"Cancer Better Be Scared Of Me"
Sandra Hughes is a CBS News Correspondent based in Los Angeles.
Just about every morning, we check in with each other on the way to the LA bureau. We discuss the latest mommy mishaps in our lives; sick kids, spilled coffee on our suits, arguments with our spouses. Then we shift gears into work mode, and we start talking about interviews and story ideas. How would we make it to Sacramento and back before one of our kids had that championship game? Can you write that script over the weekend? Sure, if you can pick up that tape for me tonight while my daughter's at gymnastics -- those sort of working mother trade-offs.
A year ago, all that changed. "My back is so sore," Diane said sitting in my office while we worked on a real estate story. She was popping so many Advils, I began to worry about her. In a week or so, her stomach pain grew so intense she went to the doctor. At the same time, her eyes started turning yellow. It was jaundice, we found out, because her pancreas was blocked by a mass. She was still coming to work but I could tell she was in a lot of pain. Tests revealed she needed surgery. They wouldn't say for sure it was cancer.
The Sunday before the surgery she came to my house for dinner with her boys. We laughed and the boys played and we tried not to talk too much about what she was facing. The surgery was long and her recovery, painful. The mass turned out to be cancer. But they caught it early. Her doctor, who is also mine, Dr. Roger Lerner, had moved quickly when she first came in. But despite the quick diagnosis, it was a daunting road ahead. Pancreatic cancer has a ten percent survival rate.
While Diane was still in recovery, e-mails were flying between friends in New York, Los Angeles and her family in San Pedro, California. Prayers were going out across the country. it took weeks for her to get back on her feet and when I next saw her, she was a wisp of herself. She had lost at least 20 pounds. Having lunch that day with another producer, Marc Lieberman, she told us the next step was chemotherapy. "Waited all my life to say that, " she said. At least her humor was still intact! And her fighting spirit was too . "Cancer," she said, "Better be scared of me."
She was going to beat this thing for her boys, she said. They had a right to a healthy mother and she told us they wouldn't get anything less. And if you know my friend Diane you know how determined she can be.
There were a lot of ups and downs. After months of chemotherapy, her pancreas looked clear. But tests revealed her liver had two "hot spots." The cancer had metastasized. Her husband, Scott, was devastated. We all were. But not Diane; she perservered. Her oncologist at U.C.L.A. put her on a more aggressive chemotherapy; Gemzar and 5fu. The drugs made her sick and she lost more weight and more hair. But everytime I called or stopped by, she'd try so hard to be upbeat. I kept remembering her words "Cancer better be scared of me."
One year almost to the day since that original diagnosis, Diane Ronnau is back at work in the Los Angeles bureau. She is cancer free for now. She's taking monthly Gemzar chemotherapy treatments. In her first week back, she worked on two CBS Evening News pieces. The other night, she cheered Ben and Aiden at their t-ball game.
We've even resumed our morning mommy conference calls -- but we've found there is so much more to talk about than spilled coffee…