looked. Horrors. My left breast had a 6-by-4-inch chunk of skin on it from my stomach. The patch was darker and out of place, because it was tanned from a recent trip to Puerto Rico with my mom. That just added to the freakish image of it all. I felt like one of those pictures I’d seen in the breast cancer books. Bizarre. I turned away from the mirror. The nurse said, “Baby, we got to wash you.” I said, “Can you wash me facing this way?”
I could not look at my breast. I don’t know what I was expecting. But it was horrifying to me. I was disfigured.
The nurse asked, “Well, are you sure? It’s easier for me to wash you if you face the mirror.”
“No,” I said. “This is easier for me. Trust me. This is better.”
As she began to clean me up, I remember thinking, Who was that in the mirror?
Dr. Ascherman came into the bathroom and talked about how good his work looked. Really? I wished it was already healed.
Several days and zero showers later, I was released from the hospital. By now, you know right where I headed first.
Yep—to get my hair blown out!
I took my hospital pillow with me and got just the medicine I needed after my surgery. Now it was time to recover and to research the next step. Did I need radiation? Chemotherapy? The yes or no decision after the hip-to-hip incision.
PAPER JOURNAL
MARCH 22
9 P.M.
Today was not a good day. I went to one of the best breast cancer oncologists, and he said that (1) I need chemo, and (2) I’ll never have kids. My God, it was jarring. He was glib and arrogant. I will never go back to him.
Elizabeth Edwards had a news conference today to say her cancer had come back. She got breast cancer again—in her bones. She did chemo and it came back. The odds apparently for me are 3 to 4 percent better if I do the chemo—that’s it. So is 3 to 4 percent worth it? When Elizabeth Edwards did chemo and it still came back? Tough call.
Two more oncologists and then I’ll see. I’m leaning toward no right now. My cancer is supposedly the kind that doesn’t even respond well to chemo. It’s all so confusing.
The good news was, the surgery removed all the cancer, and pathology reports indicated that my lymph nodes were clear. Huge news. The confusing news was, I got three different opinions from three different oncologists on whether or not I should get chemotherapy.
One doctor said I must have chemo. “It’s imperative.”
One doctor said I didn’t need to have chemo. “Just take the pills.”
The third doctor said I couldn’t make a mistake either way. “It’s a personal decision.”
So, I had three of the top oncologists giving me three different opinions. It was a bit unnerving. I was sitting there thinking, Wow. You’d think all these guys would look at the same results and have the same answer.
But they didn’t.
After several more meetings, I decided the best choice for me was tamoxifen. It’s a little pill with big consequences, especially for someone my age, on the tail end of my childbearing years. Tamoxifen basically makes your body uninhabitable for a baby—poison. For about five years. So, by choosing to take it, I also lost a choice about my future. Cruel, but I’m alive, so I can’t complain. I’ll bet you’ve had to make some crappy decisions in your life, too.
VIDEO JOURNAL
THREE WEEKS AFTER SURGERY
(LYING ON MY BED)
“I’m forty-two and they’re telling me I can’t have kids and I don’t even want to think about that. And then my whole relationship, my marriage. I’ve been trying to say in my head I have two cancers, and I’m getting rid of both of them. It sounds harsh, but you’ve got to look at things like that sometimes. I’m done. I’m done with it. I’m done with the marriage. I’m done.”
Is there ever a “good” time for a divorce? I don’t know. Maybe. For me, the timing was brutal. In the same week, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and found out there were serious issues in my marriage. My broken breast was located directly over my broken heart, and managing both was excruciating. I probably deceived myself by walking down the aisle. Despite all I knew going in, I was sure our marriage would work. I was wrong. Since then, my breast and my heart have been reconstructed—both are still a work in progress. I met my former husband on Valentine’s Day, 1994. Our divorce was final exactly fourteen years later, Valentine’s Day, 2008.
In the spirit of a tell-all book, I will tell all who’ve been through or are going through a divorce this:
1. You will never regret taking the high road, as hard as it may be to do. Your dignity and class are to be treasured—try to maintain both.
2. Share all your dirty details with very few. Understand that the reasons behind sharing all the details are not always smart. People should not be expected to take sides. This was your marriage and you were both responsible for its care and feeding. Bad decisions may certainly have been made, but broadcasting details everywhere is not of value.
3. Take things one day at a time. Try not to look too far ahead. There is nothing productive about wishing the time forward, to a place you can’t control. Do a good job each day and expect bad days, too.
4. Manage your money well. Do not medicate with money unless you have lots to spare. Save for a rainy day because, as you’ve found out, there are unexpected downpours.
5. Take care of yourself. Be healthy and wise and don’t forget to smile. It feels like the world has ended, but each day is still a gift. Do your best to feel grateful for all you still have.
