Speaker 1: This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty. Hi everyone,
Speaker 1: I'm Shannon Doherty and welcome to my very first episode
Speaker 1: of Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty. I'm really excited
Speaker 1: and I'm nervous as well. I have obviously never done
Speaker 1: a podcast before, but.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It just felt like a very cool and interesting different
Speaker 1: way to connect and also to be me and tell
Speaker 1: my own story. What's really interesting is that I've been
Speaker 1: an actress for forty two years, and in those forty
Speaker 1: two years, a lot of people have told my story
Speaker 1: and I never have to grow up reading articles about
Speaker 1: yourself and to have people writing books about you, claiming
Speaker 1: things that you did, whether they be.
Speaker 2: True or not, is hard.
Speaker 1: It's especially the untrue things obviously are much harder because
Speaker 1: you read them and you wonder where they even came
Speaker 1: up with that, or they took a kernel of a
Speaker 1: truth and exaggerated it and expanded it to sort of
Speaker 1: benefit themselves, and it was incredibly harmful to me, to
Speaker 1: my career, to my family, to my friends. And one
Speaker 1: thing I want to be very clear about is that
Speaker 1: I take full responsibility for my actions always in my life.
Speaker 1: I have never shoved it off to somebody else and said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this was your fault. I am a person who believes
Speaker 1: in accountability for myself and for others. So it is
Speaker 1: hard again repeating this, it's hard to read things about
Speaker 1: yourself or, for instance, somebody to take your cancer journey
Speaker 1: and turn it into something that's not truthful and that
Speaker 1: doesn't represent you, or to try to break your story
Speaker 1: before you break it to your own family. I shaved
Speaker 1: my head when I was starting my first round of
Speaker 1: chemo back in twenty sixteen, and I shaved my head
Speaker 1: because I know eventually my hair was going to fall out,
Speaker 1: and I really just did not want everybody else to
Speaker 1: make it about them, for paparazzi to see me out
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden have these pictures of me
Speaker 1: walking home with no hair and it not coming from me,
Speaker 1: and me not breaking my own story. Listen, I'm incredibly blessed,
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful for the career that I've had
Speaker 1: and the opportunities that I've had. But with blessings comes
Speaker 1: to the other side of things, and I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the main reasons why I decided to do
Speaker 1: Let's be clear. Let's be clear what does that mean.
Speaker 1: It means let's be clear about all of it. Let's
Speaker 1: be clear about my truth. Let's be clear about relationships,
Speaker 1: Let's be clear about cancer, Let's be clear about life
Speaker 1: in general. I toyed for a very long time with
Speaker 1: the idea of writing a memoirs. I was offered a
Speaker 1: lot of book deals over the years, and there was
Speaker 1: something about it that felt very disingenuous to me.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was.
Speaker 1: The fact that I couldn't get immediate responses back from
Speaker 1: people reading the book. There was there's almost a disconnect
Speaker 1: from a memoir. I love books, so don't take it
Speaker 1: like that way. I absolutely am a book reader. But
Speaker 1: I like fiction where you know, I drum up what
Speaker 1: the person looks like, and when the book is over
Speaker 1: sort of I can make up there, you know, another
Speaker 1: ending for them if ISO choose. With a memoir, you're
Speaker 1: sort of reading all of it and it is what
Speaker 1: it is, but you can't interact with it. And with
Speaker 1: a podcast you can interact. You know, there's an Instagram,
Speaker 1: you can ask questions, you can give me suggestions of
Speaker 1: what it is that you want to hear me talk about.
Speaker 1: And that was really important to me to just be
Speaker 1: authentic and transparent and very truthful. Whether that's good for
Speaker 1: me or at times might be detrimental. I don't really know.
Speaker 1: We're going to see how it plays out. I just
Speaker 1: know that it's going to be the truth and nothing.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's just going to be fun.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be speaking with a lot of my
Speaker 1: co stars. Some are going to be fantastic fun interviews.
