Meryl Selig and Nancy Zucconi

00:01 I'm Arrow stealing. I'm 67. Today is February 14th 2018 at Stanford, California and I am going to have a conversation with my bestest friend.

00:17 I'm Nancy zucconi. I'm 63. The date is February 14th, 2018 or Stanford and I am having a conversation with my best friend male.

00:34 So now

00:37 We've both been through all kinds of ups and downs since we became friends, probably 12 or 13 years ago at least California hiking buddies were Neighbors.

00:56 Share a lot over those years more and more.

01:00 The years have passed in what today is specially since we're at Stanford at the Cancer Center. I wanted to talk about the fact that I've had cancer twice non-hodgkin lymphoma.

01:15 I diagnosed in 2009 but started treatment in 2014.

01:21 And thought I was all clear in January of 2015 and then last.

01:29 September 2017. I got walloped brick to the head with aggressive b-cell lymphoma the first

01:37 Disease cramp transform to triggered another one. And so while we are such good friends and Hiking buddies and neighbors and you bring the best food over to our house and possible to diet around you.

01:55 Special today being Valentine's Day at the heart holiday. Just just talking about what it's meant.

02:03 Having a

02:06 Completely selfless devoted friend who goes beyond friendship and actually help me feel human and help me survive both rounds of cancer. The first I wanted to thank you and talk about the depths of friendship and the depths of giving you have seems to be

02:34 You know, like bottomless just goes on and on in every possible way.

02:42 Definitely

02:44 Yeah, maybe you could talk to a number one. You've earned my friendship from being such a wonderful person to me. So I wouldn't give to anybody when I don't want to see everything I've done with our relationship is truly because I love you and you're like my sister. You are my sister. It was sister always wanted.

03:07 Older sister has a baby sister. So maybe

03:19 It's also really really easy to be by your side because we laughed the whole time and he can even during the worst awful things for the harp. And we we always were cracking up you would be sitting there tied down but with all these infusions and you would be laughing you would make light of it and it really made a lot easier for me to go along with you with that because it's really you are a sparkly person. So what you brought to the table with your you bring to the table during this incredibly tough time.

03:56 Made it so much easier for me.

04:01 Exempt from what you're saying. It makes me think to I think about it a lot.

04:09 Nobody wants to get cancer or any kind of serious disease and nobody wants to think their life is might be prematurely shortened. You know, it just seems all bad and yet haven't gone through it now twice.

04:25 I feel like there are some gifts that come out even in the midst of being super sick and super scared.

04:34 Definitely unquestionably. The first thing that comes to mind is gratitude for friends and gratitude for you. No showing up in the infusion center or even if I said no no. No, I'm just going to take a nap or I never got to watch one movie on. My iPad didn't want me to be alone. But so even though I don't, you showed up.

05:04 It's that kind of devotion and I've thought about it some of it while it was happening and certainly after the fact after I feel like came out of the tunnel that one of the real benefits of being sick like that is to see to experience the love of a friend like you certainly family members to but family,

05:28 Come to your Aid in a different way than friends do and

05:34 Yeah, there's nothing more I can say about that.

05:42 And being sensitized to compassion and other people kindness and other people that I've noticed much more acutely now.

05:55 As a result of having the chicken and being the recipient of so much unconditional love and you know, nobody's keeping score. Like wow, you helped me know if it all goes away. There's just no scorekeeping. It's just what happens I

06:15 Yeah, so you help me learn some lessons about that, too.

06:19 Super important

06:23 Did you feel scared at all when I was sick, but you never sort of shows it. Yeah.

06:30 No scared a lot.

06:38 No.

06:45 Well, you're I didn't want to show it to you.

06:49 So I just be scared when I went home.

06:55 But you know, you have some pretty pretty scary evenings fun river that night was really sucky and then I'll lung surgery really such a dumb about that one and your lungs filling up and all those long toppings was like not another one to see you in such pain.

07:25 Such fear and to try to be cheery, which was you no have poor pulmonology. Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. I couldn't walk in the parking lot. Yeah, he hospital and then there was quite where I'd be cracking jokes needs to she has to stay still don't look at her if she started laughing eating my back get the picture. We were laughing. We was not good. Probably we were very, well you have to laugh.

08:00 Because if you're not laughing, you're definitely crying. Oh my gosh, I forgot about I did quite forget about that. But also that awful lung surgery that was so you came up to the hospital when I was impatient. I had a cart around a little box that had Pleural fluid draining and you know, I was having a garden hose sticking out of my rib cage really awful, but we laughed and you walked up and down the hall with me with the contraption good Lord. I mean when someone's seen you like that and we kept laughing throughout it all from crying so much.

