And about much bigger issues as well. The importance of family. Im really honored i played the role that i did. But i cant say that it didnt take a lot out of me. And the uncertainty of life. This is the year that archer was born. This is the time we celebrate. This is when we recognize that with loss comes gain. A very personal story from me tonight. Lessons from a lucky life interrupted. Good evening. Im tom brokaw in my home away from home the nbc news studios. Ive reported so many stories from here. Tonight, my story. Its about the most pernicious disease known to medicine, cancer. In one form or another it touches almost every family in this country. I was luckier than most because i have resources that many do not. Still, it was much tougher than i anticipated. It tested me, but it taught me lessons that may help your family. And although it was capable of taking me away from those i hold most dear, in the end it brought us closer. Ive seen a lot of Seasons Change in my time but, as i like to say, more sunny days than maybe i deserve. Its been a very lucky life. At our home outside of new york city this spring i saw the daffodils and forsythia bloom again and the ice melt on the pond out back. And more important than anything else, i saw this gang, my grandchildren, my family. Spring, renewal, had a new meaning. First, meet archer, my only grandson, and his mom, my youngest daughter, sarah. Thats a big kiss on the cheek. I can tell you that it was a far different season than that summer two years ago when i first learned i had cancer. Multiple myeloma. Bone and blood. Sarah, when did you realize that i might have been sicker than you thought . Oh, when we were in montana. And you were having a lot of back pain. And you had asked to get a kiss from archer. And we leaned down to give you a kiss, and your body just convulsed. You just your body became paralyzed. And i thought, something is seriously, seriously wrong. I think it was such a Pivotal Moment for all of us. All of the sudden, recognizing that, no, life is so finite. And you might be gone. I had no idea where my cancer would take me, how rough it would become, what i would learn about cancer mortality, family and modern medicine. In my new book, a lucky life interrupted, i recount what happened next and hope to offer some guidance to other families who face cancer. It brought out the worst and the best amongst your daughters. And it was also the time that we became that much closer. My cancer journey began in summer, in the hot and humid summer of 2013. It had already been a big year, biking in south america, fishing in montana. I was still having the time of my life. At my side, meredith. Weve been together more than half a century. Weve known each other since we were 15. And things have gone extremely well. You once told your sister you married me, in part, because you knew that we would have an interesting life. Yeah. I also told her wed never have any money. And i said and i dont care because i know its going to be a very exciting and interesting life. And it was still interesting. I was 73, a retired anchorman who was still on the job reporting stories from around the world. I went to africa with meredith for the today show. In malawi, she had an enterprising project teaching local women how to produce and sell tomato sauce. And i was dealing with a pesky backache. I had trouble just trying to pick something up. For weeks on end the pain wouldnt go away. Orthopedists i saw thought it might be arthritis or a minor spinal problem. And, lets just admit it, old age kicking in. But longtime friends noticed something was wrong. Doug campbell manages our montana ranch. He seemed like he had aged quickly in a short amount of time, and he quit doing his morning swims and, you know, was slowing down, i guess you could say. Then in august, i flew to rochester, minnesota. Im a board member at the mayo clinic, and we had a meeting. It was also a time for a checkup with my doctor, andrew majka. Dr. Majka, when i came to you and said ive got back pain and the orthopedist said youve just got to do more stretching. You wanted to do a blood test even though id had one just nine months earlier. What caused some suspicion in your mind . Youre not one to complain. 90 of back pain gets better in a month. And i said it just raised a flag there was could there be Something Else going on that was causing you to have some persistent discomfort . Could there be infection . Inflammation . Disc infection . This type of thing. So thats what made me do some more lab work. The lab work showed something unexpected and sinister. And your white blood cell count had come back. It was low, and im like, theres something. Theres something going on with your bone marrow. Dr. Majka, an internist, called in a mayo clinic colleague, a renowned hematologist. As i was walking across the pedestrian bridge in downtown rochester for the appointment, i had no idea that dr. Morie gertz was about to surprise me with a stunning development. When you diagnosed me, and it was very matter of fact. You looked at me and said you have a malignancy. Its called multiple mi loma. When ive repeated that story to others they said, thats how he told you . Is that how you tell people . Is that the dr. Gertz way . Theres no one way. In your situation, you were kind of planning to come to mayo clinic for the day and then leave. And somehow, i needed to impart the gravity of the situation. Dr. Majka was also there. I just saw your vulnerability, your humanity. And how do i deal with that . I mean, you got hit with a Cruise Missile with multiple warheads. Looking at you, you were stunned. Walking back to my hotel room, i was trying to cope. I was one of the 25,000 people to have been diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2013. Its a blood cancer that starts in the plasma cells in bone marrow and it can cause severe bone damage. So it is a blood disorder, a bone marrow disorder, but over 70 of patients present because of bone pain, whether its in the spine or in the ribs or in the extremities. It is incurable, but it is treatable. Statistically, i had maybe eight years. I knew you were in for a rough ride. Your family wasnt with you to sit down and say, holy smokes. Whats happened . Whats going on here . What does this