Speaker 1: This is let's be clear with Shannon, Drney a little
Speaker 1: Let's be clear family. This is doctor Lawrence Pirou.
Speaker 2: I'm the president CEO of the Angelus Clinic and Research Institute,
Speaker 2: an oncologist, and most of you listening to this know
Speaker 2: me because I was Shannon's doctor and Shannon's friend. And
Speaker 2: this is really the first time I've talked about Shannon
Speaker 2: since she passed away. I wasn't even sure I wanted
Speaker 2: to do that. It's been hard to talk about her,
Speaker 2: even amongst family and friends. Oh, because you know, she
Speaker 2: was bigger than life. She was so big and so present,
Speaker 2: and when she was in your life, she was, you know,
Speaker 2: hugely in your life. And so it actually doesn't seem
Speaker 2: like she's gone. It seems like she's on location doing
Speaker 2: a film or series somewhere and she's working super long hours,
Speaker 2: and so we're not really talking very much. And that
Speaker 2: kind of makes the processing of all of it, you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit more more difficult, because there's still the
Speaker 2: idea that, you know, when that gig is done, she'll
Speaker 2: be back and we'll be having dinners and long conversations
Speaker 2: and talking and about all the things and doing all
Speaker 2: the things that we always did. And so when I
Speaker 2: was thinking about whether I wanted to do this, and
Speaker 2: I sat down with Rosa, we had a chat. I
Speaker 2: see Rose all the time. I take care of Rose
Speaker 2: as well, and I know all of you are concerned
Speaker 2: about her too. So Rosa's doing fine. She's she lives
Speaker 2: in Shannon's house, and she's taking care of the dogs
Speaker 2: and doing all the things that she did before, and
Speaker 2: she's you know, she's grieving.
Speaker 1: It's a long process.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Shannon started acting on sets at ten,
Speaker 2: and Rosa was with her all the time because she
Speaker 2: didn't want to trust her to any other kind of
Speaker 2: you know, on set keeper. So Shannon and Rosa have
Speaker 2: been obviously together all their lives, but they've been joined
Speaker 2: at the hip, and in the sense of when Shannon
Speaker 2: became kind of a professional adult at ten, if you
Speaker 2: were not certainly not an adult, but you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, a working person with her own opinions and things.
Speaker 1: They've been joined at the hip from then forward.
Speaker 2: And Shannon and Rosa with Shannon for so much of
Speaker 2: everything that Shannon did, you know, if she went places,
Speaker 2: if she did things, all of that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: they were together. So you can imagine that just the
Speaker 2: you know, the the sheer emptiness of Shannon now being there,
Speaker 2: you know, is certainly hard for her.
Speaker 1: And then her mother and you know, all of that, but.
Speaker 2: She's actually processing it very well, very naturally and normally
Speaker 2: though difficult.
Speaker 1: It's difficult, but she's doing well.
Speaker 2: And she she you know, she's so dedicated to Shannon's
Speaker 2: fans and to their you know, memory of Shannon, and
Speaker 2: they're keeping Shannon's memories alive and their loyalty to Shannon.
Speaker 2: And so I should I should express that to you,
Speaker 2: you know, on her behalf. She wanted me to to
Speaker 2: express that because it's very meaningful to her, and it's
Speaker 2: a great sense of.
Speaker 1: It's a great sense of sort of peacefulness and recognition. Really.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like when you lose someone, to know
Speaker 2: that they're you know, loved and recognized by so many people.
Speaker 1: It's a great consolation, That's what I should say.
Speaker 2: It's a great consolation and and she feels that, and
Speaker 2: so I passed that along to all of you. You know,
Speaker 2: people have asked me a lot, not just fans from Afar,
Speaker 2: but also people who saw Shannon with me, you know,
Speaker 2: socially at places you know, a few weeks before she died,
Speaker 2: and she looked so great when we were out to
Speaker 2: dinner and did not.
Speaker 1: Look sick and all of that.
Speaker 2: So when news of her death came, you know, was
Speaker 2: particularly shocking. People knew she had a long journey with cancer,
Speaker 2: but nobody was really expecting that she was going to
Speaker 2: pass away at that time.
Speaker 1: And that is due to several reasons.
Speaker 2: One is that, you know, Shannon, it's incredibly healthy and
Speaker 2: great at putting herself together, and she looked great even
Speaker 2: no matter how sick she was.
Speaker 1: She really really looked great. You know, there were no
Speaker 1: limitations of her movements or anything like that, so there
Speaker 1: were really no no visible evidence to others who didn't know,
Speaker 1: you know, how much the disease had progressed, that it
Speaker 1: had progressed that much, and you know what, she didn't
Speaker 1: want anybody to know.