Speaker 1: Some are going to be again a lot of hard
Speaker 1: truths of what we went through back then. I think
Speaker 1: that growing up on TV in the nineties as a woman,
Speaker 1: it was very different than it is currently, and I
Speaker 1: like to say that some of us sort of paved
Speaker 1: the way, and women are taking such huge strides in
Speaker 1: the world currently and certainly in TV. I think being
Speaker 1: on nine o two and zero and being someone who
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily play by the rules. I didn't placate the
Speaker 1: men in my business, and I certainly didn't placate my bosses.
Speaker 1: I fought them, and that goes back to the way
Speaker 1: that I was raised. My dad, by far, the most
Speaker 1: amazing man that's ever walked this earth. I miss and
Speaker 1: love every single second of the day. He was adamant
Speaker 1: about me being a very strong, intelligent woman who stood
Speaker 1: up for myself. And my mom was the same way,
Speaker 1: and they were very big on education and knowing your history,
Speaker 1: knowing your current affairs, being able to have carry on,
Speaker 1: conduct an intelligent conversation and be well informed. And then
Speaker 1: it progressed with Michael Landon. Michael Landon was one of
Speaker 1: the first people who looked at me and said, listen,
Speaker 1: they'll walk all over you in this business being a woman,
Speaker 1: and don't let them. Stand up for yourself. So I did,
Speaker 1: and it caused, you know, a lot of issues back then,
Speaker 1: some issues I caused for myself. I was, you know, young,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to go out and I didn't see
Speaker 1: any problem with going to, you know, a nightclub at
Speaker 1: twenty years old with Brian Torre and Marky Mark that's
Speaker 1: what he was named. Back then. I didn't see where
Speaker 1: it was bad. And sometimes my behavior would get a
Speaker 1: little carried away. I think that's kind of normal for
Speaker 1: somebody in their early early early twenties. But I could
Speaker 1: have done better for sure, which we're going to discuss
Speaker 1: all throughout this podcast. What are the things that I
Speaker 1: could have done better, What are the mistakes that I
Speaker 1: really made? But also what's like the good that we
Speaker 1: can take from all of it, and being a strong
Speaker 1: woman and going up against someone like Aaron Spelling and
Speaker 1: Duke e Vincent, the people who who were you know,
Speaker 1: huge producers back then that that did nine on two
Speaker 1: and Ho that then produced Charm, that produced Dynasty, that
Speaker 1: produced Melrose Place that you know had this you know
Speaker 1: legacy people, huge producers, but too as a young woman
Speaker 1: to go up against them and say things like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know this script isn't very good and it's not
Speaker 1: great quality.
Speaker 2: We can do better.
Speaker 1: And for people to say things to me like you're
Speaker 1: not hired, to think you're hired to hit your mark
Speaker 1: and say your lines and act, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that really rubbed me personally the wrong way because
Speaker 1: I wasn't raised that way. I was raised to think.
Speaker 1: I was raised to have an opinion and that my
Speaker 1: opinion should be valued. So I just kept on pressing
Speaker 1: up against that machine, up against men who didn't really
Speaker 1: want to hear my opinion, and I didn't stop. And
Speaker 1: I carried that throughout my career, and I carried that
Speaker 1: through Charmed. I think the difference between me then and
Speaker 1: me now or when I got into my forties. Rather,
Speaker 1: is that I learned the simple art of diplomacy. I
Speaker 1: learned that there might be a nicer way to say
Speaker 1: some things, There might be a more diplomatic spin that
Speaker 1: I could take. I also learned to stay at home.
Speaker 1: I learned to.
Speaker 2: Really like.
Speaker 1: Cultivate my space, to be healthy in a space that
Speaker 1: I wanted to actually spend time in, and to surround
Speaker 1: myself with friends that you know, had my back and
Speaker 1: were incredibly supportive and that weren't selling stories to the
Speaker 1: National Inquirer about me, because that happened to me all
Speaker 1: throughout my twenties. And and friends that would look at
Speaker 1: me and say, hey, you know, stop your crap, like
Speaker 1: knock it off. You're you know, you're saying too much,
Speaker 1: or you're saying too little, or you're too abrasive, or
Speaker 1: you're too harsh. And those friendships I value. Those are
Speaker 1: people that I've known for an incredibly long time now.
