Updated May 7, 2015, 7:31 PM EDT By Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw: A Lucky Life Interrupted – Bing video
Tom Brokaw was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable blood cancer, in August 2013. Through months of specialized treatment, he is in remission,
and he is opening up about his battle with the disease.
In a special edition of NBC’s “Dateline” Thursday at 10 p.m. ET, Brokaw, 75, shares his emotional journey, and his powerful new memoir, “A Lucky Life, Interrupted,” which is being released in the U.S. on May 12th. The following essay is by Tom Brokaw, as told to NBC News senior national producer Tim Uehlinger.
Tom Brokaw on His Battle Against Incurable Blood Cancer +
In a preview of his upcoming interview on ‘CBS Sunday Morning’, the 83-year-old
former newsman says doctors didn’t think he would make it to that age when he was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2014. With age, his experience has changed. Brokaw says, ‘I’ve had a bad experience. I kept thinking bad things wouldn’t happen to me.
However, as I grew older, I began to develop this condition. And what you try to do
is control it as much as you can.’ Tom Brokaw, former NBC News anchor, opens up
about blood cancer: ‘I’ve had a bad experience’ (msn.com)
ON MY DIAGNOSIS
I have this very good doctor, Dr. Andrew Majka at Mayo Clinic – who thought something was up. So he did some blood tests and called me into a meeting with the head of internal medicine, who is also a hematologist, a blood specialist. They reviewed all the numbers.
I didn’t really know what they were talking about. They turned to me and Dr. Morie Gertz said, “You’ve got a malignancy.
It’s called multiple myeloma. And you know people who’ve died from it.”
Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president, died from multiple myeloma. Frank Reynolds, the ABC anchorman, who I had talked to toward the end of his life, not knowing what he had, died from it. Later I found out that Frank McGee, who was the Today Show host, died from it.
Odd thing is, I guess I didn’t know enough about it at that time, because my
heart didn’t accelerate. I didn’t go into a meltdown of some kind. I was very cool about it.
I was kind of in two parts: I was operating as a journalist human being, and the other part was kind of on the outside looking in saying, “This is a big deal, you’ve got to stay cool.”
I didn’t know what I was in for.
I’m a guy who’s had great good fortune in his life. And everything has kind of gone in
my direction. And so I couldn’t imagine that I was going to go through the ordeal that it turned out to be.
The Brokaw family Michael Emery
ON MY FAMILY
Treating cancer is a family cause. My family is not only attractive — I can say that because I’m paterfamilias — but they’re really smart, and they’re very, very compassionate. They’re all involved in one way or another. My daughter Sarah’s the therapist.
My daughter Andrea and her husband, Charles Simon, are very active with social causes. My daughter Jennifer’s a doctor. My wife Meredith is Meredith. She’s always been very special, not just to me, but to everybody that she’s ever met. I can say that objectively.
Tom Brokaw on Blood Cancer Battle, NBC Exit: ‘I Had to Walk Away’ (msn.com)
Tom interviews Mary Shannon McGinnis and Katie Hambright from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. NBC Dateline
ON GETTING INVOLVED IN YOUR CARE
One of the things that I learned, and I had really good doctors, as individuals sometimes
it wasn’t as collective as I wanted it to be. So one of the things that you have to learn, even
if you don’t have the kind of advantage that I do — with the high profile and the access —
you have to learn to manage your case. You have to take an active role in it.
You either do it yourself, or you do it in conjunction with another physician, who’s a friend, who’s kind of wise counsel, who’s there off to the side saying, “You know, there may be another way of looking at this,” or there’s “I’m not happy with the protocol that they’ve come up with.”
In my case, I did have very good care. And I was able to put together a kind of team approach. And that worked very well for me. But not everybody can do that. I’m very aware of that. But everybody has to be constantly conscious of the fact, it’s your body,
it’s your health, it’s the cancer that’s affecting you.
Get involved in the fight.
Tom Brokaw in 1973. NBC News
ON MY WORKING LIFE AT NBC NEWS
Everybody has a job to do at NBC News. They’ve been my friends; I didn’t
want them to know. I didn’t want them to think, “Oh, we gotta worry about Tom.”
I had good care going. I had Meredith and the family. And I didn’t want to become
the object of some kind of pity, most of all. I didn’t want to show up on the Internet,
“Tom Brokaw has cancer.”
It’s just the way I am.
But it was very, very touching to know how concerned everybody was. When I got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I wrote to everyone saying, “This is yours as much
as it is mine. Over the years you and everyone else has pulled me across so many lines.”
Receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014.
I was touched by that. But I knew what I had to do, was just to concentrate on getting well.
