WEBVTT - The Loving Choice 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:09.320 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. We 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.959 decided not to tell the kids. Marla knew that once 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.200 our three daughters understood that their mother had been given 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.680 one thousand days to live, they'd start counting. They would 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.079 not be able to enjoy school friends, their teams for 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:26.560 birthday parties. They'd be watching too closely. How she looked, moved, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:31.920 acted eight or didn't. Marla wanted her daughters to stay children, unburdened, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:37.479 confident that tomorrow would look like yesterday. We threw everything 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:41.840 at her, disease lectures, research, involvement in cancer organizations, yoga, meditation, 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.960 teas and soups. She even went to a storefront hewer 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.000 who lit incense, read her palm, and led her in prayer. 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.519 He declared her a badass because of her restorative powers. 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:55.920 It was a nickname that I promoted with all of 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.320 her doctors and nurses because it was not only hopeful 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.320 but true. She didn't just buy time, She cheated it, 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.920 squeezed months and years out of it. Marla was a 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:12.319 statistical freak, innaboration, an outlier. One thousand days landed firmly 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:17.319 in our rear view mirror. That's John Melman. John is 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.560 a New York City based real estate executive. And this 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.680 is a story of a devoted husband and wife making 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.200 a painful choice to keep a shared secret from their children, 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.600 a complex and challenging decision made in the name of love. 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:36.640 I'm Danny Shapiro and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.480 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:39.840 --> 0:02:00.560 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. We grew up 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:05.560 in washing d c. And this is now nineteen and 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.760 I have a recollection of My father was a rabbi, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.519 and he was a somewhat of an avant garde rabbi 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.840 at that juncture in that uh he only wanted to 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.000 be a rabbi in metropolitan areas, not in a suburb, 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.959 so really inner city. And so the first synagogue that 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.960 he was at actually was at a church that shared 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:35.400 Friday night and Saturday with the synagogue. And they took 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.280 the cross out of the room, and they brought the carson, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.200 and they brought the arcs in and back and forth, 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.760 unusual for those days, very unusual. So there were many 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:47.000 politicians and others in the Jewish community that migrated to 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.919 the synagogue, and before you knew it, he had five families. 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.240 But even though John's father's congregation was growing in leaps 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:58.160 and bounds, there weren't schools nearby that were academically strong enough, 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.600 so John commuted each to a Jewish day school in 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.600 Silver Spring, Maryland. This meant he didn't have a real 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.840 childhood in the neighborhood because there weren't really any other kids. 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.560 So John grows up a rabbi's kid with his own 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.760 set of parameters and expectations. The community keeps an eye 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.640 on the rabbis kids. There are proper ways to behave 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:25.400 an image to uphold, and then in John's dad's big 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.320 opportunity comes. He's the last candidate of over fifty rabbis 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.880 to be interviewed at the largest synagogue in Boston. He 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.400 got the job. He got the job, and what was 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:39.000 interesting there was that my mother grew up in Brooklyne, Massachusetts, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.119 so it was really a coming home party because the synagogue, 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.720 al though is in Boston proper, it was a seven 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.000 or eight minute walk to our home in Brooklyne. So 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:48.560 I ended up going to the same high school that 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.320 my mother did, and my grandparents lived about two miles 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.600 away where the house that she grew up in was 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.600 there that feeling too of the rabbis family needs to 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.480 comport themselves in a certain by that time, Yes, And 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.480 now all of a sudden, we were the folks in 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.920 that community had a higher standard than a small little 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.839 synagogue in washing d C. So we've had the higher expectations. 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.640 We went on every Friday night, I went on every Saturday. 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.479 This seems important, maybe even integral to John's story and 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.839 what comes later. His being a rabbi's son, a family 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.240 held to a certain standard displayed on view for the 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.600 whole community to see that. And also John grew up 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.120 knowing that his father, the rabbi, was a keeper of confidences, 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:41.120 of secrets. It was his pastoral duty keeping secrets. Taking 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:46.599 on another person's burden also meant preserving integrity. So John 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.280 goes off to college. He wants to get as far 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.320 away from home as he possibly can, and his father 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.240 tells him he can't cross the Mason Dixon line or 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.799 the Mississippi, so he winds up at the University of Michigan. 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.600 He meets his future wife, Marla, when he's a senior 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.160 and she's a junior. There with a group of mutual 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.640 friends who were all playing a game of intramural co 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:13.080 ed football. For the first couple of games, um, I 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:14.640 just kind of bost her around, like you need to 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:16.279 do this, you need to cover there, you need to 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.599 do this, and every really didn't have relationship with her. 