6. Give yourself a year to feel at least close to normal again. Create a good “new” normal. You are in charge of the tone of your world. Make it a happy one.
7. Don’t forget to thank all the people who love, support, and help you. And be aware that they can never feel the depth of your pain, just as you can’t know theirs. They are simply doing their best to shine light on your darkest days. (And don’t take advantage of their battery power—help yourself, too.)
8. Don’t ever Google your ex. Sure, a part of you would love to see a photo of him holding a “Will Work for Food” sign, but move on. Your job is to move forward, not waste time double-clicking on your past.
9. Do something for someone else. Our burdens feel lighter when we help carry someone else’s for a day or even an hour.
10. Forgive. It will make you stronger and lighter. We don’t have to forget, but to forgive is freeing.
13
MAN ON THE PLANE
In the weeks following my surgery, I didn’t write in my journal. I couldn’t. My arm was in a sling to prevent blood clots and my body was in healing mode. Everything was tender. Looking back, I probably decided too early to travel again for the Today show.
In May of 2007, just two months after my surgery, I agreed to fly to Ireland to shoot a “Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?” segment in Galway. We arrived in Ireland, the shoot went well, and I boarded my flight back home to New York. I hunkered down in my seat, tried to relax, and hoped I would get some sleep. My plan was to listen to music and tune out. Boy, am I glad I didn’t strap on my iPod five minutes earlier. I would have missed one of the most important moments of my life.
Just as I was fiddling around for my ear plugs, a stranger sitting in the seat next to me said hello. I was tired and sore, but politely said hi back. We exchanged pleasantries and chatted for a while. Then he asked me in a heavy Boston accent, “What’s the knock on ya at work?”
“Huh?”
“What is the knock on ya at work? What do your bosses say when ya walk out of the room? Everyone has one. What’s yours? Like, why aren’t ya Katie or Meredith?”
Hmm.
Funny thing is, I was not offended. There was something likable about this guy. So I answered. “Well,” I said. “I fill in a lot on the Today show, so I kind of feel like a guest in the house. Like it’s not my house. I don’t volunteer a lot of information about myself on the air. I wait to be asked.”
He said, “Here’s some advice: people don’t ask.”
“Okay, so what’s the knock on you at your work?”
“I’m ugly and I’m not very smart. But I read people well and that’s why I’m a good VP at my company.”
We made more small talk about our lives, then he asked me what was on my arm. I was wearing a medical sleeve to prevent blood clots on the plane. With a bunch of lymph nodes taken out, you have to help keep your blood circulating. I said it was a compression sleeve. He asked what it was for.
I said, “I had a procedure and the docs want me to wear it.”
“What kind of procedure?”
I said I had an operation.
“What kind of operation?” he persisted.
(I still liked him.)
Finally, I said, “Okay, I’ll tell you. I have breast cancer. But I ho
pe when you get off this plane you don’t say, ‘Hey, I sat next to a woman with breast cancer.’ I hope you have four or five other things you think of before breast cancer.”
He said, “What is wrong with you? Breast cancer is a part of you. Like going to college, working at NBC, getting married. I’m going to give you some advice,” he said. “And then I’ll let you go to sleep.”
Okay.
He said the following words, which mean so much to me today: “Don’t hog your journey. It’s not just for you. Think of how many people you could have helped on the plane ride home.” He went on: “You can take your business, shove it deep in your pockets, and take it to your grave. Or you can help someone. It’s your choice.”
Right then, I made my choice, a decision I’d been wrestling with for quite a while.
14
THE GAME CHANGER
As you may know, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. Since my own diagnosis was in late January 2007, I had a few months to decide whether or not I wanted to share my experience with Today show viewers during that special month. With zero pressure and 100 percent support, Ann Curry asked me one day if I’d thought about sharing my story of being a breast cancer survivor. It felt odd. Typically, I was the one asking someone if they’d like to tell me their story. Now here I was—the decision to come forward and talk about myself resting in my lap. I told her I’d think about it. I trusted Ann to handle the experience with kid gloves, and I felt completely comfortable with her kind spirit. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to make something that was so private so public.
Then came that darn guy on the plane. Talking about deep pockets, taking stuff to my grave, sharing my journey. I knew I had to do it. I wanted to do it. I went to Ann and told her I was in. I knew I’d have some control over what I wanted included or left out. But—surprise! Turns out I was as tender as my fresh incision. I was much more vulnerable than I’d thought. When Ann and I sat down on that couch and the cameras started rolling, for the first time I really understood what it’s like to be on the other side of the interview—the person in the hot seat, praying to God that the interviewer will take good care of her story. The videotape began to capture our interview.