Speaker 2: She absolutely didn't really want anybody to know. And they
Speaker 2: knew that she had stage four cancer, but she didn't
Speaker 2: want anyone to know exactly where it was at.
Speaker 1: Because she wasn't looking for you know, sympathy.
Speaker 2: She was fighting every day, you know, fully forward and
Speaker 2: she wanted to look good and look active and live
Speaker 2: her full on life and things just you know, hit
Speaker 2: a turning point and happened very quickly.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was probably that she was so well compensated for
Speaker 2: so long despite the condition of things, that after it
Speaker 2: hit a certain critical point, then it couldn't be compensated anymore.
Speaker 2: And and so then things went you know, relatively quickly.
Speaker 1: And but but.
Speaker 2: The job at that point was for her to be very,
Speaker 2: very comfortable and and and so she was.
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people want under like, how could it have turned
Speaker 2: to stage or they don't really understand that that particular
Speaker 2: process of what happened. And you know, she did very
Speaker 2: well after her initial therapy and you know, did you
Speaker 2: very aggressive treatment on her, and she was in a
Speaker 2: great remission. And then on you know, routine follow up,
Speaker 2: it turned up. And people have asked, well, wouldn't it
Speaker 2: turn up on skins and things. Yes, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: It turned up on routine follow up. She's completely having
Speaker 2: no symptoms or anything, and it turned up, you know,
Speaker 2: just unexpectedly, and and it was not there was not
Speaker 2: very much there, but it had spread in a way
Speaker 2: that it was stage four And so that changed our
Speaker 2: journey and changed our course of treatments and changed the
Speaker 2: balance of things, you know, for her, and so then
Speaker 2: she had to make different choices about things and what
Speaker 2: was important to her. But we, you know, marched on
Speaker 2: for a very very very long time, and she did
Speaker 2: so well, and she lived her life to the fullest.
Speaker 2: And as everyone's surprised to see how active she was
Speaker 2: and how much she was doing and then suddenly she
Speaker 2: was gone.
Speaker 1: That shows you that she lived every day to the fullest,
Speaker 1: all way up to the very end.
Speaker 2: And also people have asked me about clinical trials for her,
Speaker 2: and yes, we looked at many clinical trials along the way.
Speaker 2: Clinical trials are complicated because they're very rigidly structured, so
Speaker 2: you have to have certain criteria and you have to
Speaker 2: meet those criteria. And what clinical trials you know, might
Speaker 2: have been interesting to us for her particular situation were
Speaker 2: things that she couldn't fit those criteria for a variety
Speaker 2: of reasons that are you know, beyond really what we
Speaker 2: want to discuss here. But she just couldn't fit the
Speaker 2: exact clinical trial criteria for those and so we didn't
Speaker 2: ever enter into a clinical trial per se.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that was so interesting
Speaker 1: and meaningful.
Speaker 2: In the last year of her life was this podcast,
Speaker 2: you know, and so that this podcast holds a very
Speaker 2: special place in my heart because Shanna was very, very smart.
Speaker 2: You know, she she grew up being educated on set
Speaker 2: because she was acting since ten pretty much continuously. Little
Speaker 2: House on the Prairie and nine O two one zero
Speaker 2: and Charmed and all that.
Speaker 1: But when she's going through her education and it's.
Speaker 2: Just you know, she was, you know, voracious about information
Speaker 2: and incredibly intelligent, and so she always made her opinions
Speaker 2: based on facts and her own thought process. And you know,
Speaker 2: different people are attracted to different things than other people.
Speaker 2: You know, some people are attracted to people because they're,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever, pretty, or they're tall, or they're short,
Speaker 2: or they're athletic, or the certain color hair, or you know,
Speaker 2: what they do for a living or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Shannon was attracted to minds, She was attracted to intelligence,
Speaker 2: and she loved a great conversation and she could carry
Speaker 2: on a great conversation. Was a great participant in conversations,
Speaker 2: and she came prepared, you know, she came prepared with
Speaker 2: you know, with facts and things. She didn't just glob
Speaker 2: onto opinions of other people or opinions that were not
Speaker 2: well founded in facts. And I think that's why she
Speaker 2: wound up up making opinions about certain things along her
Speaker 2: career that she took stands on that sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: cost her in terms of her career because she, you know,
Speaker 2: felt very strongly about those things. But if you also
Speaker 2: look at those things, they were there across the board.