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.920 And then we went out as a group to a 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.880 a bar pizza place after one of the games and 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.480 I got to know her and she was actually dating 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.279 or seeing one of the other guys on the team, 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.840 and his name was Evan, and um I called up 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.560 Evan because we were pretty friendly, and I said, Evan, 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.560 I think I connected with Marla. I understand you may 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.240 be seeing her or I'm not sure you're dating her 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.039 or whatever it's going on, but do you mind if 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:46.880 I asked her on a date? He said, sure, we're 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.000 just friends. It's no big deal, no problem. I have 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.960 no problem. Appreciate you asking and have fun. I think 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.360 that was a Tuesday, I was, I think November four. 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.680 The Thursday, November six, I called her and then I said, 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:00.599 what are you doing tomorrow night? We went on on 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.160 a date and that was thirty one years together. After 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.640 that date, I just knew that there was something about 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.120 Marla that I wasn't letting go of John graduates then 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.600 finds a job very quickly in the real estate business 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:16.279 in Chicago. He and Marla commute back and forth, and 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.200 after she graduates, she joins him in Chicago, where she 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.880 begins working as a graphic designer. They get two apartments 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.719 because their parents don't approve of a twenty one and 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.560 twenty two year old moving in together, and they keep 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.920 up that charade for a year and a half. Then 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.000 John decides to go to business school. He's ambitious and 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.280 needs another degree, and the two of them head down 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.880 to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but not before Marla's dad 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.400 corners John and asks the fatherly question, what are your intentions? 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.320 John's intentions, it seems from the moment he first meets Marla, 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.320 or to spend his life with her. They get engaged 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:57.600 on Marla's birthday, so we got married. We went to 0:06:57.640 --> 0:06:59.760 a honeymoon, and I started work two weeks later because 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.479 I had no money, and she found a job pretty 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.320 quickly as well in the traffic design business. She was 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:09.400 pretty talented, and we started our lives. I was a 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.640 lowly associate at Bankers Trust in the real estate investment 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.440 banking group, calling on clients and doing pitch books and 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.600 raising money, and that's what we did. We stayed in 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.960 New York for about six years, and then we moved 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.440 out to the suburbs in the right one our second 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.280 just before a second was going to be born. So 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.960 your firstborn was born in the city. They were all 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:34.440 born in the city. Were all born in the city. Yes, 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.720 three daughters, three daughters. So we moved to Scarsdale, which 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.600 is a bedroom community, which is about a thirty five 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.640 minute train ride from midtown. You're now a father of three, 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.440 and is Marla still working at this point. No, Marls 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:54.040 stopped working shortly after Sarah was born. So what were 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.680 those early years like of this young family living in 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.640 Scarsdale and you commuting into the city. Once you you 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.960 know you're you're in the nursery school or preschool, with 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:07.280 the synagogue or with the elementary school. Then you all 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.840 of a sudden you have like these these automatic play 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.200 groups and friend groups and adult groups. I may not 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.960 have been the best father early on because I was 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.560 working really hard. We're going to take a short break. 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.600 I was working really hard, and I was never around. 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:36.800 I was on the road three or four days a week. 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.520 I was worked very very late, often on weekends and 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.959 going back on the city on weekends. Or I worked 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.760 in an office and in my house. But I was 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:51.920 quite dedicated to my career at that juncture, and there 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.400 were high expectations on that. I worked exceedingly hard for 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.360 my clients. So John and Marla live a traditional, lovely 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:05.480 family life in suburban Westchester. He's ambitious, competitive in his work. 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.440 He loves the deal, the game. They have a vibrant 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:14.040 social world filled with other families and John's clients. The 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.320 girls are little. He's a devoted dad, though he also 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.079 describes himself as distracted, not quite as present as he 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.280 wishes he had been. Now that he reviews history, his 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.840 phone is never far away. Still, he's always at their 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.280 daughter's recitals and sporting events. He and Marla are in 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.040 the thick of abundant, busy, burgeoning lives. There are a 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:40.319 couple who would seem blessed, golden, like nothing dark or 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:46.360 terrible could ever touch them. We had enormous fun hiking 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:51.200 and bike riding and a skiing and all sorts of 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:57.080 family excursions that included some form of outdoor experience. And 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.199 having three daughters, they just saw this woman that could 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.640 do anything. I was a pretty good athlete, but I 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.480 wasn't anywhere close. So was this big joke that how 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.360 good she was, and you know, versus me. So the 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.199 girls gravitated to her and her athleticism and her her creativity. 