by Joan Lunden
So after I left Bitz-n-Pieces that afternoon, I took the short blond wig and placed it on my head. I ran my fingers through my new chin-length hair. It was different, but not so different that people did a double take.
CHAPTER 5
Finding My “Why”
I have become so wonderfully, terribly aware of time, of how little of it I have left.
JANE FONDA
Actress, fitness expert, activist, diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010
Looking back, I have asked myself many times why the idea of going public with my cancer diagnosis was so difficult for me. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office on the day when I got my results of the biopsy—the day I first heard those same words so many other women have: “You have cancer.”
My mind flooded with all sorts of thoughts, or should I say questions.
Did I just hear that right?
Could they have made a mistake?
Are they absolutely sure it’s cancer?
Is this the kind of cancer that they take out or the kind of cancer that kills you?
Will I need to tell people?
What will people say?
Oh, sure, like that’s going to save me.
As it turned out, not so much.
For decades I’ve been one of those people Americans could count on to get their information from. I’ve been the one interviewing other people who are sick and the doctors who cure them—not the patient!
I simply couldn’t understand why getting sick somehow made me feel like I was letting people down or that I had failed them or myself in some way.
Maybe it was because I have always thought of myself as a strong, take-charge, in-control-of-my-life-at-all-times kind of woman. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think of myself as that person.
But this . . . Well, this threw me.
Why?
If I could understand the reason, get to the root of my feelings, maybe I could find meaning in it. There had to be purpose in my fear. If I could get to the core of that purpose, surely I could turn this obstacle into an opportunity.
Time to take inventory.
To take a look back and see where this was all coming from.
When I was in grade school, I was always a class leader. I excelled in school, so much that I was constantly tapped by my teachers to help correct the other students’ papers. Yes, I’ll admit, I was the one in class who always handed in perfectly bound reports for extra credit because I actually found it fun to research and write them. Go ahead, get it out, people like me are really annoying, right? In retrospect, perhaps that was the beginning of my desire to be a journalist.
I was also a really good talker—I mean really good! I could read a book flap and write a thirty-page report. Hey, everyone has a talent, and that’s mine—or at least one of them.
I skipped my junior year of high school and started college a year early—just a few days before my seventeenth birthday. This was the mid-sixties, when young feminist women were burning their bras and hippies were lighting up their joints. Since I was underage, rather than letting me live on the campus of an American university, my mom sent me on World Campus Afloat, now called Semester at Sea, a college taught aboard a ship that traveled around the world. With only 350 students under the watchful eyes of staff and faculty, it was a much more controlled environment. My mom wanted me to “broaden my horizons,” as she put it: to see the world so that I would want more from it, and so that I would someday “find a way to make a difference in it,” as my dad had always professed.
And the world we did see!
Over a three-month period, we visited Spain; Portugal; Morocco; Senegal, West Africa; Cape Town and Durbin, South Africa; Mombasa; Kenya and Tanzania; Bombay, India; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangkok, Thailand; Kobe, Kyoto, and Tokyo, Japan; and Hong Kong, China. Traveling the world like that had a profound effect on me. I believe it laid the foundation for my going into network television broadcasting. And while I’m sure my dad would have loved for me to see the world as he did, I’m not sure whether, if he had been alive, he would have approved of my going on a trip of that magnitude at such a young age. Even so, just as my father’s passing did, that experience set me on a path that changed the course of my life.
After losing my father, I gained a great deal of independence yet felt a dire need to create a sense of permanent security in my life that no one could ever take away. I believe my great need for security in my life began with those feelings of insecurity I felt when my family lost our anchor and means of support. I watched my newly single mother struggle to survive during those lean years and vowed there and then to never be in that place. It motivated me to always be in charge of my own life. By the time I was in my twenties, I couldn’t wait to get my career under way and to support myself. It has been that way ever since.
I’ve always been in control.
And now I wasn’t.
In fact, this was totally out of my control.
I didn’t like the way that felt at all.
It made me uneasy, uncomfortable.
Squirmy.
I didn’t want everyone looking at me as a “sick cancer patient.”
Heaven knows, I’ve never been very good with accepting help, let alone sympathy from anyone. There isn’t a “poor me” bone in my body.
The mere thought of people looking at me with a sympathetic expression made my skin crawl.
“Aww, poor Joan . . .”
Ugh. No, thanks!
And yet I have always been up front about what I was grappling with in my life.
Always!
From my very first days of living in New York City and starting on the local news, my personal story has unfolded in the press and on the air. There hasn’t been very much of my life hidden behind the curtain. It’s been out there for public consumption and critique.
So then why was going public with this scaring me?
Dig deeper, Joan, I kept thinking.