Speaker 2: They're not all a group of opinions or thoughts or
Speaker 2: ideas or or or or you know, political positions or
Speaker 2: personal positions that that all, you know, are all clustered
Speaker 2: around a particular thing like being conservative or being liberal,
Speaker 2: or you know, being you know, any of these labels
Speaker 2: that you want to use for different things. None of
Speaker 2: those labels fit. It was Shannon. It was Shannon's world,
Speaker 2: and it was her opinion. And and so she, you know,
Speaker 2: she's stood up for women's wages because she felt that
Speaker 2: was right. But by the same token, she might not
Speaker 2: have stood up for something else that would be congruous
Speaker 2: with that point of view, because her analysis was different.
Speaker 2: And I love that about her because it made her unpredictable,
Speaker 2: but you know, intelligently unpredictable in the way we all
Speaker 2: should be where we are finding our voice and our
Speaker 2: message is based on facts and beliefs and truth, not
Speaker 2: based on what another group of people, UH think we
Speaker 2: should believe or or if you have a certain label
Speaker 2: on you belonging to a certain religion or party or
Speaker 2: or group or whatever association, that you have.
Speaker 1: To now have the opinions associated with that.
Speaker 2: We should all be making our own opinions and our
Speaker 2: own on the basis of facts and the basis of passion.
Speaker 1: And she did that so well, that's that's something I
Speaker 1: think that's something that all of you probably recognize.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe maybe you did recognize that exactly literally like
Speaker 2: I'm saying it, But inherently you recog did her personality,
Speaker 2: which is why you know, you became so attracted to her,
Speaker 2: attached to her, because because that's how she was, you know,
Speaker 2: and she went hard for the things that she believed
Speaker 2: in and felt strongly about, and she shouldn't pay a
Speaker 2: lot of attention to the things that she didn't. She
Speaker 2: wasn't trying to control the world. She wasn't trying to
Speaker 2: control every topic, and she wasn't trying to control other people.
Speaker 1: She was just trying to move the needle forward for
Speaker 1: those issues and those those causes that she felt important.
Speaker 1: And that is you know, so many long dinners and.
Speaker 2: Long conversations that were rooted in that. And you know,
Speaker 2: if you look in today's world, I mean it's a
Speaker 2: fast moving world, and you know television, things go and
Speaker 2: snippets very quickly, and everything's about sound bites and pretty quick.
Speaker 2: In life now there are that many people that can
Speaker 2: sit down with a glass of wine and slip a
Speaker 2: glass of wine over three hours and have an intense, intelligent,
Speaker 2: fact based conversation that doesn't have fights her arguments in it.
Speaker 2: It has meaningful exchange and an openness with the possibility
Speaker 2: that you know, you might lead the conversation, you know,
Speaker 2: with a different point of view than you came with.
Speaker 1: Because that's what makes you a winner.
Speaker 2: Right when you're in a conversation, and if you're just
Speaker 2: trying to hammer home your point, only.
Speaker 1: What do you win from that? Right?
Speaker 2: But if you if you're in a conversation and you
Speaker 2: actually learn some new facts or develop some new opinions,
Speaker 2: or we can't become more more open or broad minded,
Speaker 2: or understand an issue in a way you didn't before,
Speaker 2: then you've really won. You've really left the evening with
Speaker 2: something of value. And that was always the case with Shannon.
Speaker 2: You would you would leave the evening with something value.
Speaker 2: Now I'm not saying that she didn't fight for her point.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, did she ever five her points. She's very
Speaker 2: tough for her points, and I loved it. But she
Speaker 2: always did it with facts and with playfulness and with humor.
Speaker 2: And that was great because she could laugh at herself
Speaker 2: and she could laugh at situations she didn't.
Speaker 1: Really she really enjoyed life. I mean she really, she
Speaker 1: really grabbed it, you know. And I talked before.
Speaker 2: About some of the dinner she would have, and like
Speaker 2: you know, dinner with Shannon at her house was Shannon
Speaker 2: in the kitchen cooking. She would always put out a
Speaker 2: beautiful on apasta as appetizers, which by the time we
Speaker 2: were done with this amazing bread and you know, fantastic
Speaker 2: cheeses and beautiful meats and vegetables and other things, it's like,
Speaker 2: we're really going to eat some more now. But then
Speaker 2: would come pizzas. She was a she was an absolute
Speaker 2: master at pizza. So then would come a course of pizzas.
Speaker 2: Usually that would be sensational and there were almost always
Speaker 2: three or four different types, so everybody had a taste
Speaker 2: to suit them, and then would come maybe apasta course.
Speaker 1: Or maybe meat, you know, but always something delicious.
