November 4, 2024 • 41 mins
For the first time since Shannen's passing, her world renowned Oncologist Dr. Lawrence Piro opens up about losing his beloved friend and patient.He reveals how he cared for her during the final days of her battle with cancer, and speaks about the decision that could have changed her course.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is let's be clear with Shannon, Drney a little
Let's be clear family. This is doctor Lawrence Pirou.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm the president CEO of the Angelus Clinic and Research Institute,
an oncologist, and most of you listening to this know
me because I was Shannon's doctor and Shannon's friend. And
this is really the first time I've talked about Shannon
since she passed away. I wasn't even sure I wanted
to do that. It's been hard to talk about her,
(00:33):
even amongst family and friends. Oh, because you know, she
was bigger than life. She was so big and so present,
and when she was in your life, she was, you know,
hugely in your life. And so it actually doesn't seem
like she's gone. It seems like she's on location doing
(00:54):
a film or series somewhere and she's working super long hours,
and so we're not really talking very much. And that
kind of makes the processing of all of it, you know,
a little bit more more difficult, because there's still the
idea that, you know, when that gig is done, she'll
be back and we'll be having dinners and long conversations
(01:15):
and talking and about all the things and doing all
the things that we always did. And so when I
was thinking about whether I wanted to do this, and
I sat down with Rosa, we had a chat. I
see Rose all the time. I take care of Rose
as well, and I know all of you are concerned
about her too. So Rosa's doing fine. She's she lives
(01:38):
in Shannon's house, and she's taking care of the dogs
and doing all the things that she did before, and
she's you know, she's grieving.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It's a long process.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I mean, you know, Shannon started acting on sets at ten,
and Rosa was with her all the time because she
didn't want to trust her to any other kind of
you know, on set keeper. So Shannon and Rosa have
been obviously together all their lives, but they've been joined
at the hip, and in the sense of when Shannon
(02:11):
became kind of a professional adult at ten, if you
were not certainly not an adult, but you know what
I mean, a working person with her own opinions and things.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
They've been joined at the hip from then forward.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
And Shannon and Rosa with Shannon for so much of
everything that Shannon did, you know, if she went places,
if she did things, all of that sort of thing,
they were together. So you can imagine that just the
you know, the the sheer emptiness of Shannon now being there,
you know, is certainly hard for her.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And then her mother and you know, all of that, but.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
She's actually processing it very well, very naturally and normally
though difficult.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's difficult, but she's doing well.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And she she you know, she's so dedicated to Shannon's
fans and to their you know, memory of Shannon, and
they're keeping Shannon's memories alive and their loyalty to Shannon.
And so I should I should express that to you,
you know, on her behalf. She wanted me to to
express that because it's very meaningful to her, and it's
(03:19):
a great sense of.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's a great sense of sort of peacefulness and recognition. Really.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I mean, it's like when you lose someone, to know
that they're you know, loved and recognized by so many people.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's a great consolation, That's what I should say.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It's a great consolation and and she feels that, and
so I passed that along to all of you. You know,
people have asked me a lot, not just fans from Afar,
but also people who saw Shannon with me, you know,
socially at places you know, a few weeks before she died,
(04:00):
and she looked so great when we were out to
dinner and did not.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Look sick and all of that.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So when news of her death came, you know, was
particularly shocking. People knew she had a long journey with cancer,
but nobody was really expecting that she was going to
pass away at that time.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And that is due to several reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
One is that, you know, Shannon, it's incredibly healthy and
great at putting herself together, and she looked great even
no matter how sick she was.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
She really really looked great. You know, there were no
limitations of her movements or anything like that, so there
were really no no visible evidence to others who didn't know,
you know, how much the disease had progressed, that it
had progressed that much, and you know what, she didn't
want anybody to know.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
She absolutely didn't really want anybody to know. And they
knew that she had stage four cancer, but she didn't
want anyone to know exactly where it was at.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Because she wasn't looking for you know, sympathy.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
She was fighting every day, you know, fully forward and
she wanted to look good and look active and live
her full on life and things just you know, hit
a turning point and happened very quickly.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It was probably that she was so well compensated for
so long despite the condition of things, that after it
hit a certain critical point, then it couldn't be compensated anymore.
