thought he was mentally handicapped. he cured himself by talking to the jaguars. let's get started. you may not know this, cancer will strike down one in four americans and smart people will tell you that we're losing the war on cancer. instead today i want to talk about how far we've come. even at the end of world war ii, doctors had very few weapons against cancer. you could cut it out, blast it with radiation, with terrible side effects, but there was no medicine. and one day in 1947, a little 2-year-old boy came through the doors at children's hospital in boston. robert sandler had leukemia. it had broken through his bones, his twin, elliott, watched the ambulance take him away. back then, the disease meant death, in a matter of weeks, maybe months. but at children's hospital, dr. sidney farber was on to something. a kind of magic possession. the first chemo therapy drug. robert sandler was in the first group to receive it. here is his mother, more than 50 jeers later in a family video. >> every day to the hospital by discre streetcar, by bus. we didn't have a car. >> imagine the jubilation when it worked. within weeks, robert was back on his feet, back with the family. christmas 1948, still doing well. but it didn't last. >> and he had one month to go to be four when he died. >> robert died in the summer of 1949. nearly two full years after cancer struck. the scientific triumph that never did trump a family's pain. >> that's my bad memories of losing my son, after having him declared cured, because they used him as a guinea pig. >> i first heard this story from dr. sid mukergi, a cancer specialist in new york who has written this book call "the emperor of all maladies." doctor, it's a 600-page book and we're trained to write short, concise things. this is quite an undertaking. what prompted it? >> a question that kept coming back to me when i was in training in cancer medicine, and my patients would keep coming back to me and asking this question, which is what is it that we're battling, what is its form? when did it start, what is its origin? and one particular woman said i'm willing to go on, but what is cancer, what is its story? >> at that time, what did you tell her? >> my -- my first impression was to start telling her, first of all, cancer is not one disease, but a whole family of diseases. and there are many different incarnations of it, very diverse, and yet it's undeniable that there is a parallel that runs through all these diseases and at the most fundamental level, cancer is the unnatural growth of cells. >> sometimes it's hard to get producers to buy into a story about something like cancer, or hiv/aids, or someone that the audience won't find palatable. when you met with publishers and said i want to write a biography of cancer. what did they say? >> they were unbelievably acceptable. you have to begin with the numbers. 1 one in two men and one in three women will face this disease personally. this will affect each and every one of our lives. we know so little about this in the public sphere. >> why is that? >> part of it, there is a reaction -- a lot of denial. we don't want to hear it. it's the big "c." i tell the story in the book of fanny rosanelle, a breast cancer advocate in the 19 50s, who said i want to place an ad for survivors of breast cancer and they said, we can't print the words breast and cancer. what if we said this was a survivor's group of women for the disease of the chest wall. this was the 1950s. you can't open any newspaper today without seeing the word cancer somewhere. and yet there is the distinct e distinctivedistinctiv distinctively the same visceral reaction. >> one of the stories, who was the first kid who was being treated for leukemia. i thought i would find it in boston. i found his name amazingly in india, and found it through a friend. someone had kept a log. >> exactly. >> his name turned out to be robert sandler. it was r.s. called r.s. in the papers. i figured out it was robert sandler and it had a picture of him. this biographer had kept the picture in his roster. i found out where he lived using the phone book from 1948. went to his house. everything had changed. two weeks after the book had been published. it's his twin brother on the line, elliott sandler, he was moved to tears. he said i didn't know this book was written, and i opened the book and i saw a picture of myself and my twin brother who i lost. it was an incredible completion. journey finishing for me. it was an incredible story. coming up, you know what? we track down elliott sandler as well. you will see him 60 years later. some remarkable memories of what happened in those days. the book was still a revelation for him. later in the slhow, one of the greatest athletes of all time. i think it's fair to same doing something now he wouldn't let himself do for two decades. stay tuned. getting it clean again is easy with bounty. in this lab test, one sheet of bounty leaves tr than 3 sheets of the bargain. ♪ why use more when you can use less? ♪ super durable, super absorbent, super clean. bounty. the one-sheet clean picker-upper. [ female announcer ] wake up to sweetness with honey nut cheerios cereal. kissed with real honey. and the 100% natural whole grain oats can help lower your cholesterol. you are so sweet to me. bee happy. bee healthy. welcome back. i have been talking to a specialist in treating cancer that had written an amazing history of cancer. we brought him back for a second round. joining me is dr. sid mokerjee. and robert sandler, whose twin brother was treated in a cancer trial in 1947. did you know about your brother's history? >> i had no idea until recently. until the book came out. >> you dedicated