Speaker 2: The only thing is she had served very much as
Speaker 2: fish because she didn't like fish, didn't eat fish much,
Speaker 2: but she did I remember on one occasion she did
Speaker 2: serve fish along with other things. So she knew how
Speaker 2: to cook it and she would serve it for others,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't big on eating fish herself. She also
Speaker 2: was so into food that, you know, she was up
Speaker 2: on every new restaurant when it would open, and she would,
Speaker 2: you know, she would get introduced and she would arrange
Speaker 2: a dinner there, somebody's birthday dinner or just a general dinner,
Speaker 2: and we would try all the dishes, kind of all
Speaker 2: to divide and conquer order different kinds of dishes and
Speaker 2: people could taste them. And she was very definitive about
Speaker 2: that as well. She you know, she did a very
Speaker 2: good vocabulary of cuisine and a good and a good palette,
Speaker 2: and so she could very easily get to the bottom
Speaker 2: of whether she was going back to that restaurant or not,
Speaker 2: you know, anytime soon. It was pretty you know, pretty great,
Speaker 2: pretty great. A lot of fun, such a so so
Speaker 2: very much fun. And I think that's why she didn't.
Speaker 2: She didn't want to do anything but live life to
Speaker 2: the full. She wanted to share her journey with you
Speaker 2: and tell you about about the cancer and and be
Speaker 2: able to have camaraderie with others that had it and
Speaker 2: inspire them and you know, connected them. But she didn't
Speaker 2: want that to define her life. She she wasn't a
Speaker 2: cancer person, you know. I don't think of her end
Speaker 2: that way. Yes, she had a long, long journey with him,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't She wasn't a cancer person, you know.
Speaker 2: And there are sort of two kinds of people when
Speaker 2: it comes, when it's coming towards the end.
Speaker 1: There are people who need to.
Speaker 2: Acknowledge coming toward the end and embrace that, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you know, do a set of activities to a
Speaker 2: group of people, you know, things that you maybe want
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: And other people who.
Speaker 2: Just they know it, but they just want to live
Speaker 2: every day as fully as possible and not have that
Speaker 2: be a part of their active existence that it's getting
Speaker 2: towards the end.
Speaker 1: And that's why.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, you saw her full tilt and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden you know it was done.
Speaker 2: In fact, though she did she did have a quote
Speaker 2: unquote bucket list. Though I don't think she you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think it was a kind of bucket list
Speaker 2: where she felt like, you know, I better get that
Speaker 2: list organized real, for real, fit really fast, you know,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to have that short of a time.
Speaker 2: I think it was a bigger, more long thing. But
Speaker 2: she did have a bucket list.
Speaker 1: I don't love that.
Speaker 2: I don't love that term myself only because I just,
Speaker 2: you know, I just believe in enjoying the fullness of
Speaker 2: something for what it is, and the idea that when
Speaker 2: it's doing it so it gets, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: crossed off the list before your time is done has
Speaker 2: a I don't know, it changes a little bit for me,
Speaker 2: but I know many people use that term. But and
Speaker 2: she used to every once in a while, mainly when
Speaker 2: she got offered the opportunity to do something that she
Speaker 2: really wanted to do. She's like, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the trips that we did, she goes, I know, you
Speaker 2: invited me because you knew that was on my bucket list,
Speaker 2: and I was like, actually, I invited you because I
Speaker 2: thought it would be fun and I thought you would
Speaker 2: have a great time, and I wasn't really thinking about
Speaker 2: your bucket list.
Speaker 1: But you can put it that way if you want to.
Speaker 1: It was and.
Speaker 2: Of course, like a comment like that would turn into
Speaker 2: a very jovial like discussion of bucket list and we
Speaker 2: would go back and forth and it would wind up
Speaker 2: ending with a laugh.
Speaker 1: But it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 2: It was really really amazing, really amazing human, amazing conversationalists,
Speaker 2: you know, amazing actress, amazing wits, so many things to
Speaker 2: to enjoy, which again, you know, it's just I'm sure,
Speaker 2: like in the middle of this, I have my ringer
Speaker 2: off right now my phone since I'm doing this podcast.
Speaker 2: But I'm telling you, if I had the ringer on,
Speaker 2: I would be relatively sure she'd be calling at some
Speaker 2: point because I'm really not at all. You know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't feel at all like she's not just you know,
Speaker 2: off working somewhere and being quiet for a minute. Because
Speaker 2: of that, you know, Shannon was very honest in her
Speaker 2: her you know, conversations in the podcast about the decisions
Speaker 2: that she made, and because she was so smart and
Speaker 2: so definitive, you know, she participated in every decision and
Speaker 2: she owned it, you know, and that's the thing, you know,
Speaker 2: she owned her decision making. She never said, you know,
Speaker 2: why did I do this or why did I do that.