08:49 If you'd always showed strength when you were around and watch that night when you took me to the EDD, and I remember the Cubs are playing their last game to win the World Series before watching TV at my house. The last thing I wanted to do is be taken out of the house away from the TV. I think the Cubs hadn't won the World Series since like 1907 like a hundred years or something and next thing I knew you decided I needed to go to the EDI cuz I seem to be fevered. I think it was Cubs fever, but get to the hospital and for Rob your husband just got on a plane. So I had to call him soon as he landed in what Colorado hit turn right around is not it was pretty bad pretty bad still kind of not happy that I was taken away from the Cubs game on the night. They wonder where are eggs. That was an unforgettable evening. Well, at least you're alive now to talk about it, buddy.

09:49 DC super hero laughing now and I think that's it. That's the way it all unfolded over the past couple of years.

10:08 We are friends. We be friends without the

10:14 Close-up experience of being scared and all the ins and outs of cancer treatment, but

10:21 It's made it extra special super early fabulously extra special and I want you to know that you are my special friend, really truly. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what else I could possibly say.

10:43 But I'm you make me happy. I moved out to California and Once Upon a Time were the same size are the same size. I don't know what's wrong with you.

11:04 Okay, I remember Merrill 9 years ago when you were first diagnosed with obviously not as serious of an illness and your life really wasn't affected which is kind of a sidebar from getting some blood work done and then it started to change you want to talk about that when I was diagnosed and I was told I didn't even know what the word meant indolent right just not very slow growing and so nothing happened until I got super anemic and I guess the summer around my birthday. We were all the Tahoe I was exhausted. It was awful.

11:41 Super low hemoglobin, and that was a big symptom. So that's there from 2009 until December 2014.

11:50 I wasn't treated like you said just went for periodic blood work and then they started the chemo, but even then my hair didn't fall out. I didn't really feel sick.

12:04 Getting steroids every week was horrific. So I was a monster when I took that big load of dexamethasone other than those 48 hours.

12:16 It really didn't change much in my life. Right? So that's your dad and wanted to come remission and thought we were home free had a big party got through chemo grade. Super life goes on again. It's kind of lymphoma that doesn't is currently not cured but you can live with it and then it clears symptoms come back and treat the symptoms hopefully and move out pretty much along natural lifespan.

12:48 Yeah, but like I said in

12:51 The end of the summer in 2016

12:58 Yeah, I had to just coughing all the time and they done some heavy traveling Robin. I don't have you traveling Kilimanjaro and then we were in Patagonia on eye no trouble in Kilimanjaro, but he got sick like crazy and couldn't catch my breath and like you mentioned it was a long X-Ray when I came back a chest x-ray and the area around my right lung was filling with fluid and like you remembered karting me to the outpatient Pulmonary Clinic to have that procedure to reduce. The setting is called fluid every 5 days and then I leave the doctor said Thank you join us. Can't keep doing this really cool to keep putting a needle in your back there. So

13:45 Yeah, then I had that lung biopsy and the procedure to glue the outer lining of my lung to my lung. That's what you were taught burning at the house hanging out of my rib cage and that little box that I carried around training. It was awful awful. I think the worst part side from the guy called in medieval treatment of that thing sticking out of my chest.

14:18 Yeah getting.

14:21 The unknown part not knowing what was why this was happening and they finally got the diagnosis.

14:28 After the Pet Scan and they have a drawing on the computer screen that looks like a outline of human body and my whole body look like a light bright toy was all lit up with his hotspot everywhere behind my eyes my hip bone. I mean all over the place.

14:44 And so very next day. I had to start treatment and I wasn't even healed from the surgery. So I started off in a bad place. I try not to even think about it. Remember when you left the hospital as soon as you got outside you started crying because I thought you said I haven't had fresh Aaron was it 10 days? I think you in the house with him and let him remember I was pretty sad a long time after eye surgery and how weak you were but the thing that struck me is I think sometimes we don't realize how important it is, especially maybe as California we take being outside and the freedom of space for granted and your rear in this

15:27 In this shared room by the window, but it was a cubicle. You know, the only thing to do is walk the Halls your identities taken away as Merrill. You became impatient.

15:39 Which isn't like you and when you got outside it was like you were out of prison. You don't think about about a hostile being a prison but it's a different kind of a salvat. Is it being a hustle room can be a cell?

15:56 A difference or right? I actually remembered now that you mention it and that expression. It's a breath of fresh air. It was sunny. He was the beginning of October end of September. It was a gorgeous fall day and it was just it felt so good. I'm closing my eyes now and remembering how good that felt to finally be out even though I felt awful make your own decisions when you're in the hospital, he's at your they tell you when you're going to eat when you're going to get up you have to have something call a nurse to go to the bathroom. I mean, there's just an alarm at 4:30 in the morning for that don't realize how we take our freedom for granted and you had it kind of gone for a while for all patients right now Auto true so true.