the book to robert sandler. you told the story. why robert in particular? >> robert was the first child to be treated with chemo therapy by sidney farber in boston. he had a brief response to the drug, had a relapse and, unfortunately, died soon after. by adding more combinations of the very same kinds of drugs, eventually this disease that robert had, acute leukemia came 0% curable by the mid 1960s and particularly by the mid 1970s. and it was a tremendous victory. it was this victory that propelled the idea that people could be cured and it was a beacon of home. and he was really acknowledged in some sense that this victory occurred inside leukemia. robert is an iconic patient. >> elliott, as dr. mukerjee is describing this, do you remember anything of these times? >> oh, yes. surprisingly so. the things he was dead on on this book, absolutely. i can remember the hospital, i can remember the hospital wards. they didn't have curtains as we know them today. they used to put curtains, four of them around the bed, so you wouldn't see the patient in the pain. i remember nights my mother used to hold my brother and rock him because he was in so much pain. we were very close. i tried to keep him from crying, trying to make him happy. i remember a lot of things as if they were yesterday. and i remember being in the train going to the hospital. take a trolley, take the elevator, which is really a train and my mother would -- would get in the front carriage and i remember him setting my brother and i up by the door so we could watch the train tracks go back and i'll never forget the clickety clack, the dot, the dot, the didley dot. >> seared into your memory for obvious reasons. he got cancer. did you ever think as his twin brother, why me? or why not me? >> oh, i -- i very rarely do the what if, could have, should have, except in this one instance, because all of my life. all of my life, i have often wondered why him and not me? in fact, when i first talked to dr. -- to sid here, he made it clear to me. i asked him point blank why me, why him and not me? and what was special? and he told me, it was just a cell that went berserk. and i've often wondered, what if he had been alive. would he be my best friend? would he still be my best friend? what we would have done? we were identical. >> it's incredible to think about. and you have such a -- such a unique experience in so many ways. i appreciate, elliott, you sharing -- taking some time to share that with us and our audience. dr. mukherjee, an amazing book. everyone should read it if you want to learn about cancer, and scientific achievement. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. thank you so much. >> you remember greg louganis? people who watched the sport said he was perfect. but his life away from the pool was anything but. a whole new twist to greg louganis' story. we'll ask him about it. that's up next. stay with us. in creamy peanut butter, making your craving for a sweet & salty bar irresistible, by nature valley. ♪ 100 ways to enjoy pringles. ♪ ♪ and they're the same price as the leading bag chips. 100 crisps... 100 ways. ♪ everything pops with pringles. we are back with "sgmd." aren't many athletes that come close to perfecting their sport than greg louganis. there were bump as long the way. louganis hit his head, hit had hard, 35 minutes and a few stitches later, he won the gold medal. we didn't know it then, but louganis had hiv. a secret he kept secret to all but his closest friends. he also told the world he was gay and had been abused. now he's sharing part of himself that he has never shared before. take a look. >> just two more minutes. you can do it, code oh, come on. five, four, three, two, one. the reason why i got into coaching, i felt like i had something to offer. reach back a little soon. take it short, okay? reach. >> when my mom told me he was an olympic diver, i was really excited. >> one thing i really benefit from greg, he's really good at helping you with the mental aspect of diving. >> i tell people i knew when i was three years old. my first performance on stage. it took me five tries. the fourth try i almost got it. slight hesitation i wasn't really comfortable with. i went back for the fifth time and it was fluid. i don't miss competing because, you know, that's not really who i was. i was a performer first. so i miss performing. but, you know, in coaching you have to be somewhat of a performer too. >> joining me from fulton, california, is greg louganis. great to see you. >> great to see you. >> how are you? >> things are going really well. doing really well. pretty healthy. >> i know you have been very busy. you were -- people sort of marvel at the fact you were essentially away from the sport for 15 years or so. what -- why -- why are you back now? >> well, steve foley, high-performance director of usa diving met with me last year and said how do we get you back into diving? i said ask. you have never been asked? i said, no. i haven't been around diving in close to around 20 years now, and it's great to be back. >> you said you wouldn't coach for a while, you didn't coach. now you are coaching. people look at you and say he was the greatest diver. is that something you can teach, or is that frustrating to teach somebody when you are at the level you were? >> when i was diving, if i went right into coaching, right after i retired from diving, i think i would have been really frustrated, so i started trainingdiving, i think i would have been frustrated. then i started training dogs. they listen, give you unconditional love. they're great, you know. but i needed that time in training dogs for, you know, dog agility, competing on a national level, and