Speaker 2: She made the decision, made the best decisions she could,
Speaker 2: and that was it. And then there was a go forward.
Speaker 2: There was no review later if it didn't turn out
Speaker 2: the way she.
Speaker 1: Hoped it would.
Speaker 2: And and we talked about, you know, the reasons that
Speaker 2: she didn't take you know, tmoxiden in the very beginning,
Speaker 2: because she had been on you know, hormone blockade for
Speaker 2: a little while for a few months and didn't really
Speaker 2: like you know, the feeling and what.
Speaker 1: It did to her.
Speaker 2: And so after we finished chemo and surgery and radiation,
Speaker 2: she'd want to go on that. And I brought it
Speaker 2: up with her every single time that we met in
Speaker 2: the office, said do you do you want to revisit
Speaker 2: this decision? Are you sure you know about that decision?
Speaker 2: You're shure making the right decision, we look at the data, whatever,
Speaker 2: And each time she you know, recommitted to the fact
Speaker 2: that she'd want to do that. And of course, you
Speaker 2: know when a few years later, on a scan you know,
Speaker 2: shows up some spots that are now making stage four
Speaker 2: are you, like heart sinks into your stomach about not
Speaker 2: having taken a new look. We don't know if that
Speaker 2: would have happened, even if she would have taken it.
Speaker 2: Because when you're taking quote unquote adjubant therapy, which is
Speaker 2: what that was, adjubant meaning there's no evidence of cancer
Speaker 2: and you're taking.
Speaker 1: This pill to decrease the odds that comes back.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't know if you would have been
Speaker 2: someone where it was destined to come back, or whether
Speaker 2: the pill would have saved you, but certainly makes you,
Speaker 2: you know, wonder and wonder about that decision.
Speaker 1: But she, you know, she really didn't spend.
Speaker 2: A lot of time and regret and I admire that,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, we all should live that way.
Speaker 1: We all try to.
Speaker 2: Yet many times we spend time focusing on why we
Speaker 2: made a certain decision and regretting it when it was
Speaker 2: an outcome we didn't expect.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes you're looking in the rear of your
Speaker 1: mirror trying to.
Speaker 2: Figure out how you got where you are instead of
Speaker 2: looking forward in terms of where you're going. And then
Speaker 2: mac truck hicks, you, you know, so you really got
Speaker 2: to be focusing, You got to be focusing your attention
Speaker 2: on where you're at and where you're going forward, and
Speaker 2: not trying to double back on the decisions that were
Speaker 2: made before, because it's a that's a losing game. It
Speaker 2: doesn't never makes you feel good, never makes you feel better.
Speaker 2: Often you don't ever kind of piece it back together
Speaker 2: because you don't always remember all of the the vectors
Speaker 2: that were impacting your decision of the time you were
Speaker 2: making it. So because in retrospect, some of those vectors
Speaker 2: you know, are still evident and some are not so evident,
Speaker 2: and and so you forget some of them, and then
Speaker 2: you retrace it, you can't remember them all, and you
Speaker 2: get caught up in this you know, web of you
Speaker 2: know of situation. And so I would say that, you know,
Speaker 2: it's really it's really of no.
Speaker 1: Value to do that.
Speaker 2: The best thing is just look at where you're at,
Speaker 2: and look at the data for where you are, make
Speaker 2: the bests as you can, and move forward and don't
Speaker 2: don't revisit it. And she certainly that was the Shannon way,
Speaker 2: and I think it was incredibly you know, healthy, every
Speaker 2: person with stage four cancer as a different course, and
Speaker 2: you know, it depends on what type of cancer and
Speaker 2: with the inspective of breast cancer. You know, there's estrogen
Speaker 2: receptor positive and negative.
Speaker 1: There's hurt too, positive and negative, many.
Speaker 2: Different you know, things that stratify your your your likely
Speaker 2: outcome and what the treatments are. And there's high volume
Speaker 2: disease and low volume disease, and it depends on which
Speaker 2: organ it spreads to. But there are many people with
Speaker 2: stage four disease that are able to live even decades,
Speaker 2: you know, coexisting with the disease or with it in
Speaker 2: a remission, but sort of knowing if the treatment or
Speaker 2: is stopped, maybe it would grow back. So everyone has
Speaker 2: a different course. And we certainly got a very long
Speaker 2: and good course and beat the odds in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways, and that there's some people who beat the
Speaker 2: odds even more. And then there are some people who
Speaker 2: have more difficult and shorter courses. So I don't think
Speaker 2: it's good to personalize if you have stage four cancer.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's good to personalize other people's you know,
Speaker 2: journey and outcome towards your own, because there are so
Speaker 2: many stratifying factors that weigh upon it. And when you're
Speaker 2: listening to someone else's story, you usually don't you know,
Speaker 2: you don't have those other factors, You don't have those
Speaker 2: other elements because they may not have told you in
Speaker 2: the story, they may have shared that with you, so
Speaker 2: you can't really personalize it in a way that's meaningful.