16:49 So yeah, I don't know why I'm going back to that day where I saw the Pet Scan which is like 4 days earlier and they said that's it from the surgery. But yeah, but then we went and got my head shaved off and got them for a while a couple of weeks couple weeks. We got ahead of that program. Yeah, we did that was hard though. It was hard for you. Love great hair hair not see that coming to smile about and try to laugh about it. I was happy again. That's the joy of having a friend. We we could laugh and try on funny wigs and get through that, but there weren't there were some.

17:48 Doctor keep talking about Good Times cuz that's what I remember and I associate you with that. And also as I said having you there.

17:58 With me and for me, I think both of those prepositions are important with M for the whole time. But yeah, they were scary things right at the end of treatment and I went back and they said oh no, no, it didn't work. There was a misreading of the

18:18 And maybe get a pet scan can't remember one of the scans and they said oh, I know they saw some marks on my lungs. Yeah, that's right lesions on my lung had showed up on the Pet Scan and I just thought they started talking about bone marrow trip weekend. And this was like March last year last year.

18:53 Healthcare trying to figure out where I spent like the time that I was home around Christmas and January planning her wedding helping her do all the legwork like a wedding planner would do I shopped online for a dress to wear to her wedding finally felt healthy enough and went out to buy shoes. Like after I finished chemo I was okay to go to a mall store and buy shoes for the wedding. I was really hopeful I had that to look forward to and then they did some sort of post-treatment Imaging and okay went to clinic and they said the silesians we can't explain on your right lung which is where it all started.

19:37 That might have been the worst drivers out of it. It was I just felt my all insides just pulverized.

19:48 And I said no. I don't want to have a stem cell transplant till after her wedding right at the end of May and is it really shouldn't wait and I said I have to wait I'm not going to do it and not be here for her wedding.

20:04 It was awful.

20:06 Then they redid the yeah, because the blood work looked okay and I didn't make sense and then we kept saying I said, how can a blood work done? And then Linda was one really who kept saying she's she's a really dear friend who's been very involved. Also kept saying Yeah. Okay. This is actually remember what happened exactly what they want to the next level. That's right. I think I totally forgot all of us and he said okay, it's just scar tissue from all the stuff that went on in the context of all of this. So it was all good. Everything's been great. I just had a Clinic appointment last week. It was everything but the champagne I think if we've been able to drink and Clinic we be Poppin.

21:06 Photos of Frankie Burkhart the nurse practitioner Matt Frank my sainted fellow who's with me every step of the way every minute can't say enough about Matt and the team in a lymphoma Clinic. Yeah, just incredibly compassionate people.

21:27 Yeah, so when things went off when the wheels went off the track.

21:33 They were straightforward when they said well, we're sorry this happened to you that we you know, we saw one interpretation and it wasn't the what turned out to be true. You know, everything good. Everything was good. They were honest. They didn't try to cover up or make excuses or just it happened. Everything turned out well in the end so I think exemplary care incredibly Compassionate Care I felt and I do still feel like I am

22:04 An individual who is exceedingly important to every person on the care team and for that I am forever grateful I call dr. Frank st. Matthew cuz he's my role model for clinical oncologists credibly wonderful and straightforward person for people to be nice to see you are like a little breath of fresh air coming in you use smart key make light of things U of U Know Your you ask them how they're doing how the kids are three. You really your cup is half-full type of person and that's always much more.

22:52 It's easier to be around as a doctor to be around a person who actually is trying to work positively in their own Survival and isn't it? You didn't show anger, you know, there's some stuff that happened that a lot of patients live in very angry. I was angry. I was quietly Steven, you know that and

23:12 I couldn't show it because you weren't showing I didn't you're the patient. I never felt angry about some extent not all what I get worked up about and I might get too worked up in the short-term.

23:32 But she was my husband. He's on my nerves.

23:38 I really consciously try and reprioritize what things that I let really get to me. I've been working hard in that for a year. Now. I've been seeing the cold bar at scicon Call of Duty's another incredible resource. I mean she pulled me out of I think the real depression fear when I came out of treatment. I was terrified that it was going to come back my first cancer transform came back this thing hit me out of the blue. And so I was completely almost paralyzed with fear when I finish chemo the minute the treatments. So my gosh, it's going to come back. I felt unsafe and she Nicole explain it's so common to feel that way and it's so ironic you want that chemo treatment to end its poison and yet you're afraid for it to end because you're afraid it's cancer. So Nicole walk me through that rock me back from the literally a pit of despair and anxiety.