the patience and just learning about behavior, learning about structure, learning about movement. >> right. >> and it's been a great process. now i can bring all of those experiences into -- into coaching diving, which has been a wonderful journey. >> that's interesting, greg, because people say the perfect ten. i will just tell you, i've been a big admirer of yours. i always watch the olympics. but to say you're the best, you got the best score you could possibly get. did you feel the weight of that? did you feel perfect when you emerged from the pool? >> no, absolutely not. i mean, perfection is something to striving for but it's never obtained. even at the 1982 world championships, i did a 1 1/2, got straight tens across the board. well, that dive today might get 9 1/2s, but, you know, you're always striving. it's always changing, evolving. you know, the technology is getting better. the awareness is getting better. so i was never ever satisfied with my performance. it was always moving forward and trying to do better than you did before. >> that's great advice. very inspiring. you have many olympic medals. i'm just curious, where do you put them? where do you have them in your house? >> well, i gave one of my olympic medals to jeannie white, ryan white's mother, the young boy who died of aids. and i gave -- because he was my inspiration. he was my buddy in '88. i wanted to share that olympic experience with him. and they wouldn't allow him into the country in 1988 because of his hiv status. but when i hit my head on the board, he was my inspiration to get through. because i knew he was a fighter. and i knew that i would have to fight through that competition in order to be successful. >> well, thanks for sharing that, greg. great speaking with you. people are excited to see you after so many years. thanks for being on the show. >> sure, my pleasure. >> absolutely fascinating guy. you know, recently on the show, we introduced you to our new six-pack, the six-person triathlon viewers training along with me. today we've got an update on nina lovel. take a listen. she's the oldest member of the 2011 six pack, but don't let that fool you. nina lovel has the energy of a woman decades younger. >> you're on the record as saying 28 is the new -- or -- >> 58 is the new 28. >> and people always say 60 is the new 30 or 40. >> yeah. >> i mean, you really feel that way. i mean, you're really embracing that. >> absolutely. >> what does that mean? >> it means that i want to feel better and better the older i get. you can tell by my license plate frame how excited i am about this triathlon. >> what i want you to focus in on this time is a little stronger press on your chest that's going to pick your hips up a little bit and get your heels closer to the surface of the water. >> the coach has nina swim different drills during her lesson. she works on keeping her head in the water and her breathing regular. >> i'm convinced i can do it, but i'm a long way. i know i have my work cut out for me to be able to complete it. but i think i can. but it's not in the bag. not in the bag yet. we're going to continue with the theme of people overcoming odds. a big cat expert who overcame his severe stuttering by talking to animals. you've got to see this story. 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[ male announcer ] ask your doctor about chantix. and now through march 31st, get a limited-time money saving offer and see terms and conditions at chantix.com. but actually, it's easier than you think, because general mills big g line of cereals is america's number one source of whole grain at breakfast. there's whole grain in every box... ♪ ...from chex... to cheerios... to lucky charms. so you can get the whole grain you want with the taste you love. get started on the whole grain you're missing with your favorite big g cereals. make sure to look for the white check. in here it's better if we're equals. >> if we were equals, i wouldn't be here. i'd be at home with my wife and no one -- >> we were back. as you probably know by now "the king's speech" recently won four oscars. through the story of king george of britain, it put the spotlight on stuttering. today we decided to show you an extraordinary story. a young boy growing up with a stutter who found a remarkable way to cure it. take a look. >> you're looking at the jaguar. few people are as familiar with the animal's fate than this man. >> 60% of their habitat is gone. they still range throughout 18 countries, but they're killed onsite his mission, to save the jaguar and its peers. >> we felt strongly that there had to be something focusing only on the world's great cats 24 /7. >> but what's most fascinating is how his love for the jaguar began. >> growing up, i had a very, very severe stutter. and i -- and i couldn't speak. it was so severe that i would -- i would get these very intense blocks. my mouth would freeze up, go into something called frozen mouth. >> that is, until he started talking to animals. >> i could not talk to the adult world because there was too much expectation put on me, too much impatience. but when i turned to the animal, i could speak. >> experts say between 70% and 80% of children who stutter will recover spontaneously. for the minority that don't, becoming what's known as a fluent speaker takes various therapies. >> you have to focus on not stuttering? are you consciously thinking about it as you're talking to me? >> yes, not as much as i used to have to do. >> reporter: his therapy was the jaguar. >> once i found those big cats and found these big powerful animals locked inside of their cages, locked in their own bodies, unable to get out, i felt that was like me.