Speaker 2: And so I think, you know, it's certainly good to
Speaker 2: you know, use some people have had good courses as
Speaker 2: an inspiration. Maybe that, I mean, I think that's a
Speaker 2: nice thing. But if if someone else is having a
Speaker 2: bad course, it just it just doesn't mean that you.
Speaker 1: Know that it's going to apply to you.
Speaker 2: And you know, we talked a lot about quality of life, right,
Speaker 2: but your mental state, right, your mental state, your ability
Speaker 2: to feel like I'm on this planet with two feet
Speaker 2: on it, on solid territory, engaged in my life, engaged
Speaker 2: with my wife or my husband, my children, my parents,
Speaker 2: my friends, whoever they are that.
Speaker 1: Are engaged in your world.
Speaker 2: But that you're you're planning on the ground, you're really here,
Speaker 2: You're engaged in your life and you're enjoying your life.
Speaker 1: This is quality of life, This is meaningful life.
Speaker 2: If every day is just wondering what the next scan
Speaker 2: is going to bring, and you know what the next
Speaker 2: turn of events is going to be with regard to
Speaker 2: your disease. This is not quality of life because then
Speaker 2: when you look at your kids, you're, you know, your
Speaker 2: eyes missed up, wondering am I going to you know,
Speaker 2: see them graduate or see them get married or whatever,
Speaker 2: And it just takes you to a place where every day,
Speaker 2: you know, is filled with sadness, remorse and loss, you know,
Speaker 2: rather than joy, hopefulness, you know, and possibility. And so
Speaker 2: I know it's easier to say that than to do that,
Speaker 2: but we all have to live every single day embracing
Speaker 2: and fully engaged as much as you can. And I
Speaker 2: can tell you lots of situations of patients that I
Speaker 2: have who have stage four cancer and they outlive other
Speaker 2: people in their lives who were not even diagnosed with
Speaker 2: cancer at all, but during the course of their life
Speaker 2: with the stage four cancer, the other people in their
Speaker 2: life get something and pass away from it and they're
Speaker 2: still alive with stage four cancer.
Speaker 1: So or there are car accidents or other kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So none of.
Speaker 2: Us has any guarantee of how much time we have
Speaker 2: or what's coming. So we should all be engaged every
Speaker 2: single day and make it real and to pay deference
Speaker 2: to what we call this podcast.
Speaker 1: What Shannon call this podcast.
Speaker 2: Let's be clear, you know, let's be clear about the
Speaker 2: fact that we should all engage as much as we
Speaker 2: can in life because there are no guarantees of time.
Speaker 2: And although it seems like someone with stage four cancer,
Speaker 2: you know, might have a clearer path to you know,
Speaker 2: the time length they have and what's likely to happen,
Speaker 2: and often other people get surprised. So I feel I
Speaker 2: feel like people Shannon, like Shannon, you know, inspire me
Speaker 2: in my life to try to make sure I do
Speaker 2: everything that I want to do as much as I
Speaker 2: can each day, in addition to doing the things that
Speaker 2: I have to do, so that when the day is done.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Lived a full day that I was engaged in and
Speaker 2: that I enjoyed, and I think we should all try
Speaker 2: to do that. I think the concept of living with
Speaker 2: cancer is something that is hard for people to understand
Speaker 2: because a lot of times cancer and historically has been
Speaker 2: something you either find it early and you cut it
Speaker 2: out and.
Speaker 1: You're done with it, or you cut it out.
Speaker 2: And you take some chemotherapy and maybe some radiation therapy
Speaker 2: and then you're finished with.
Speaker 1: It, or you can't remove it.