24:37 Didn't need medication. She just talk me through it truly Nance's involves. You keeping up that hiking in the park keeping up and even when I was sick as much as I could going outside for walks and in the cold say it's so great. You have a quart of friends who go up on the trail with you and get you hiking at you outside cuz he's getting better the breath of fresh air enjoying the beauty of what's around here the Friendship feeling normal again, and again, wow help transition out of treatment and not see myself as a Cancer Victim. I never

25:20 Felt that way actually and nor do I see myself as a cancer survivor or cancer remission person. I try and take the word cancer out of any self-description. It's something that happened to me. It's something I live with but I don't feel it's my Identity or even a part of my identity. It's like oh you broke a leg or oh, you've got asthma or whatever. It's not part of how I see myself at all. And I think I ever felt that way about it's like this before me.

26:00 Worst things happen to people and we're lucky to have great care around here and have it's your attitude. That attitude is post the most healthy, I think because

26:13 Have any issues you're very careful with your health you go to the doctor frequently you make sure you keep on top of it, but you aren't Little Miss cancer. I mean you don't do that to you. You don't get into that dark place. That is so psychologically unhealthy, you're not in denial because that's not great. But you just are Meryl and yeah, you had cancer and you're dealing with it, but you're still Meryl. That's the key. You didn't lose yourself. You didn't lose who you were to the cancer and I've seen people do that. They suddenly become part that they become a person with cancer, but that's

26:58 Much bigger in their lives and it's healthy for them. And you didn't you haven't done that. You really haven't done that you don't focus on it. You don't you know, you have a healthy balanced I feel which has made a big difference. I think it's really helped your survival.

27:15 And you're having a happy good life now. I really I actually think it's to be appreciated. And so I'm trying we do. Yeah. Thanks, and I appreciate your opinion your perspective because you're also psychologist counselor. I mean, you're my dear friend, but you also see see things clearly you do. So, I trust your opinion I value that. Thank you.

27:46 Feel good.

27:51 Summerall do look at life differently now.

27:57 I do I really do I try it truly try and enjoy everyday it when I have Angry moments.

28:09 Frustrated times I try and put it in perspective move past it quickly don't dwell there. I really am trying to do that and I'll admit I go to counseling after this.

28:23 To help me

28:25 Stick with my commitment when I came through treatment and I said, okay. I I am not the same person that I was before all this happened. I am the same person but psychologically I didn't want to fall into the same traps that I let myself fall into and get angry about stupid things are carry grudges or things are just not healthy. And so I saw that and my commitment to myself was to

28:50 This is going to sound so corny to be the best person I could be knowing what I know about myself and you know, when you spend six months of treatment in your feel terrible and you're lying in bed. Give a lot of time to think about a lot of things and I think you would do I have to do to be a better person.

29:12 Yeah, I feel like I try not to be as judgmental as I might have been before to be more tolerant about things to put people's behavior in a wider context not be so quick to get annoyed at someone cuts me off in the car. Yeah, but I mean Let It Go, I guess that's my motto to let things go and not let things that got to me before get to me now.

29:44 Understand how much actual control I have and how I respond to things rather than being reactive the stuff that happens. I feel actually I totally am in control of how I react and took us empowering in a way not only to health issues, but the personal issues

30:06 Yeah, I think they would profound changes in Wiest what I'm trying to do, and I know for example.

30:15 Maybe less profound, but I come here to Stanford to volunteer every Wednesday morning at the Cancer Center and I've been here eight years.

30:23 But since I've come through this pretty heavy treatment, I even look at our patients differently. I feel a little more of a connection I felt it before and you shouldn't work your volunteer if you don't have compassion for other people, but I feel

30:40 Relationship with them or empathy in a deeper way than I didn't emphasize before I can so I could feel compassionate. But now I feel more empathy and aware of people's facial expression their body language seemed fear in people and being able to address that.

31:00 And stress in people and try and mitigate their stress.

31:04 One of the reasons I keep working here. It's not difficult at all. It's exceedingly healing for me and

31:15 I think it's even a richer experience. It was in before I got super sick. So those are long-winded answer to your question, but they're really I think important. Why is that?

31:28 Trying to think of your mom never rattitude attitude attitude attitude is what you told me you are so right is so much so much to be grateful for what you were always a Kind and Generous person is I think that the cancer your experience your person experience having cancer has of course given you a little bit of a different perspective are closer.

31:54 And you're right. I mean, obviously your empathy is to experience as much.

32:01 Changed cuz you now know what it you can see when you see somebody coming in and they're tired. They're exhausted. They're feeling ill now, you know what it feels like how to feel how they're feeling and when somebody's ass to walk new down a long hallway when they can barely move, you know, you get let's get that wheelchair lets you know, that's of course changed.

32:25 But let's not forget the person you were before the cancer started and that is why you're the person I've always loved and will love the rest of my life and who has met people circle around you when you were sick cuz you are a great person.

32:44 I don't think the cancer I think the cancer maybe in your perspective has changed you. I think you were always there kiddo.

32:53 Love You Dance

32:55 You really are one of the great gifts of my having moved to California, and maybe there's Karma around all of that. Thanks.