Speaker 1: Some of them may have come later in life, and
Speaker 1: I think that that just comes with maturity and growth
Speaker 1: and evolving as a human being, where you look at
Speaker 1: people and you go, Okay, you're you're like a good
Speaker 1: influence and you're you're inspirational on your own like in
Speaker 1: your own life, and I can learn so much for
Speaker 1: you from you. So those are kind of the people
Speaker 1: that I have in my life now. So we're definitely
Speaker 1: going to delve into the whole nine o two And oh,
Speaker 1: was there a pay issue? We're men getting paid more
Speaker 1: money than the girls on the show. What did that
Speaker 1: mean back then in the nineties, was that the norm
Speaker 1: kind of was we'll talk about that. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: all the fights that you guys heard back on nine.
Speaker 1: We'll have some of my former co stars on that
Speaker 1: I love and adore. We'll talk about that infamous you know,
Speaker 1: tape in the hair and fights saying they got physical.
Speaker 2: We'll have all that.
Speaker 1: We'll have those conversations and then go from there to
Speaker 1: like amazing experiences like on Malrath. And you know what
Speaker 1: it was like to work with Kevin Smith, who was
Speaker 1: incredibly collaborative and fun and just made the set easy.
Speaker 2: It was like a.
Speaker 1: Bunch of kids hanging out and working and saying lines.
Speaker 1: And it was awesome to playing Margaret Mitchell and to
Speaker 1: Charmed and what Charmed was like. And you know, you've
Speaker 1: all heard all the rumors some people have addressed them
Speaker 1: in books. I'm not going to address it in a book.
Speaker 1: I'm going to address it right here on my podcast.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: We'll keep going through my career. And I think even
Speaker 1: more important than the career is my cancer journey. Some
Speaker 1: of you may know, I got diagnosed in late two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifty and I went through surgery, I went
Speaker 1: through chemo, I went through radiation all throughout twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: and part of twenty seventeen. And you know what that
Speaker 1: journey was like, because it was it was hard, and
Speaker 1: it was scary, but there was also something.
Speaker 2: So beautiful about it.
Speaker 1: I really learned a lot about myself, and I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about the people in my life. I learned
Speaker 1: about my own well of strength and being able to
Speaker 1: you know, dig deep. And when I thought I couldn't
Speaker 1: get out of bed, when I you know, dropped down
Speaker 1: to ninety two pounds from chemo and was incredibly dehydrated,
Speaker 1: I had to. I had to still get out of bed,
Speaker 1: and you know, my husband at the time sort of
Speaker 1: begging me to, you know, keep going, and my mom
Speaker 1: like literally trying to pick me up out of bed
Speaker 1: and get me to the doctor. What those moments were like,
Speaker 1: what was it like to you know, at that point
Speaker 1: in time, I thought that I wouldn't survive it, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know how I would get through it. And
Speaker 1: you know, getting body parts dropped off, getting a breast removed,
Speaker 1: and how that changes the way that you look at yourself,
Speaker 1: and it definitely did. I looked at myself as as
Speaker 1: not whole anymore. I looked at myself as someone who
Speaker 1: was very damaged. I you know, had still have scars
Speaker 1: from my reconstruction, Sir, of a scar from hip bone
Speaker 1: to hip bone, and there's not a day that goes
Speaker 1: by that I don't look at that scar and feel
Speaker 1: pain about it and feel a little bit of remorse
Speaker 1: about probably the decision that I made for the particular
Speaker 1: reconstruction that I got, which we'll get into with an
Speaker 1: actual doctor who can help us all walk through it
Speaker 1: in another episode. You know, what was what was it
Speaker 1: like to lose my hair? I kind of kind of
Speaker 1: was known from my hair a little bit, and I
Speaker 1: was really proud of my hair, to be honest. I
Speaker 1: know it seems so vain and so silly to see
Speaker 1: something like that, but you know, it helped define me.
Speaker 1: And when I lost it. It was I had to
Speaker 1: find a new definition from myself. It took a lot
Speaker 1: of kindness from other people. To kindness from my friends.