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.040 And she was this designer and she could cook, and 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.240 she could she could art some crafts, and she put 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.600 herself together with these incredible outfits. So she had this 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:28.600 incredible design, athletic and persona that was. She had this 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:33.120 stunning quality to her. Marla is diligent, very diligent about 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.120 her health. She takes care of herself, sees her doctors, 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.200 makes sure she stays on top of annual testing. Sure enough, 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.959 in two thousand and nine, she went for her regular test. 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:45.760 I think it was on a Thursday. She went to 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:47.679 test and she usually heard by the end of the 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.560 day what the results were. And I was traveling and 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.080 I came home on that Friday afternoon and she said 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.319 to me, I'm not sure what's going on here. Doesn't 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.079 do something doesn't feel right, something doesn't feel right. This 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.080 is taken too long. And she had a premonition and 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.760 that at four thirty or five o'clock the night before that. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.320 This was an hour or two before we had to 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.800 go to this first initiation for bought Mitzvah's from my 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.120 oldest and we found out that, you know, there was 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.200 something we weren't really sure, but it was something, and 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:22.240 that they thought it was the early stage of breast cancer. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.240 And this was in March thirty one to two thousand 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:28.920 and nine that we got that in Zinger, and that 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:33.360 really rocked us. We weren't really sure where it came 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.480 from and who got how how it existed, and so 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.080 forth and so on, and before you know that, we 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:43.040 spent the next few weeks interviewing doctors, surgeons, all sorts 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.560 of experts in the city. We were pretty well connected 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.840 and we were able to find the right people pretty quickly, 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.400 and and we started finding out that the type of 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.720 cancer that she had was more severe from Ussell than 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.960 most others. Even though it was early stage. We knew 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:59.679 that it was something that we needed to contend with, that, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:01.640 you know, we need to keep our eye on this one. 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.840 And then we found out after some further blood tests, 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.160 that there is a cancer and linkage or a determinant 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.400 potential determinant of breast cancer in women from the Jewish 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.320 faith that do have a link to a mutation called 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.520 the b r C a mutation, and it turned out 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.839 that when Marrol took the blood test, she had it. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.480 If we had known this maybe five or seven years previous, 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.800 we probably may have had kids sooner, and we would 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:35.000 have been more proactive than reactive to certain things that 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.120 you can do under precautionary circumstances. You would have probably 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.880 have done a bilader on vasectomy before you were thirty 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:44.760 or thirty five, and that ZIP code, and you probably 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.400 would have had your ovaries taken out by your time 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:51.480 you were forty. She was forty one. So this was 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.920 all happening, and so the all this news was coming 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.960 at us pretty rapidly, and we decided to do all 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:02.280 that at once, and because we wanted to be extra 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.200 certain at that time that we we're hopeful of zapping 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.760 the cancer. She decided to do eight rounds of chemo 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.280 right after that, so she did a bilateral mess actomy, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.080 she had an ovaries remove, she did eight rounds of chemo. 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.319 We had a six month period where she was really 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.520 you know, taking it in it, in it, in it, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.719 And during that period of time, your daughters were eight 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.000 and eleven, and they were aware that she had been 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.360 diagnosed with breast cancer at that time, and they knew 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:33.920 that they knew that she was gonna lose her hair, 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.240 they knew that she was going to be going through 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.240 what I just described. But Marla took a very different 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:47.080 approach to that. It's more mind over body and refused 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:51.280 to change her lifestyle for this diagnosis. And despite the 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.840 fact that she couldn't run for a few weeks because 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.680 of what was going on with some of the surgeries, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.640 she was walking tremendously, and then even during chemo she 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.559 wasn't supposed to run, she ran four or five six 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.280 days a week between during these periods times at very 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:10.040 long distances, and this was her way of telling cancer 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:15.760 that so fast. So this showed the kids most importantly 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.520 that she wasn't going to succumb to any of the 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:26.880 rumors or expectations of what toxicities would do. So everybody 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:28.840 was telling her or you're gonna be really, you're gonna 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.400 be drowsy, you're gonna be nauseous, You're not