Speaker 2: And the treatment or the treatatment doesn't work that well,
Speaker 2: and it progresses and you die. But we're living in
Speaker 2: an era where in addition to traditional chemotherapy and radiation
Speaker 2: therapy and surgery, we now have targeted therapies, therapies that
Speaker 2: are directed toward specific molecular abnormalities and tumors for which
Speaker 2: there are drugs that interact in that molecular abnormality and
Speaker 2: change the course of how the cell grows and moves
Speaker 2: and does things. And then we also have this vast
Speaker 2: important field of immunotherapy where we're now able to manipulate
Speaker 2: the immune system to see the tumor cells and to
Speaker 2: kill them. And there are tremendous drugs that are now
Speaker 2: you know, available that are immunotherapies. And so now we
Speaker 2: have a situation where we may not be able to eradicate.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we can't eradicate the cancer altogether and have good
Speaker 2: long remissions and or cures. But in some situations of
Speaker 2: stage four where we can, we can arrest it or
Speaker 2: put into remission and then it relapses and then another
Speaker 2: remission and all of that, and sometimes it's possible to
Speaker 2: piece together all those pieces into a time frame where
Speaker 2: you're actually living out the longevity the lifetime that the
Speaker 2: universe intended for you before you've got cancer. So I
Speaker 2: think that that you don't have to think of stage
Speaker 2: four cancer as and of course it varies directly, you
Speaker 2: know immensely by cancer which type of cancer you have
Speaker 2: to think about it necessarily that it's automatically define in
Speaker 2: your longevity, but rather something you may have to live with.
Speaker 2: But if you have to live with it, that's where
Speaker 2: I say the quality of life is so important, because
Speaker 2: when you're going ten in fifteen years and you're not
Speaker 2: in remission, but you're not progressing, and you may be
Speaker 2: taking some medications and pills, some infusion once a while,
Speaker 2: but everything's okay, then you need to embrace life and
Speaker 2: live life and not let cancer define you. And that's
Speaker 2: what and that's one of the things that Shannon did
Speaker 2: so well is she didn't let cancer define her. And
Speaker 2: I say that a lot to patients when I'm meeting
Speaker 2: with them and talking to them and beginning it's say,
Speaker 2: you know, listen, especially if it's something where you know
Speaker 2: we're going to be able to do some treatments and
Speaker 2: most likely put it into a remission that will will
Speaker 2: be a cure, you know, especially young people, young people
Speaker 2: with Hodgkins ease or maybe testicular cancer some of those
Speaker 2: other things that might be curable. I say, I don't
Speaker 2: want you to become a cancer person. I want you
Speaker 2: to be a person who once had cancer, but don't
Speaker 2: be a cancer person because you know it. You know
Speaker 2: it consumes you know, it does consume your life and
Speaker 2: your identity, and it's always going to be a part
Speaker 2: of your history, but it shouldn't be a part of
Speaker 2: your you know, your identity. And a lot of times
Speaker 2: people they find incredible wealth of point of view and
Speaker 2: even sort of patina on life after having gone through it.
Speaker 2: Some people just have terrible PTSD and are just so fearful,
Speaker 2: and it really very adversely affects them, even if they're
Speaker 2: in remission or cured. But some people, if they dig deep,
Speaker 2: who've dug very deep and really looked at it, they
Speaker 2: find if I'm new meaning. And I've even had some
Speaker 2: artists in musicians who you know, really were not being
Speaker 2: that successful. They were great musicians, but they hadn't hit
Speaker 2: that kind of place where they really took off, you know,
Speaker 2: before having cancer and then and then once they had
Speaker 2: the cancer experience, I said to them, listen, I want
Speaker 2: you to know that you're going to go through this
Speaker 2: journey and it's going to give you grit, and it's
Speaker 2: going to give you, you know, gravitas, and it's going
Speaker 2: to give you life experience that is not going to
Speaker 2: feel very good, but it's going to give you something
Speaker 2: to talk about.
Speaker 1: It's going to give you something to feel. And if
Speaker 1: you if you really process this both in your mind
Speaker 1: and your heart, but in your music, you will have
Speaker 1: the most successful career that you possibly have coming out
Speaker 1: of this. And there have been many occasions where I've
Speaker 1: been one hundred percent correct about that that they really
Speaker 1: took off during and after this therapy because they they
Speaker 1: had they now knew how.
Speaker 2: To say stories and say things that that relate to
Speaker 2: other people. You know that they lived life. They lived
Speaker 2: life in the grittiest, most difficult way they could, and
Speaker 2: that causes you to just see it all differently and
Speaker 2: to be able to tell the story in a way
Speaker 2: that moves others. So I think that instead of thinking
Speaker 2: of this as a scary, big thing, we should think
Speaker 2: about it as just one of those things that can't
Speaker 2: happen and you embrace it and whatever the circumstances are,
Speaker 2: but you try to, you know, you try to own it,
Speaker 2: and you try to use it to build yourself forward
Speaker 2: if you can.