Speaker 1: It took kindness from strangers, people on my Instagram sending
Speaker 1: me messages and connecting with me and you know, sharing
Speaker 1: their photos of their bald head after chemo to.
Speaker 2: Feel like I had.
Speaker 1: A family of like minded people that were going through
Speaker 1: the exact same thing, or their wife was going through
Speaker 1: the same thing, or their sister or their friend or
Speaker 1: their mom or their grandmother. Just to have that connection
Speaker 1: and from men as well, saying like, Hey, I've got
Speaker 1: this kind of cancer, this is how I feel, this
Speaker 1: is you know, my.
Speaker 2: Bald head like it.
Speaker 1: It sort of wrapped me in this cocoon of safety.
Speaker 1: As cheesy as that may sound or sappy as that
Speaker 1: may sound, it really did.
Speaker 2: It made me feel.
Speaker 1: Made me feel less ostracized from the world and like
Speaker 1: I was a part of something, which then started my
Speaker 1: feeling of deep, deep responsibility to share my story, the
Speaker 1: beauty of it and the ugliness of it as well,
Speaker 1: in order to number one, help others going through what
Speaker 1: I was going through, and to number two, possibly speed
Speaker 1: up cancer research, get more money behind it. It's crazy
Speaker 1: to me that cancer has been around as long as
Speaker 1: it has and we don't have a cure. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel a responsibility. And people always ask me like, God,
Speaker 1: do you ever say why me? And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I say it all the time, And I remind myself
Speaker 1: like why not me? Why should it be anybody else
Speaker 1: but me? And why me? Because I have a platform,
Speaker 1: and what better thing to use my platform for than
Speaker 1: to help other people with cancer or to help their
Speaker 1: loved ones understand what it's like for that person going
Speaker 1: through cancer, to to bring more awareness to cancer and
Speaker 1: in hopes of finding a cure. That's why me?
Speaker 2: Why me?
Speaker 1: Because this is probably my calling. Maybe everything else in
Speaker 1: my life, my career and all of that was really
Speaker 1: just to get me to this place, just to get
Speaker 1: me to the place where I can actually make a
Speaker 1: difference for others and for myself being selfish for a second,
Speaker 1: but for.
Speaker 2: All of us. So I plan on this show to
Speaker 2: bring on.
Speaker 1: What I regard as some of the best doctors in
Speaker 1: the cancer field, from brain surgeons to radiation oncologists, to
Speaker 1: cancer oncologists to cardio oncologists. Because people don't even realize
Speaker 1: that chemo, it impacts your heart, So that's something that
Speaker 1: we should all be very aware of to guynecologists because
Speaker 1: guess what, it impacts your sex life as well. And
Speaker 1: I'm from the South and originally, so it's very hard
Speaker 1: for me to have open conversations about gynecologists and sex.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to do it because it's needed. It's
Speaker 1: definitely needed. It impacts men with cancer, it impacts women
Speaker 1: with cancer. It's definitely impacted my life. And this is
Speaker 1: a podcast called Let's Be Clear, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: be clear about all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So cancer will be a huge topic because.
Speaker 1: Once I went through my original chemo and radiation and
Speaker 1: had surgeries, I ended up being cleared. I went into remission,
Speaker 1: and then in twenty nineteen, I got diagnosed with stage
Speaker 1: four cancer, still breast cancer, just the breast cancer had
Speaker 1: moved into my bones. And some of you may know
Speaker 1: that stage four cancer is terminal. There there are drugs
Speaker 1: that you can be on that will prolong your life,
Speaker 1: but it's not curable as of right now. So living
Speaker 1: with that I think really.
Speaker 2: Changed me. Again.
Speaker 1: I've been through, you know, so many different changes and metamorphoses,
Speaker 1: like if you will in the last couple of years
Speaker 1: from cancer. But I think this diagnosis in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: made me really look at my life and again reassess
Speaker 1: and become more committed to spreading the word about cancer
Speaker 1: and connecting to my cancer family, but also what I
Speaker 1: can do to make things easier on the people that
Speaker 1: I love in my life and to be prepared. It's
Speaker 1: hard making out your will, and it's hard making a
Speaker 1: funeral list.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned for that episode. It is.