mean . I couldnt tell meredith. She was back at our ranch in montana. I decided to wait until i flew back the next day. She picked me up at the airport. We made small talk the whole way, but when we arrived at the ranch, i brought her to the bedroom. And we were sitting on the edge of the bed, about 12 30 in the morning. I made a big drink, and i told you i had cancer. What did you think . I didnt believe you. I mean, thats something that you just, out of the blue, cannot absorb in one take. Were you frightened . Well, initially, i think i was i needed to know more. I didnt panic. I didnt think, this is the end of the world. I just needed to know more, because i really didnt understand what we were dealing with. And frankly, neither did i. I wasnt sure what the treatment would be yet, and i didnt know how completely cancer would take over my life. The next day, i made one of the dumbest decisions ever. And i paid a price. Matts gotten used to the funk in his mancave. Yup, hes gone noseblind. He thinks it smells fine, but his wife smells this. Luckily for all your hardtowash fabrics theres febreze fabric refresher febreze doesnt just mask, it eliminates odors youve gone noseblind to break out the febreze, and breathe happy were all familiar with this axe daily fragrances. But what you wouldnt have seen is this, axe dry spray antiperspirant. Why are you touching your armpit . I was just checking to see if its dry. Dont, thats weird. The first ever dry spray antiperspirant from axe. Why are you deleting these photos . Because my teeth are yellow. Why dont you use a whitening toothpaste . Im afraid its bad for my teeth. Try crest 3d white. Crest 3d White Diamond strong toothpaste and rinse. Gently whiten. And fortify weak spots. Use together for 2 times stronger enamel. Crest 3d white. Everyone loves how they feel in dark clothes. And to keep those darks from fading theres woolite darks. Its free of harsh ingredients to help keep dark clothes vibrant for over 30 washes. For the love of darks. Woolite darks. Prep trauma unit 5. Whatve we got . Bp 64 40 sterilize sites. Multiple foreign objects in the body. Tweezers. buzz buzz if youre the guy from the operation game, you get operated on. Its what you do. buzz if you want to save fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance you switch to geico. Its what you do. New lipton sparkling iced tea. Refreshing tea infused with light, crisp, tiny bubbles. For a taste that lifts you up. Guys listen up jake, put that down point it at the ground til your ready thats not the ground leo put that down when your day goes on and on you need 48 hour odor protection that goes on clear for no white marks. Secret outlast clear gel. Well, things in the bedroom have always been pretty good. Yeah, no complaints. Weve always had a lot of fun, but i wanted to try something new. And im into that. So were using ky love. Its a pleasure gel that magnifies both of our sensations. Right, i mean, for both of us, just. Yeah, it just takes all those awesome feelings you usually feel and it just makes them. Rawr. Dare to feel more with new ky love. Summer, 2013. I was at my ranch in montana. Just four days earlier, i had been diagnosed with a blood cancer called multiple myeloma, but i was keeping it a secret, just between meredith and me. I was determined to go on with my life at full force, not knowing how unrealistic that would be. Yeah, i did a dumb thing. I get up, and i feel not too bad, so im going to go fishing. And i was going to drive 150 miles across montana, meet some friends and fish. At a friends stream, a half hour into the day, i had to crawl out of the water and to a nearby cabin porch. And curled up, in agonizing pain. And i lay there until another friend of mine came along and said, my god, whats going on . A fishing buddy drove with me for three hours back to our ranch. I was in bed for two days, immobilized by pain. Meredith was on the phone to the mayo clinic getting prescriptions called in. And he was throwing everything he had at me in terms of pain killers, and nothing was working. Nothing, no. I said we have to get out of this remote house in montana and back to the mayo clinic where they could probably find out what the source of the pain was and how to deal with it. Meredith called for help and set up a medevac flight to the mayo clinic, more than a thousand miles away. Two cowboy emts came out from livingston montana, to rush me to the medevac flight. Emt nathan wulf. We found him up in his bedroom in excruciating pain. They loaded me into a portable chair and down a narrow staircase in our small ranch house. It was a tremendous feat just to get him into the chair to move him down stairs. And i thought, where in the world is this going to end up . And by the time we got down to the ambulance, i think i was kind of hallucinating. I dont think i was checked in at that point. I think that you were in so much pain that its hard to even recall for you what that was like, i think. When the emts arrived to carry me out for that ride to the airport, my daughter sarah confronted her mother. And i said tell me right now whats happening to dad. I need to know right now. And she said well he has multiple myeloma. Archer sarah thought immediately of archer. It was awful, especially since he was only six months. And i was mad, too. I thought, you only had six months with him. I wanted to envision you playing baseball with him and fly fishing and not knowing if that was ever gonna happen. The emts got me into the ambulance and drove, as carefully as possible, 60 miles, much of it down a winding, bouncing road to the airport. At any point in time, if we would move or if wed hit any the smallest bumps in the road, it would reproduce some pretty excruciating pain. When we finally arrived, a small private jet took meredith and me on the threehour flight. When i was brought into the mayo clinic, i was in pain and confused. Nurse manager allison meisheid says thats normal. When a Patient First comes in, its an absolute tornado of chaos, of emotion, of agony and frustration for them. The mayo doctors found a more effective combination of pain medication. I had two compression fractures in my lower back, caused by the multiple myeloma, and a hole in my right pelvis. The clock was ticking. Doctors had to