ALSO, For more information on multiple myeloma, including how you can help, visit The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. For resources for cancer patients and their loved ones, click here.
Tom Brokaw has spent his entire distinguished journalism career with NBC News, beginning in 1966 in the Los Angeles bureau where he covered Ronald Reagan’s first run for public office. Brokaw has served as a White House correspondent, TODAY Show host and anchor of the NBC Nightly News. An accomplished author, Brokaw is also a Peabody, duPont and Emmy winner. Tom Brokaw cancer update – Bing video
Tom Brokaw is medical marijuana’s newest fan for cancer pain relief – Bing video
By Lauren Steussy March 26, 2019
Tom Brokaw, America’s straight-laced newscaster for the past half-century, is medical marijuana’s latest advocate.
The 79-year-old NBC correspondent and former anchor is in remission from multiple myeloma, but says that the pain has been so “excruciating,” he’s resorted to an alternative pain fix embraced by a growing number of cancer patients.
“I’m now on medical marijuana,” Brokaw reveals in a video released Tuesday on SurvivorNet, a cancer information site. Brokaw is a resident of Florida,
one of the 33 states that allow medical marijuana.
Updated: How is Tom Brokaw Doing? The Cancer Fighter Recently Retired
after 50 Years at NBC and Continues to Battle Blood Cancer | SurvivorNet
Brokaw was diagnosed with the disease, which causes cancer cells to cluster in bone marrow, in 2013. Soon after the diagnosis, he had to be medevaced to the Mayo Clinic
as the cancer made its way through his pelvic bone. Years of treatment — including chemotherapy and a spinal operation — got the cancer under control, but left him with lasting pain in his bones, he says.
The demand for more information on medical marijuana is exploding in recent years,
says SurvivorNet’s CEO Steve Alperin. Having someone like Brokaw come out with his experience will “help people understand there are alternative approaches to pain management,” Alperin says.
Brokaw’s usage mirrors a growing number of cancer patients who use the substance
for symptoms like pain. In a report out Tuesday in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, researchers from NYU say that cancer patients were more likely to favor forms of medical marijuana with higher amounts of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), rather than the more readily available, non-psychoactive CBD (cannabidiol).
Researchers say the growing interest from cancer patients highlights the need to further study the substance’s side effects, risks and benefits. Either way, Brokaw says the relief will help him to not just maintain his quality of life, but enjoy it, too.
“I didn’t want my friends coming around and wringing their hands — I didn’t want to be the victim,” Brokaw says. Now, he’s making plans to travel with his children and grandchildren.
“I’ve been a very lucky guy,” he says in the video.
“We’ve had a great life. And I want it to go on.” Sad Last Days: Tom Brokaw, 83,
Talks Dealing with Incurable Blood Cancer, Admits Doctors Didn’t Think He Would
Survive This Long
Tom Brokaw opens up about his incurable blood cancer (nydailynews.com)
Story by Stephanie Kaplan
Retired journalist Tom Brokaw is sharing a rare update on his decade-long battle with blood cancer. In the upcoming episode of CBS News Sunday Morning, the Today alum sat down to chat about how the illness took a toll on his career, and he confessed his doctors didn’t believe he would even make it to 83 years old, a milestone he hit this past February.
“I’ve had a bad experience. I kept thinking bad things wouldn’t happen to me. But as
I grew older, I began to develop this condition,” he tells pal and show host Jane Pauley
of being diagnosed with multiple myeloma 10 years ago.
The Emmy winner noted “what you try to do is control it as much as you can.”
“I’ve had to change my life in some way. I really had to give up my daily activity with NBC,” explained the father-of-three. “You know, I had to walk away from them, as they were walking away from me. I just wasn’t the same person. … And so for the first time
in my life, I was kind of out there, you know, in a place I had never been in my life.”
Brokaw was a staple on news programs for decades, as after several years on Today,
he acted as an anchor for NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004.
Elsewhere in the sit-down, he gives the scoop on his latest endeavor, Never Give Up:
A Prairie Family’s Story, a book dedicated to his parents. Brokaw will also be joined by wife Meredith, who recalled how they set Pauly up with her future husband, Garry Trudeau. He then became a special correspondent and guest anchor until he retired
in 2021 after more than 50 years of hard work.
How’s Multiple Myeloma Survivor Tom Brokaw, 83, Doing? (survivornet.com)
Brokaw’s interview airs on Sunday, June 25, at 9 a.m. ET on CBS. It will be made
available to stream on Paramount+.
BONUS: Tom Brokaw: The Greatest Generation Book – Bing video