Speaker 1: It's hard sitting down with your mom and having a
Speaker 1: conversation with her and saying, listen, you're probably gonna outlive me,
Speaker 1: and you may not like it. I like it because
Speaker 1: I want her to live forever. I love her so much.
Speaker 1: But you know, having that conversation is hard. Like and
Speaker 1: I'll have my mom on the show and she'll tell
Speaker 1: you what that's like for her. I don't want to
Speaker 1: put words into her mouth, but to look at your
Speaker 1: home and start thinking that you've got to put you know,
Speaker 1: little stickers behind stuff with people's initials on that because
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, I really want this piece of art
Speaker 1: to go to my brother or to my nephew, or
Speaker 1: it's a you just have moments where you absolutely break
Speaker 1: down crying, wondering like when that time is going to come,
Speaker 1: where bird's time for goodbye? And what it's going to
Speaker 1: be like and is it going to be painful? Is
Speaker 1: it going to be peaceful? How are the people in
Speaker 1: my life going to deal with it? And that's hard.
Speaker 3: And also, you know, sorry you guys, very emotional stuff
Speaker 3: for me to talk about. You know, there's there's when
Speaker 3: you get to stage four cancer, there's protocols that you
Speaker 3: go through and your hope is that you don't blow
Speaker 3: through too many protocols and because there's only so many,
Speaker 3: I want to get into that on this podcast of
Speaker 3: what those protocols are and how they impacted me. There
Speaker 3: were some that were phenomenal and there were some that
Speaker 3: I couldn't tolerate at all, And you want to tolerate
Speaker 3: them so bad because you know that if you can't
Speaker 3: tolerate it, you're blowing through a protocol.
Speaker 2: You know, and where you're at when you're at like
Speaker 2: on maybe one of your maybe you only.
Speaker 1: Have two more protocols that you can possibly go through,
Speaker 1: and you're like, I just need to eke out another
Speaker 1: five years because they're going to come up with something else,
Speaker 1: which is really what people with.
Speaker 2: Stage four look at in their lives.
Speaker 1: They really sort of have to look at that and say,
Speaker 1: I just need another three years. I just need another
Speaker 1: five years, because there's so many amazing clinical trials happening
Speaker 1: right now that once they get approved, this will you know,
Speaker 1: elongate my life again. And you're just kind of chasing
Speaker 1: you're chasing protocols and you're chasing clinical trials, and it
Speaker 1: can be all consuming, but you don't want it to
Speaker 1: be all consuming because you still want to live your life.
Speaker 2: You know, you still want to.
Speaker 1: You still want to be a willing participant in your
Speaker 1: own life. And yes, I could, you know, become the
Speaker 1: healthiest human being in the world and never do anything bad,
Speaker 1: become a you know, workout freak and just the most
Speaker 1: clean eater in the world and no alcohol. But god,
Speaker 1: that's just not for me. I want to enjoy the
Speaker 1: time that I have and it's all a moderation, right,
Speaker 1: But I really enjoy my glass of red wine. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that I have a glass of red wine
Speaker 1: every night, but it means that when I want a
Speaker 1: glass of red wine, I'm going to have it. So
Speaker 1: I really want to talk about the people who are
Speaker 1: their hearts are so in the right place. But I
Speaker 1: get a lot of messages about, you know, some miracle cure,
Speaker 1: some holistic miracle cure, and that if I just stopped
Speaker 1: the chemical drugs that big Pharma is pedaling my way,
Speaker 1: that I would be cured of my stage four cancer,
Speaker 1: and what those actually are, do they really work? I
Speaker 1: kind of want to go down that rabbit hole a
Speaker 1: little bit. I hope some of you want to go
Speaker 1: down it with me. So we're going to get into
Speaker 1: all of that. We're also going to get into deep
Speaker 1: personal life stuff. I have been engaged. I don't know
Speaker 1: how many times, I gotta be honest, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I lost count at some point.
Speaker 3: Ugh.