attack the myeloma cells that were destroying my blood and my bones. Cancer is evil destruction. Cancer is unpredictable, but cancer can be a gift as well. Thats because it can bring a family even closer. My oldest daughter, jennifer, an emergency room doctor in san francisco, flew out to rochester to act as an interpreter of medical jargon, my allaround patient advocate, and yes, her fathers keeper. I mean, ive never been afraid of asserting myself. Putting it mildly. But i knew that at this moment in time you were going to listen to me and that you werent going to call the shots. My learning curve started right here. I learned lessons from jennifer and my family that everyone with cancer needs to know. First, supportive Family Members are crucial. If you dont have a family, ask a close friend to be at your side. Second, if at all possible, get a friend or Family Member with a medical background to be your advocate. I was very lucky. I had a daughter who was a doctor. One of your famous lines to me had always been you know dad, weve never really had anything go wrong in our family. I wonder if we could handle it . Did you have some doubt about whether we could handle it . No. Absolutely not. I knew that we would rally to whatever challenge presented itself, but we had not had a lot of practice. But that was about to change. By fall 2013 i was back in new york city. It was just a month since i was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Now i needed to meet the doctor who would be in charge of my ongoing treatment at home in new york. I knew my cancer couldnt be cured, but i was confident it could be brought into remission. It began to dawn on me that this was going to be a long, hard road ahead. I would be going on chemotherapy, take pain medication and get regular tests that would show if the cancer was advancing or in retreat. It never occurred to me that i was going to die. Me being me, of course im going to beat it. No question. Ill get through this somehow. Thats unrealistic in some ways. I was sent to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in new york and became the patient of a young, highly regarded multiple myeloma expert, dr. Heather landau. She and my daughter jennifer quickly bonded. Im not fishing for anything here. We want honest answers. What kind of a patient was i . I think you were challenging at first because it was difficult to get a sense of where you really were. It seems that i, tom brokaw patient 2640 was stoic. Too stoic about the pain that i was in. At sloankettering, dr. Landau told me it actually helps if patients speak up about their pain and how sick they feel. Complain, complain, complain. We can provide Pain Medicine and pain management. Its really challenging if we dont know when things get bad. And that autumn was unexpectedly tough. I was taking 17 pills a day at this point including two daily doses of revlimid, a powerful chemotherapy derived from the notorious drug from the 60s called thalidomide. On the today show when they aired merediths story about malawi and the tomato program, i was weak and still in pain. I had been working on a documentary on the 50th anniversary of jfks assassination. And when i went on David Lettermans program to promote it, i had to practice walking out on stage. Sitting down wasnt much easier. Welcome back. Thank you. Good the be here. On the daily show i asked to be preseated. Somehow, jon stewart says, i was able to get away with it without him knowing just how sick i was. He did mention that his back was hurting. He mentioned you know that he might have a little more difficulty. I assumed he may have pulled a muscle or Something Like lifting a horse or whatever he does out in montana. When the story came out, i told him i didnt want to bother him with my difficulties. The general discussion was, i let him know in my faith, we like to let people know even if its just a little gas, a little heartburn, we still like to talk about it, just get it out in the open. We were trying to keep it from as many people as possible. Yeah. And that was not easy. No. No, not easy because you find yourself dissembling. Its not that we were telling untruths. Its just that we really werent telling the truth. I worried that if i went public, i would be all over the internet. Tom brokaw, cancer victim. And like most Cancer Patients i didnt want my illness to define me. Winter 20132014. As the Holiday Season descended on new york four months had passed since my diagnosis. And then i did a faceplant on the flagstone patio outside our home. There you were, carrying in groceries, slipped on the ice. Had what couldve been a disastrous fall, given that fragility of your bones. But you banged up your face. Patient 2640s Cancer Experience was turning into a numbers game. The gash above my eye was four inches deep and it took 18 stitches to close it. And the disease was an unwelcome companion 24 7. The chemo nurses i saw at memorial Sloan Kettering became my friends. Two of them, katie hambright and mary shannon mcguinness, understood where i was coming from. I realize that my day ends and your day never ends with cancer. You go home with it. Youre probably constantly thinking about it. Whereas i go home and i can go for a run or do something with my friends and try to get it off my mind, where you guys live and breathe it every single day. As the snow fell outside our apartment overlooking central park the view from my living room changed. Cancer got in the way. I used to love to go in there and have a fire and have a drink and pick off a history book. And then when i was diagnosed, id go in there and this screen would come down. And the screen would be cancer. And thats how i saw the world, was through the prism of cancer. And until you get it, you cant understand that. That winter, my family was experiencing what millions of other families are going through every day dealing with the fear, the anxiety. The daily realities of a cancer fight. Some big, some small, all pervasive. These are the granddaughters i affectionately call the hooligans, charlotte and vivian. They call me tom. Theyre my middle daughter andrea and her husband charles kids. And theyre famous in our family for their volume. You remember what vivian said the next time she came . Yeah she said tom, wer