And and so then things went you know, relatively quickly.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And but but.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
The job at that point was for her to be very,
very comfortable and and and so she was.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Sometimes people want under like, how could it have turned
to stage or they don't really understand that that particular
process of what happened. And you know, she did very
well after her initial therapy and you know, did you
very aggressive treatment on her, and she was in a
great remission. And then on you know, routine follow up,
(06:24):
it turned up. And people have asked, well, wouldn't it
turn up on skins and things. Yes, that's exactly what happened.
It turned up on routine follow up. She's completely having
no symptoms or anything, and it turned up, you know,
just unexpectedly, and and it was not there was not
(06:47):
very much there, but it had spread in a way
that it was stage four And so that changed our
journey and changed our course of treatments and changed the
balance of things, you know, for her, and so then
she had to make different choices about things and what
was important to her. But we, you know, marched on
(07:08):
for a very very very long time, and she did
so well, and she lived her life to the fullest.
And as everyone's surprised to see how active she was
and how much she was doing and then suddenly she
was gone.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
That shows you that she lived every day to the fullest,
all way up to the very end.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And also people have asked me about clinical trials for her,
and yes, we looked at many clinical trials along the way.
Clinical trials are complicated because they're very rigidly structured, so
you have to have certain criteria and you have to
meet those criteria. And what clinical trials you know, might
(07:53):
have been interesting to us for her particular situation were
things that she couldn't fit those criteria for a variety
of reasons that are you know, beyond really what we
want to discuss here. But she just couldn't fit the
exact clinical trial criteria for those and so we didn't
(08:15):
ever enter into a clinical trial per se.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You know. One of the things that was so interesting
and meaningful.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
In the last year of her life was this podcast,
you know, and so that this podcast holds a very
special place in my heart because Shanna was very, very smart.
You know, she she grew up being educated on set
because she was acting since ten pretty much continuously. Little
(08:44):
House on the Prairie and nine O two one zero
and Charmed and all that.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
But when she's going through her education and it's.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Just you know, she was, you know, voracious about information
and incredibly intelligent, and so she always made her opinions
based on facts and her own thought process. And you know,
(09:13):
different people are attracted to different things than other people.
You know, some people are attracted to people because they're,
you know, whatever, pretty, or they're tall, or they're short,
or they're athletic, or the certain color hair, or you know,
what they do for a living or whatever it is.
Shannon was attracted to minds, She was attracted to intelligence,
(09:36):
and she loved a great conversation and she could carry
on a great conversation. Was a great participant in conversations,
and she came prepared, you know, she came prepared with
you know, with facts and things. She didn't just glob
onto opinions of other people or opinions that were not
well founded in facts. And I think that's why she
(09:58):
wound up up making opinions about certain things along her
career that she took stands on that sometimes you know,
cost her in terms of her career because she, you know,
felt very strongly about those things. But if you also
look at those things, they were there across the board.
They're not all a group of opinions or thoughts or
(10:22):
ideas or or or or you know, political positions or
personal positions that that all, you know, are all clustered
around a particular thing like being conservative or being liberal,
or you know, being you know, any of these labels
that you want to use for different things. None of
those labels fit. It was Shannon. It was Shannon's world,
(10:45):
and it was her opinion. And and so she, you know,
she's stood up for women's wages because she felt that
was right. But by the same token, she might not
have stood up for something else that would be congruous
with that point of view, because her analysis was different.