Speaker 1: I have been married three times. Technically i've been married
Speaker 1: three times. The second marriage I got annulled, so but
Speaker 1: I was still married to him. And you know, not
Speaker 1: all of my obviously, not all of my marriages were
Speaker 1: great because I'm divorced from two and right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the divorce right now. So but I'm really
Speaker 1: good friends interestingly enough with some of my ex fiancees
Speaker 1: and with some of my ex boyfriends, and yeah, with
Speaker 1: one of my ex husbands. My middle husband I'm which
Speaker 1: was Rick. I'm still really good friends with. We chat
Speaker 1: on the phone, we FaceTime, we laugh whenever he's in Malibu.
Speaker 1: You know, we make a point to see each other.
Speaker 1: I'm great friends with some exes, like my ex Rob Wise,
Speaker 1: who I was with for.
Speaker 2: Seven years.
Speaker 1: He was the second longest relationship I've ever had in
Speaker 1: my life, and he really helped. He helped me grow
Speaker 1: up and understand what a relationship was. I mean, we
Speaker 1: sort of grew up together and helped one another.
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 1: And then you know, currently being in the middle of
Speaker 1: divorce while having Stage four cancer, I filed for divorce
Speaker 1: this year twenty twenty three. I had brain surgery in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three as well. We discovered the first week
Speaker 1: of January that my cancer had spread to my brain.
Speaker 1: So I had brain met and there was one in particular,
Speaker 1: a tumor that was large enough for them to remove,
Speaker 1: and they really wanted to remove it in order to
Speaker 1: dissect it and get the pathology on it so that
Speaker 1: we would understand what was happening and then what would
Speaker 1: be the proper protocol and treatment to give me. So
Speaker 1: I had brain surgery, which was the most frightening thing
Speaker 1: I have ever been through in my entire life. I
Speaker 1: didn't think that I was going to make it. I
Speaker 1: was positive that I was going to die. And the
Speaker 1: best case scenario in my head if I didn't die
Speaker 1: was that I would lose the ability to walk or
Speaker 1: to talk. And I went in to that surgery early
Speaker 1: in the morning, and I went in after I found
Speaker 1: out that, you know, my marriage was essentially over, that
Speaker 1: my husband had been carrying on an affair for two years,
Speaker 1: and to not go in that surgery, even though being
Speaker 1: very clear he wanted to go, I couldn't go into
Speaker 1: that surgery with him there.
Speaker 2: I felt so betrayed.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, I just felt so
Speaker 1: incredibly unloved by someone I was with for fourteen years,
Speaker 1: by someone that you know, I loved with all my heart.
Speaker 1: So I went into surgery, thank God, with my mom
Speaker 1: by my side, with my brother by the side, with
Speaker 1: my best friend Chris by my side, my friends Christie
Speaker 1: and Honarey and Anne, Marie like Holly all praying for
Speaker 1: me and you know, texting me. I still went into
Speaker 1: that surgery petrified. I hadn't met my brain surgeon other
Speaker 1: than via zoom, and I really liked him. His name
Speaker 1: was doctor Chew. So when I finally got to see him,
Speaker 1: I you know, I looked at him and I said,
Speaker 1: just listen, do me a favor, Like, if you can't
Speaker 1: get the whole tumor out without jeopardizing who I am
Speaker 1: as a human being, So if you want to get
Speaker 1: it all out, but it's going to cause me to
Speaker 1: lose the ability to walk or like my right foot,
Speaker 1: which was one of the fears, then just leave it,
Speaker 1: like just close me back up and we'll deal with it.
Speaker 1: But don't do anything that's going to change me as
Speaker 1: a human being. And please, whatever you do, don't do
Speaker 1: something that's going to impact my actual brain. Because going
Speaker 1: way back to the way that I was raised, being
Speaker 1: somebody who can process information quickly, being someone who craves
Speaker 1: learning and having intelligent conversations, I just I didn't want
Speaker 1: to lose that. It's one of the things I'm the
Speaker 1: most proud about with myself and one of the things
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful I had a mom and a dad
Speaker 1: like I had raising me. The way that they raised
Speaker 1: me is that I'm smart, and I did not want
Speaker 1: to lose any of that. I just wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure I came out me. So I did brain surgery
Speaker 1: and I lived because I'm here. But you know, I
Speaker 1: remember waking up and my mom being right there and
Speaker 1: doctor Chu being right there, and you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: get it all. He got as much as he could,
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know, that was enough for
Speaker 1: the surgery. I did brain radiation on that particular tumor
Speaker 1: prior to surgery, just so when they went to to
Speaker 1: scoop it out that you know, it didn't it didn't spread.