gonna have 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:36.160 any energy. She was up at six six every morning running, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.960 just refused, refused to listen to any of these whispers 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.760 and just her body told her you can do this, 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:46.360 you can do this, And a couple of times she 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.880 rested and she didn't feel it. But for the most part, 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.760 she was defying anything that was told to her or 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.080 risks that were told her. So the kids saw her 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.120 living normally. She was involved in the school, she was 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.840 wearing a wig, a wig came off, she had short hair, 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.040 it grew back. The kids didn't care. So would you 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.760 say at that time for your kids, this was like 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.480 a speed bump, but not speed bump right. In fact, 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:14.600 the entire time it was a speed bump because she 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.720 never let it control her lifestyle. We went on trips, 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.400 we were active in the community, We were socially active, 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.480 we were physically active. They didn't know that, but I'm 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.520 just saying this. Our lifestyle did not change, and they 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.120 didn't see any difference to a normal family that may 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:39.720 not have been dealing with a cancer situation. Did the community, 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.440 you know, your community, the school community, the temple community. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:47.280 Did they know that? The first time we told everybody, 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:51.360 and Marlo didn't like that. It's plenty, too many Lasagnas 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.600 and too many castle roles, and too many people coming 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.160 to the house and wondering and wanting and gossiping, and 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.800 they were all scared for themselves, so they wanted to 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.720 know what it was like. And she didn't like being 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.440 the center of attention. She didn't like the pity. She 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:12.520 didn't like any of that aspect of it. So fast forwarding, 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.400 when it came back a couple of years later, she 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:23.440 refused it to anybody except for blood, except for the children. So, 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.920 just in terms of clarity, her cancer after the chemo, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:32.720 after the surgeries, went into remission. Yes, and the hope was, 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.560 we're done with this a chapter, nothing more. We're finished. 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:38.880 We're finished. And for that next year and a half 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.400 you would never have known. She felt good about her body. 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.960 She liked the newly improved. That was important to her 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.960 in terms of her body. She wanted to feel good 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.640 about it, and she felt that she licked it. And 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.960 she was very involved. And at this time now we're 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.280 involved in a big side of our community with the 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.360 bar and bought Mitzvah's and so that was big part 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.960 of Scarsdale, and and and the kids there was relatively 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.919 i would say, of the community is Jewish. And our 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.640 kids were now going through it every other year. So 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.760 we had many, many of those, So that part of 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.840 and Marla loved to dance and she loved to celebrate 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:17.919 other people and herself. That was a big part of it. 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:22.119 So she found, i would say, an ability to celebrate 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.960 more after she had this, you know, first scare, you 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.680 would never seen. Oh my god, she's incredible. I've never 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.919 I've never seen anything like it, because she just blocked 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.399 it away and and put her elbow into it and 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.400 just threw it off. And the doctors were amazed. And 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.960 every three and six months she got Queen Bill of Health. 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.600 We're all always was touching herself, always feeling, always feeling, 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.480 and she was always doing her own little probing in 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.560 areas and her lymph nodes and her ears and her 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.479 cheeks and her anywhere. But this area here and her 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:05.000 this the clavital area she was always focused on, always 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:07.720 focused on. And she felt a little p. And this 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:09.720 is a couple of years after the first diagnosis, almost 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.439 to the day. We always we didn't like March. We 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.160 didn't like March. March. March was bad for us. So 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.040 she found a little p the size of a p 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.120 on her clavical We went back to slown cattering. I'll 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.040 never forget. The doctor said, you've got menesthetic breast cancer 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.160 is back. He said, how can the p She's doing great, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.520 she feels great, he said to me, if it's not 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.600 Hodgkins lymphoma kissed the floor that we're on. The chemo 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.640 didn't work, he said, because it didn't get everything, so 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.399 sometimes it leaks upwards into this area. So this is 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.040 a normal type of breast cancer cell that was not sapped. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.440 Marla's doctor knew even before the pathology was done. He 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.800 was an expert. He had seen this many times before. 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:01.960 Of course, the pathology confirmed his worst fears. Conventional chemotherapy 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.040 had done what it could and ultimately had failed. Now 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.480 it was time for specialized clinical trials. The best of 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.960 these for Marla was being conducted at Dana Farber in Boston. 