When I first came to New York City to be a reporter at ABC Eyewitness News in the seventies and, later, as a reporter on Good Morning America, I sometimes thought I was a little like Ann Marie, the character Marlo Thomas played on the sixties hit TV show That Girl. She was a perky but naive young single girl in the big exciting city, stepping into the world of television news.
I was only twenty-fve when I moved to the Big Apple in 1975 and took my first job as a correspondent with WABC-TV. It was an amazing opportunity but a very intimidating move to come to the city on my own. I quickly learned my craft on the streets of Manhattan, among some of the fiercest and best competition in the business.
I must have done something right, because one year later, I was tapped by Good Morning America to become a part-time correspondent and then to sit in with David Hartman for cohost Nancy Dussault. After I became the permanent cohost in 1980, GMA viewers were with me every step of the way, just as we all followed That Girl’s exploration of a new job in the news and a new life alone in the big city.
Thankfully, the Good Morning America viewers never made me feel alone on my journey. They’ve always responded in droves to my honest sharing of whatever was happening in my life: They sent thousands of well-wishing cards on the impending births of my three daughters, along with parenting advice and recipes for making my own healthy baby food. They knitted blankets and adorable little sweaters, and some even sent tiny handmade leather booties. The network executives took notice of this incredible outpouring of love, support, and interest and made sure to assign me as many stories on pregnancy, child rearing, healthy cooking, and living as I could do. As a result, I often interviewed leading doctors and experts on how to make the best choices to keep yourself and your family healthy and happy. The umbrella topic became my beat, so to speak. While another woman might have found it offensive to “get stuck with” or, worse, “relegated” to those “female stories,” I didn’t mind. As a self-proclaimed information junkie, I love perusing the latest magazines, ripping out
pages with timely stories and good recipes, and I looked forward to reading every self-help book that came out. I embraced my new role on Good Morning America.
When you’re lucky enough to work on a program like Good Morning America, you have unprecedented access to the latest and greatest information; it not only helped keep viewers healthy and informed, but it also allowed me to disseminate that material for myself. What a perk! The show often asked me to take part in a segment, so it wasn’t unusual to see me down on the floor learning about the latest fitness craze from some hunky ripped trainer, or in the kitchen cooking with Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck, or a great new health-conscious chef putting an interesting spin on a dish that would provide you with intense flavor without the extra fat and calories.
In my early years on the job, a lot of the stories I did were focused on the best advice about raising children and how to run a home more efficiently for all those women out there who, like me, were trying to hold down a job—a demanding job—and still be good at their “other job”: cooking, cleaning, and raising a family. It’s a tough juggling act that many women struggle with, one that can leave you exhausted, with very little energy for anything else and no extra “you” time. That often becomes the perfect recipe for putting on a few extra pounds, which can present all sorts of health dangers that leave us frustrated and scared.
I knew all about those frustrations firsthand. You see, I had gained weight with all three of my pregnancies and never really lost it. I referred to it as my “baby weight” until, at age forty, I decided it was time to drop the weight, shape up, and get myself back into a fit state.
As at so many other times in my life, GMA viewers were right there to support and cheer me on. I shared everything I learned on that journey—how to create a healthy eating plan and how to find a form of fitness you enjoy so you can stick with it and make it part of your everyday lifestyle. I lost about forty pounds, and that transformation struck a chord with a lot of our viewers.
Why?
I was just like them!
We had the same responsibilities and shared the same frustrations, but I figured out how to take little steps and convert my flabby tired body into a fit and energetic one. People all around me were paying attention to what I’d done to change my routine. They wanted to know what I’d done, how I’d gotten there, and how they could do it, too.
While I didn’t plan it, my career path offered me a terrific opportunity to help people make good decisions about their lives, their health, their families, and their homes. I could feel like I had a sense of real purpose in life, not just a job. And that felt really good.
I’ve loved my role on this earth, to seek answers of the best experts around, to connect with the audience, and to bring them the best possible information about their health and happiness. I have also shared my own life and health journeys.
And now here I was again, with an opportunity to share a journey that millions of other women deal with all over the country: breast cancer. However, being open and sharing my journey was not my first thought this time, because I didn’t want anyone to see me as a failure at keeping myself fit and free of disease. I’m not totally sure why I felt that way. I think a lot of people have a tendency to equate cancer with being weak and perhaps not diligent about keeping their health in check, which of course isn’t true.
For a lot of women, hearing that we have breast cancer somehow makes us feel like we are less feminine than we used to be: less sexy, less strong and vibrant, less appealing, less pretty, and I guess all about our cancer, our disease. At least that’s how I felt when I first heard those words: “You have breast cancer.”
How could I allow myself to feel that way? It didn’t make sense!
But I did.
