Katie Couric's Story

EPISODE 4 Katie Couric’s Story

Host Intro

The following podcast has been developed and paid for by Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp.

There are millions of cancer survivors in the U.S. today, and this population continues to grow. While survivors experience many triumphs, some face difficult physical and emotional obstacles as well - issues they do not expect and those around them do not understand. Our goal with this podcast is to explore cancer survivorship from the perspective of patients and caregivers, and for them to tell their stories, real, unvarnished and in their own words. My name is Patrick Ryan. Welcome to the final episode of Your Cancer Story.

Brief musical interlude

Katie Couric’s on-air colonoscopy in 2000 was a watershed moment in popular culture as well as in the cancer advocacy community.

In this episode Katie tells us the story behind the iconic moment and the tragic personal loss that led to her fierce advocacy in advancing cancer research and awareness.

If I could capture a snapshot of my life at a moment in time that felt close to perfection, it would be after the birth of our second daughter, Carrie, in 1996. We had Ellie, who was four and a half at the time, and my husband, Jay, was a lawyer and doing legal commentary on MSNBC, and I think Fox as well.

Uh, Jay and I were happily married, living in a New York City apartment, a nice apartment, nicer than I ever imagined. It was a terrible snowstorm. It was freezing outside. We were inside. I was napping on the bed with both Ellie and Carrie on my chest, and Jay was in our living room playing a Brahms lullaby on the Steinway we had given each other for our birthdays, which were two days apart.

That to me was, I think, the closest to true contentment that I’ve ever felt. There are moments in your life I think that are special because you have little children and your parents are still healthy and with you, and you have this three generations, and there’s something just so reassuring and wonderful about that.

I would say on a personal level I was extremely happy, and on a professional level I was extremely happy, and everything was going really, really well. And little did I know that in just two years my life would change forever. And, in fact, a cancer diagnosis would shatter our nuclear family.

It was a very, I think, an unseasonably cold day, if I remember. Our nanny, Nuala, who was from Northern Ireland, called me to say Jay was doubled over in pain and that I needed to come home right away.

Jay was at the time 41 years old, and like so many men his age he didn’t have a doctor. He didn’t even have a primary care physician. And I don’t think that’s that unusual because he was healthy, he exercised, he never smoked a cigarette in his life. I rushed home and we went to my doctor.

My doctor said he didn’t think it was cancer. Uh, and Jay and I went to the hospital right away because he had a mass the size of an orange that was almost obstructing his colon, He had to have an emergency, uh, resectioning. Before the resectioning, Marc Pochapin said that Jay had cancer. And that was sort of the first big shock. 1 Later, my doctor, who had first seen Jay, brought me into a small – one of those little holding rooms they have at the end of the hallway for patients. And he said he – Jay had colon cancer.

That it was, uh, advanced. And that he had cancer on his liver as well, which meant it was metastatic. It was a complete and utter shock. That was the beginning of our nine-month journey. It was – it was probably obviously the worst day of my life, other than the day he died.

When Jay was diagnosed, I really stepped into the role of advocate in a very wholehearted way. I immediately put on my reporter’s hat. I tried to learn everything I could about the disease, about new treatments, about his prognosis.

I just tried to, as Jesse Jackson would say, keep hope alive. I tried to not only be the chief investigator of potential therapies, but also the chief cheerleader for Jay. He was very positive, but he could also be a little brooding which is what attracted me to him. Um, but I just – I just didn’t want him to feel hopeless and devastated for the period he had left.

Because of my job on the Today Show, I think I had a little more access than the average person. I would also elicit the help of some of my colleagues at NBC if they could help me, if they could do research, you know. We basically put our reporters’ and producers’ hats on and tried to find out everything we could.

I wanted to leave no stone unturned. I became obsessed with how I could help my husband in any way I possibly could. So, I was really actually managing his care, and I was also not only managing his care but also managing the messaging he was getting from his doctors.

And it’s one of my biggest regrets; I think that if we had had the courage to face it and the courage to understand how tough this road was gonna be then maybe it would’ve been better. But I think I kept a lot of things from Jay, which I regret to this day. I was just frantic, looking for anything, and doing searches and making phone calls.

I think that if you’re a Type A person and you’re used to solving problems, even knowing that perhaps there was no magic bullet or no, uh, cure around the corner that at least trying to do that made me feel more empowered and less helpless in the situation.

We all just tried to get through it, day by day. And it was really – it was really hard, hardest for Jay, who one day looked at me and said, “This is no way to live.” You know, he was so weak and so thin and couldn’t really do anything, and he was a very active person. He was a great athlete. He was kind of the life of the party. He loved to dance. And to see him say, “This is no way to live,” it was crushing.

But I also knew what he meant. You know, it’s one thing if you think well, I have to go through this in order to get well. But to go through it and to know that there was nothing to really stop the cancer, that was – that was heartbreaking; heartbreaking for him and heartbreaking for me, and ultimately for our two daughters who lost their father at just 2 and 6.

I was obviously really focused on Jay during the nine months he had colon cancer. And it was to say my stress levels were off the charts is an understatement. You know, I was having trouble sleeping. I had backaches. Um, I’d wake up in the middle of the night. I hated that moment in the morning where you kind of are getting oriented, and those first 10 seconds, and it feels like you’re just waking up and it’s any other day, and then you suddenly realize the hell you’re living.

I did go to a psychiatric social worker at the hospital because I thought I really needed some place that I could unload because I tried to keep such a brave face when I was around Jay. Instantly I kind of went into, uh, determination mode. We’re gonna beat this thing. We’ll figure it out. And we never actually got to say – or, you know, really talk about things that really matter.

