Brain Cancer Survivors: Optimism Key

As Sen. Ted Kennedy embarks on his fight against a malignant brain tumor, gloom and doom should have no place in the room, two doctors who also had brain cancer say.

Dr. Bernadine Healy, an editor at US News & World Report and author of "Living Time: Faith and Facts to Transform Your Cancer Journey," volunteered some advice to Kennedy Wednesday, saying, "Don't write yourself off. The family shouldn't write you off. This is a time when the family needs love and encouragement and prayers, and not burial, which, unfortunately, is all over the media right now. And it's very disconcerting. That's the first step, because Sen. Kennedy is fine.

"Did you see his pictures? He's feeling fine. He's looking fine. He's ready to engage in a fight.

"There is therapy for him, and we will not know exactly what his prognosis is until he gets into the treatment, see how he responds. You know, we don't even know the specific type of glioma that he has, and we're a lot smarter now we were 10 or 15 years ago in knowing that there are different types of glioma and that they can react differently in the long haul."

Healy told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen Wednesday, "I had surgery (when she was diagnosed ten years ago), and then I also had chemotherapy, and at that time, chemotherapy was very unusual because the feeling was it never penetrated the brain. But one of the drugs I had was brand new at the time, and undoubtedly, it's one of the drugs that Sen. Kennedy will receive regardless of which type of glioma he has.

"The key thing is that we must realize that averages -- what happens to one person doesn't dictate what happens to another, and let's be optimistic for the senator. I certainly am."

Dr. Jessica Henderson-Chen, an emergency medicine specialist, was diagnosed two years ago but, as Chen put it, looked "healthy and great" on The Early Show Wednesday.

"I had surgery, as well," Henderson-Chen said. "(Also) chemotherapy and radiation. I'm just so happy to hear Dr. Healy being so optimistic, because I think not everybody is, and I think that people need optimism. There are plenty of doctors out there who'll be, like, 'Oh, that's it,' and I've met people who received that response with this diagnosis, and that's a horrible way for anybody to respond to something, because you never know."

Healy noted that, "There's a lot of talk about what a great legislator (Kennedy) is. Well, in fact, one of his great contributions was (that) he led the major effort in 1971 for the war on cancer. He has steadfastly supported biomedical research. When I was at NIH (National Institutes of Health), Sen. Kennedy was one of our biggest, biggest advocates, a leader in this field, and I think that some of the research that's been done at the National Cancer Institute and the Human Genome Project are going to be elements that will help get him through this fight that he is about to wage."

Asked by Chen whether the fact that there hadn't been much mention in the media of surgery as an option for Kennedy is a bad sign, Healy responded, "The nature of a glioma is that it infiltrates the brain, so when surgery is done, the goal is to get as much out as you can without interfering with the function, whether it's speech or whether it's motion, but you get as much as you can out, and then you follow it with radiation, with chemo, or radiation alone or chemo alone. And I think that those are the options that will be discussed with his doctor. We don't know any of that. We don't even know which type of cancer he has."