Still, I had always taken great pride in the interviews I’d done with health experts, and for being an avid health advocate. Not only had I headed up numerous health media campaigns, I’d spoken all over the country on how to protect your health. I founded a women’s wellness getaway weekend, Camp Reveille, on the grounds of my husband’s summer camp, where women are invited to scale climbing walls, play tennis, and take yoga, pilates, and Zumba while learning all about their health. Committing to this type of work has been my way of “walking my talk” over the years, especially in the years after leaving GMA.
So this begs the question: How could this have happened to me, as someone who generally took good care of herself?
If I went public, if I chose that path to put every nuance of my battle with cancer out there, would people be looking at me with sad eyes every time I stepped out my front door?
Would a normal trip to the grocery store become a dreaded trek?
Could I face the other moms in the carpool line at school wearing my wig?
Or worse, just a bandana around my inevitable bald head?
Would they whisper and talk about me as I pulled away, wondering what would happen to my children if something happened to me?
Would I be able to go on national television and spit those words out of my mouth—“I . . . have . . . cancer”—without choking up or completely losing my composure?
Time had been passing at warp speed since my diagnosis. Going from one expert to another, finding out the best treatment for my kind of cancer, educating myself on my disease, doing my best to understand it all, and trying to make the right decisions every step of the way was a heavy load. Every time I walked in and out of another hospital, another doctor’s office, or another lab, I was a bundle of nerves—did someone recognize me? Did they upload a picture to Twitter or TMZ?
That’s the world we live in today.
And you don’t have to be famous to worry about that. Facebook, Twitter—it’s the fastest form of information out there for all of us.
What I had to come to terms with was if I came out publicly with the news, just went ahead and put it out there, then I wouldn’t feel the need to hide everywhere I went. I wouldn’t feel like I was lying every time a friend asked me a simple, everyday question, like “How are you?”
One thing was for sure: Being honest and open about my diagnosis would take away the need to sneak in and out of my weekly chemo treatments in a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. I mean, that would probably only draw more attention to me, right?
In the end, what I realized is that I had to choose to live in my truth, even if I didn’t like it.
I had cancer.
I would be going through chemo treatments. Sooner or later, people were going to find out.
When I looked back on my life, what I realized is that I’ve always chosen to live an authentic life. Living anything less would be untrue to who I am. It would be unfair and unsatisfying.
So as I was trying to figure out my “why”—why I was so afraid to go public—I thought about the teachings of Nietzsche, who said that above all in life, we should always retain our authenticity and then take full responsibility for doing so. In his words, “If we possess our why of life, we can put up with any how.”
I didn’t ask to get cancer.
Nobody does.
Okay, maybe that person who smokes twenty packs of cigarettes a week has a good idea he or she is flirting with disaster, but that wasn’t me.
What I do know is that my life has always been about health advocacy, education, and information. As I faced possible death, I was questioning how I wanted to define my life. I wanted to believe that it would be about more than having been a wife, mom, journalist, and health advocate. Sure, that meant a whole heck of a lot. But there was something more, something I deeply felt connected to for years—and that’s my desire to have lived a mindful life, fully engaged in self-discovery and awake to the fact that, as I have lived, I have continued to evolve and grow, as a work in progress. In the end, as long as we live, that is a choice we all have!
If I went public, put my journey out there, and shared my experiences with people, I could spread this message of hope and encouragement.
This was m
y why.
CHAPTER 6
Finding the Courage to Share
I don’t tell my story to scare people but to stress the importance of knowing your own body and trusting your instincts.
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN
Singer and actress, diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992
Once I came to terms with the fact that I needed to step up and speak up, the time had come to tell everyone I loved, or at least my closest friends and family, that I had cancer.
This was a lot easier said than done.
First, I had to decide how I was going to do that. Truth be told, I’d been thinking about that question nonstop ever since hearing my diagnosis. My anxiety over facing the unavoidable conversation was growing with each passing day. I knew from the beginning there was not a chance of keeping this kind of story under wraps. If I could have, I would have put it in a tiny little box, tied a pretty string around it, and hid it deep in the ground somewhere in our backyard to protect those I loved from the pain and anguish that the news would inevitably bring. I also knew that word would eventually leak to the press. With each passing day, that likelihood grew, so I needed to tell my family and friends before they read it in the paper or heard about it on Access Hollywood, Twitter, or Facebook.
Jeff comes from an extremely close-knit and supportive family. They celebrate everything and cling tightly together when times get tough. As soon as Jeff and I heard the results of my biopsy and knew that we were going to be fighting a battle against breast cancer, we called his mom and dad, Janey and Donny, to let them know what was going on. Jeff’s parents are young at heart, active, and a vibrant part of our family. They go on trips with us and come to every single soccer and basketball game to watch their grandkids play. They are always in the front row, cheering them on. Having in-laws whom you really like and enjoy going out to dinner with and being around is a special gift. Not only that, Janey had gone through her own battle with breast cancer years before, so we were certain she and her husband would be tremendous advocates and supporters from the start.