Speaker 1: Not everyone has that. Not everyone has that opportunity.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's quite a vary thing, but I think
Speaker 2: I think that's the way you have to begin looking
Speaker 2: at it and know that the universe has a wisdom
Speaker 2: about it and for whatever reason, you know, your destiny
Speaker 2: had this piece in it, and so how can you
Speaker 2: take this piece and turn it into something that makes
Speaker 2: the next phase of your life, you know, even richer
Speaker 2: and better and sort of more unexpectedly amazing. I think
Speaker 2: one of the things when you think about a person
Speaker 2: that you've known and their time comes to an end,
Speaker 2: I think it's very important to reflect what did that
Speaker 2: person leave me with? How am I changed from from
Speaker 2: her or from him or them? How I changed? Because
Speaker 2: every person that you commit real time to helps uncover
Speaker 2: pieces of you that you wouldn't have uncovered have they
Speaker 2: not entered your life. You think of your life in
Speaker 2: a way as kind of a big jigsaw puzzle. If
Speaker 2: you think part of the mission of life, maybe the
Speaker 2: most important mission of life is to turnover as many
Speaker 2: of those pieces as you can in the time that
Speaker 2: you have, so that by the time you're finished, you've
Speaker 2: revealed the clearest picture of who you uniquely were. And
Speaker 2: the more pieces you turn over, the better that picture is.
Speaker 2: And that who you are takes into account your gifts
Speaker 2: and your talents, and your commitments and your intelligence and
Speaker 2: all the unique features that each of us has. And
Speaker 2: so when people come into our lives, they help us
Speaker 2: turn over pieces of that puzzle that we wouldn't have
Speaker 2: turned over on our own because we maybe you didn't
Speaker 2: have the courage to, or we didn't really know anything
Speaker 2: about that part of who we were. We never had
Speaker 2: anyone in our life that was like that, And so
Speaker 2: they challenged you into your discomfort zone, and you, for
Speaker 2: some reason, trust them and go there and learn things
Speaker 2: about yourself. So I think that you know, with Shannon,
Speaker 2: if you knew her from Afar, you know through her
Speaker 2: work and all that.
Speaker 1: I think, watching the way she lived her.
Speaker 2: Life and all that, you might ask yourself, what did
Speaker 2: she leave me with? And that becomes her everlasting, you know,
Speaker 2: contribution to you. I know, for example, you know I
Speaker 2: had the great pleasure of being Pharah Fawcet's doctor. And
Speaker 2: she was an incredible woman. And as you may remember,
Speaker 2: you know, she.
Speaker 1: Left Charlie's Angels when it was the top television show
Speaker 1: and perhaps perhaps the first television show maybe ever not
Speaker 1: sure to be a number one TV show with all women,
Speaker 1: three women as the stars. And she left the show
Speaker 1: after only about a year because she wanted other things.
Speaker 1: And most people would be afraid to do that when
Speaker 1: you get such stardom of that type, that would be
Speaker 1: afraid to leave.
Speaker 2: But Farah Fawcett was fearless. And she wore a bracelet
Speaker 2: and ankle bracelet around her ankle had some silver beads
Speaker 2: on it, and on those beads or inscribed the word
Speaker 2: fearless in Sanskrit. And I always remember that because she
Speaker 2: was fearless and you can see that in the choices
Speaker 2: that she made throughout her career, and that was really
Speaker 2: a very defining feature of who Faarah was. And she
Speaker 2: left me with that message very strongly, to try to
Speaker 2: not live a life guided by fear, but to live
Speaker 2: a life embracing the light of what you want and
Speaker 2: to try to go for that, whether you succeed or not.
Speaker 2: And Shannon had similar, very similar qualities. Shannon was also fearless.
Speaker 2: When she believed in something, she was embraced it and
Speaker 2: stood up for it and.
Speaker 1: Went for it.
Speaker 2: And that was manifest if you look at at her
Speaker 2: career as well as manifest in her personal and social interactions.
Speaker 2: But it was manifest by what I'll give you is
Speaker 2: the way I describe it and something that you know,
Speaker 2: I think this is always my best way to describe
Speaker 2: what Shannon did, and that's Shannon always did Shannon. Shannon
Speaker 2: always did Shannon, and you should always do you. That's
Speaker 2: what I believe is the last thing legacy and if
Speaker 2: and that's I believe Shannon would have to say, because
Speaker 2: whether it had consequences or not, if she thought she
Speaker 2: had to do it, she did it, and she always
Speaker 2: did it, you know, true to her set of principles.
Speaker 2: So Shannon always did Shannon. And I would say that
Speaker 2: the best legacies you could have and the best way
Speaker 2: you could honor her, and maybe the best way that
Speaker 2: you can live your own life to the fullest, and
Speaker 2: in some way similar way Shannon would be to always
Speaker 2: do you. M h
Speaker 1: M hmmmmmmmmm