I think neither of us could face it, you know, it’s if we didn’t talk about it, it wouldn’t come true, or wouldn’t come to pass. I tried to take good care of myself. I think I could’ve taken better care of myself. But, um, you know, it really is important because cancer doesn’t just affect the patient. It affects the entire family and the family dynamics.

2 And you have to really keep your wits together. And I think the girls kept me really strong because I had to be there for them. I think after Jay died, uh, on January 24th, 1998, a Saturday morning, um, you know, gosh, there’s so much that – that you have to deal with, the idea that you’re not gonna have a partner, that your kids aren’t gonna have a father, that his parents and his siblings wouldn’t have a son and a brother. Um, it was – it was obviously devastating. And it took me a while to heal from that, but I also knew that I had two little girls who were depending on me. And I think my job was really helpful because not only did strangers from around the country and even the world reach out to me, but it was a much-needed distraction.

The personal became the professional because I had to share a little bit about what had happened. It would’ve been strange to viewers for me to say nothing. But I also wanted to protect Jay’s privacy, so I didn’t talk that much about what we’d been through. I felt like that wasn’t my story to tell. That was Jay’s story. I did though realize that colon cancer is so preventable. And in the process of really educating myself about Jay’s disease, I learned a lot.

That’s when I decided that it was really important for me to inform people who are watching me and who I felt supported by, even though I didn’t know most of them, that I needed to help them protect their own health and their own lives and the lives and health of their loved ones by getting screened.

I decided to get an on-air colonoscopy. It’s often said it was live. It was not live. It was videotaped because I realized that we needed to demystify and destigmatize this procedure because it’s the second leading cancer killer of men and women combined, and yet people felt uncomfortable or squeamish or embarrassed. And I always would say, “Don’t die of embarrassment.”

And when the University of Michigan said there was something called the “Couric Effect” where colonoscopies and colon-cancer screening increased 20%, I was so gratified because I knew that wasn’t just a number.

That represented so many mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and everything you can think of, and friends who survived this disease, who caught it early, and whose families would stay intact, and they would continue to be productive citizens and not have their lives cut short like Jay’s was.

It was one of the most important things I think I’ve done professionally. I think I just really sincerely wanted people to know that this was a procedure that, uh, you know, that they should talk to their doctors about it, that they need to – needed to advocate for themselves and for their own health.

I was so, so thrilled and grateful that people were getting screened and lives were being saved. You know, my mom used to say, “Into everyone’s life a little rain must fall.” And, yes, I consider myself a survivor. And I consider everyone in Jay’s family a survivor.

And my daughters are survivors. And I also like to focus attention on the people who – who did not survive because they’re still heroes in my mind. I think Jay did everything he possibly could to survive. And it really bugs me when people say, “Somebody had the will to live,” and “They, you know, won their battle with cancer because they were so strong and positive,” and it’s really I think a positive attitude never hurts, and sometimes helps.

And I think there is a mind-body connection. I’m not taking anything away from all the research that has been done there, but I think that too often makes people feel like failures, feel like less than, feel like somehow they weren’t positive enough or strong enough. And it often just comes down to luck and biology.

I’ve been so thrilled to become a cancer advocate. In fact, I often say that it’s my proudest, uh, contribution to the world, other than my daughters, is the fact that, you know, I have used my platform and my voice to raise awareness and much-needed research dollars to support the scientists who are my personal heroes.

I started Stand Up to Cancer with nine women, and we were all touched by cancer in one way or another. And we thought, you know, let’s do something about this.

3 It was a very, very exciting thing to be involved with. And I’m still involved with it, obviously. And we’re also starting to look at diversity and the importance of making sure that our research really affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and – and colors because, you know, a very small percentage of people participate in clinical trials, and an even smaller percentage are people of color.

First of all, we have to really improve those numbers overall, but particularly we need more diversity in clinical trials. And we have to also focus more on really understanding diverse populations because sometimes drugs work differently on different people with different genetic makeups.

I think from my own experience, I don’t know if other people are like me, but I think I would get some counseling with the person who has cancer to help find the language and the way in to talk about really hard things.

I practiced avoidance and so did Jay, and I think that– I think that, weirdly, that’s what I would recommend. That if, you know, get – get a professional to help you – help you talk about these things, to help you, um, share your feelings, and really, um, so you can face it with honesty and courage.

And I think there’s such a fine line between hope and acceptance, and how do you keep positive and keep hopeful and keep trying and not give up? But how do you also give someone permission to grieve their own lives?

And I think that’s a very important and challenging thing, and I think even doctors have a hard time dealing with it. That’s what I would wish for people; some kind of help and some kind of guidance in how to navigate the – the painful emotional toll that cancer takes on not only the patient, but the entire family.

Host Outro

Musical interlude Cancer is a journey with many passengers. Whether you’re a patient or a caregiver, cancer can be a relentless and difficult road. But it can also be an enlightening and profound experience shared by millions of people around the world.

For those whose lives and families have been forever altered by a cancer diagnosis, we hope that listening to our series has brought you a sense of comfort in knowing that you are not alone.

My name is Patrick Ryan. Thank you for listening to Your Cancer Story.

Visit yourcancerstory.com for more educational information, inspirational stories, and support across all phases of the cancer journey.

This podcast has been developed and paid for by Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp.

Your Cancer Story is sponsored by Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA. This site is intended for U.S. Residents only. The information provided on this site is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your healthcare provider directly with any questions you may have regarding your health, condition or treatment. Your healthcare provider should be your primary source of information regarding your medical condition and treatment. 4