Speaker 1: Sort of look at it as like seeds of cancer
Speaker 1: within the tumor, so that the seeds were all dead
Speaker 1: and couldn't spread. That's that's like a layman's explanation of it,
Speaker 1: but that's the explanation I'm gonna So it had already
Speaker 1: been radiated. Everybody felt very comfortable with it. And then
Speaker 1: after my brain surgery, I went for more radiation because
Speaker 1: I had I think it was either four to five
Speaker 1: more mets in my brain. There were very very very
Speaker 1: very very tiny and certainly not something that you could
Speaker 1: operate on and remove. So I did a couple of
Speaker 1: rounds of brain radiation with a wonderful radiation oncologist named
Speaker 1: doctor Maharty and they're all at Theater Sinai here in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and you know, he definitely tried to avoid
Speaker 1: any more hair falling out, but you're going to have
Speaker 1: some of that anyway. And then it was really about
Speaker 1: after that finding like a protocol, and that was with
Speaker 1: doctor Lawrence Pirot, who is my oncologist. And you know,
Speaker 1: the first protocol I went on didn't didn't work, and
Speaker 1: now I'm on a totally different one and it's extremely hard.
Speaker 1: We'll have that conversation again with a doctor or so
Speaker 1: anything that I'm missing that's sort of technical, they can
Speaker 1: help fill in. I'm always going to talk to you
Speaker 1: guys from the heart and from personal experience, and then
Speaker 1: I'll have on experts to help me fill in the
Speaker 1: missing pieces. But you know, it's been a twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three has been a challenging year for sure. Again from
Speaker 1: brain surgery to brain radiation to what I'm on now,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a version of chemo losing your
Speaker 1: hair all over again or it becoming patchy. And then
Speaker 1: what do you do? You know, do do you wear wig?
Speaker 1: Do you go bald? Do you embrace the baldness. Do
Speaker 1: you walk around with you know, patchy hair? And I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you and talk to you about like
Speaker 1: my choices and what I decided was right for me
Speaker 1: in this moment and the struggle I still have with it,
Speaker 1: the struggle of you know, am I being authentic? Am
Speaker 1: I being true to who I am and true to
Speaker 1: the cancer CA community. It's again, it's it's you know, pressure.
Speaker 2: Pressure. I welcome, by the way, pressure.
Speaker 1: I feel very blessed that I have because it's what
Speaker 1: I'm here to do, I think. And just to go
Speaker 1: through all of that while also trying to figure out
Speaker 1: if you're going to get a freakin divorce like and
Speaker 1: trying to get to the truth of that. One of
Speaker 1: my friends said it best to me. They were like,
Speaker 1: you are a truth seeker, like you do not stop
Speaker 1: until you get to the truth. And I think sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a big detriment. I think there are times to
Speaker 1: let things go and and just reconcile and say, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to know this truth and and that's okay,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to learn that. But you know, for many, many,
Speaker 1: many many months, I was obsessed with finding the truth
Speaker 1: and not through nefarious ways, not through you know, hacking
Speaker 1: of somebody's email or anything of that nature, but through
Speaker 1: conversations expecting somebody to be honest with me, because if
Speaker 1: you share fourteen years together and you cheated, doesn't that
Speaker 1: person deserve the absolute truth, regardless of how much it
Speaker 1: hurts them, if they're the ones asking for it, if
Speaker 1: they're the ones saying, like, listen, I get it. I
Speaker 1: may cry and I may get angry, and this may
Speaker 1: really suck to hear, but I need to hear it
Speaker 1: because I need closure, and this is how I get
Speaker 1: my closure. So I had a lot of months of
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what I was going to do,
Speaker 1: and I went back and forth to be honest, and
Speaker 1: I never ever, ever thought a million years that I
Speaker 1: would be that girl. I have always said from the beginning,
Speaker 1: if you cheat on me, you're out.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: With every boyfriend, every husband, every fance. You cheat on me,
Speaker 1: We're done. I will not look back. You will fail
Speaker 1: to exist. I've been like that, hardcore about it. And
Speaker 1: then when someone you really, really really love, someone that
Speaker 1: you regard as your absolute best friend in the world,
Speaker 1: when you're lied to and you discover that you know
Speaker 1: they've cheated on you, or they finally tell you that
Speaker 1: they're cheating on you because they're you know, riddled by
Speaker 1: guilt or whatever.