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:18.639 Their daughters at this point are now almost fourteen, almost twelve, 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.760 and just ten. Marla and John make a decision not 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:27.120 to tell them that their mother's cancer has returned. We 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.000 were told a thousand days early on. They were not 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.159 happy giving me that number. I pressed, because no doctor 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.240 wants to be on the spit churning around with a date, 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.359 A date certain His line was, you know, it's a 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.520 round a thousand days, but go live your life as 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.960 well as you can. Marla did not want to tell anybody. 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:52.520 And then we got on to this process and she 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.760 felt good, and the trial was working and working and working, 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.879 and all her accounts and all her numbers were below 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:07.080 before where she was previously. So she said, I feel good. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.760 I'm just now running up here to do my scans 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:11.800 and so forth, and coming up here. Maybe I said 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:13.280 of three or four times a month, it was two 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:15.200 times a month. Once in a while, it was one 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.560 time a month. But she wasn't blinking. She wasn't changing 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.439 her lifestyle, and she was still playing tennis, and she 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:23.760 was still running, and she was still running under the 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.720 kids all over to their sports and all their activities, 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.560 and she was still hosting birthday parties and whatever the case. 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.240 So she's like, okay, this is just the way my 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:37.359 chronic disease is going to enveloped my life. So the 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.480 longer that she went, the longer she felt like, I 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.000 don't have to tell anybody because I feel fine. I 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.000 have two questions. One is I mean, I think I 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.520 really understand this um and I think I in many 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.000 ways would feel the same way. But the feeling of 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:51.920 I don't want people to know, I don't want people 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.720 to talk, I don't want the casseroles. Was that do 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.439 you think was it? Is that pride or is that privacy? 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.679 I think it was important that she did not want 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:11.440 her kids lives tickled or affected or or bothered or 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:17.680 any type of noise associated with her to link and 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.520 make them worry or wonder. It was very simple. I 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.480 want my kids to live a normalized lifestyle as if 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:30.000 I was healthy, and I'm going to preserve that for 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:32.840 whatever I can. And she did that for nine years, 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.919 nine years, many more than a thousand days. So that 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.159 leads me to my second question, which is the parents 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.399 that were still living new or maybe siblings knew, but 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:45.879 most people in your life had no idea that this 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.880 was going on. Was what was that like for you? 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:51.600 Was that isolating for you at all? Or did you 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:57.439 just I'm I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing everybody's delts hands 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:02.960 in life. We gotta crab sandwich and we had to 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.200 deal with it. We're going to take a quick break. 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.800 We gotta crab sandwich and we had to deal with it. 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:17.760 We never looked back and what was me? Why us? 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.480 We never said that to each other. We never wondered, like, 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:22.879 you know, I wish it had it just we just 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.000 accepted it. But we tried to accept it in a 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:30.240 manner that we fought it as fiercely as humanly possible. 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:34.480 We used every access point that we possibly could, from 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:40.840 a relationship standpoint, from an involvement standpoint, from traveling around 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.919 two different hospitals to meet different doctors, to learn and 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:49.639 to educate ourselves. So um, but there was nothing we 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:54.160 can do. This is not hey, I broke my leg 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:58.000 and it's gonna mend. We thought the first time that 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:01.920 we'd get it. We knew this. Statistics were against us. 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:08.719 Um and then even the second time, she out performed 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:13.760 and pushed the boundaries, you know, three and a half 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:18.360 times more than somebody else should have, and enabled our 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:26.480 kids two go through their puberty, their adolescent teenage years, 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.400 their high school years, you know, tough times for girls, 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:33.600 not easy time for any girl. Saw them get into 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:39.560 their colleges of their dreams. They all were academically very 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:44.280 strong students. They were also incredible athletes, and they all 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:48.040 played at a Division one level, which for Scarsdale Jewish 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:52.399 girls was rare, so they were able to stay on 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:57.399 track at a very very high level. That is probably 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:02.840 only because of Marla that I saw this fierceness in 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:06.439 her to fight the early days and the way that 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.399 she lived her life knowing that she always had potentially 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:16.120 had this cancer that was lingering. So it worked for us, 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:23.399 It's not for everybody. It was uneasy fibbing. Could you 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:26.600 describe that a little bit? For instance, we'd go on 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:30.520 a vacation, but marl we always had to schedule our 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:35.240 vacations on scans or treatments, and they were all being 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:37.960 done in Boston. So we would leave from New York 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:41.040 the day after she had her scan in Boston. She 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:43.240