Speaker 2: I didn't walk away right away. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I was I was so confused, And I was also
Speaker 1: on steroids and a lot of stuff from brain surgery
Speaker 1: because they didn't want my brains as well. And it's honestly,
Speaker 1: it's still really hard. Yes, I made the decision to
Speaker 1: file for divorce, but you know, I have a lot
Speaker 1: of memories with this person, and a lot of really beautiful, amazing,
Speaker 1: great memories. And I also take some responsibility for the
Speaker 1: demise of our marriage. Actually that's not true. Let me
Speaker 1: rephrase that and be very clear about this. I do
Speaker 1: not take responsibility for the demise of our marriage. I
Speaker 1: take responsibility for some of the issues in our marriage.
Speaker 1: I take the responsibility not only because of how I was,
Speaker 1: but because of how cancer impacted my marriage and how
Speaker 1: it impacted him the second time around, some of the
Speaker 1: decisions that I made that he may not have agreed with,
Speaker 1: and his fear. So I do take responsibility for some
Speaker 1: of that. I do not take responsibility for the demise
Speaker 1: of a marriage because I am not a quitter. If
Speaker 1: somebody is still showing me loyalty and respect and love,
Speaker 1: I am going to hang in there. I am going
Speaker 1: to try my hardest because divorce is rough. So I
Speaker 1: struggled with my decision, and I went back and forth,
Speaker 1: and I had lots of conversations. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I also spoke to the girlfriend of two years that
Speaker 1: he cheated on me with, which is a whole other episode.
Speaker 1: So and I finally had to come to that hard
Speaker 1: truth and file for divorce. And it was embarrassing. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm horrified that I can't keep a relationship together.
Speaker 1: I think it's like a reflection on me, although I
Speaker 1: kind of like this one. I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: it's on him. But still I don't want to be
Speaker 1: a failure in life. And I've failed three times at marriage,
Speaker 1: and and I still believe in love. I still believe that.
Speaker 1: You know, my mom and dad were married for I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know, forty some odd years, and you know,
Speaker 1: the only thing that separated them physically was my father's death.
Speaker 1: But you know, my mom still wears her wedding ban
Speaker 1: and she still says her husband and she always will
Speaker 1: you know, they're still married in in all the ways
Speaker 1: that matter. You know, I know that my dad is
Speaker 1: still with her every day, just like he is with.
Speaker 2: Me, and my mom.
Speaker 1: As of right now, has no desire to ever get
Speaker 1: married to anybody else. She is, you know, that's the
Speaker 1: only man for me. And I'm done now. So I
Speaker 1: come from that mentality. So it sucks to fail three times.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack her and we will. We
Speaker 1: will definitely unpack all of it, all right, guys. So
Speaker 1: that was a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It is
Speaker 1: definitely a lot. And this is just the first episode.
Speaker 1: So imagine what the next year is going to bring. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be honest. It's going to be clear and
Speaker 1: full access basically into my life and everything that I'm
Speaker 1: going through and everything that I feel, and along with
Speaker 1: a healthy mixture of friends and laughter and community and
Speaker 1: doctors and information like let's learn together, let's cry together,
Speaker 1: and let's laugh together. Let's just go through this journey
Speaker 1: of life together. I hope you guys tune in for
Speaker 1: the next episode. Thank you, And this is let's be
Speaker 1: clear with Shannon Doherty. Because I'm being clear