And I love that about her because it made her unpredictable,
(11:06):
but you know, intelligently unpredictable in the way we all
should be where we are finding our voice and our
message is based on facts and beliefs and truth, not
based on what another group of people, UH think we
should believe or or if you have a certain label
(11:28):
on you belonging to a certain religion or party or
or group or whatever association, that you have.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
To now have the opinions associated with that.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
We should all be making our own opinions and our
own on the basis of facts and the basis of passion.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And she did that so well, that's that's something I
think that's something that all of you probably recognize.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Maybe maybe maybe you did recognize that exactly literally like
I'm saying it, But inherently you recog did her personality,
which is why you know, you became so attracted to her,
attached to her, because because that's how she was, you know,
and she went hard for the things that she believed
in and felt strongly about, and she shouldn't pay a
(12:15):
lot of attention to the things that she didn't. She
wasn't trying to control the world. She wasn't trying to
control every topic, and she wasn't trying to control other people.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
She was just trying to move the needle forward for
those issues and those those causes that she felt important.
And that is you know, so many long dinners and.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Long conversations that were rooted in that. And you know,
if you look in today's world, I mean it's a
fast moving world, and you know television, things go and
snippets very quickly, and everything's about sound bites and pretty quick.
In life now there are that many people that can
(12:58):
sit down with a glass of wine and slip a
glass of wine over three hours and have an intense, intelligent,
fact based conversation that doesn't have fights her arguments in it.
It has meaningful exchange and an openness with the possibility
that you know, you might lead the conversation, you know,
(13:19):
with a different point of view than you came with.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Because that's what makes you a winner.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right when you're in a conversation, and if you're just
trying to hammer home your point, only.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What do you win from that? Right?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But if you if you're in a conversation and you
actually learn some new facts or develop some new opinions,
or we can't become more more open or broad minded,
or understand an issue in a way you didn't before,
then you've really won. You've really left the evening with
something of value. And that was always the case with Shannon.
You would you would leave the evening with something value.
(13:52):
Now I'm not saying that she didn't fight for her point.
Oh boy, did she ever five her points. She's very
tough for her points, and I loved it. But she
always did it with facts and with playfulness and with humor.
And that was great because she could laugh at herself
and she could laugh at situations she didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Really she really enjoyed life. I mean she really, she
really grabbed it, you know. And I talked before.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
About some of the dinner she would have, and like
you know, dinner with Shannon at her house was Shannon
in the kitchen cooking. She would always put out a
beautiful on apasta as appetizers, which by the time we
were done with this amazing bread and you know, fantastic
cheeses and beautiful meats and vegetables and other things, it's like,
(14:50):
we're really going to eat some more now. But then
would come pizzas. She was a she was an absolute
master at pizza. So then would come a course of pizzas.
Usually that would be sensational and there were almost always
three or four different types, so everybody had a taste
to suit them, and then would come maybe apasta course.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Or maybe meat, you know, but always something delicious.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
The only thing is she had served very much as
fish because she didn't like fish, didn't eat fish much,
but she did I remember on one occasion she did
serve fish along with other things. So she knew how
to cook it and she would serve it for others,
but she wasn't big on eating fish herself. She also
was so into food that, you know, she was up
on every new restaurant when it would open, and she would,
(15:39):
you know, she would get introduced and she would arrange
a dinner there, somebody's birthday dinner or just a general dinner,
and we would try all the dishes, kind of all
to divide and conquer order different kinds of dishes and
people could taste them. And she was very definitive about
that as well. She you know, she did a very
(16:01):
good vocabulary of cuisine and a good and a good palette,
and so she could very easily get to the bottom
of whether she was going back to that restaurant or not,
you know, anytime soon. It was pretty you know, pretty great,
pretty great. A lot of fun, such a so so
very much fun. And I think that's why she didn't.
(16:25):
She didn't want to do anything but live life to
the full. She wanted to share her journey with you
and tell you about about the cancer and and be
able to have camaraderie with others that had it and
inspire them and you know, connected them. But she didn't
want that to define her life. She she wasn't a
(16:47):
cancer person, you know. I don't think of her end
that way. Yes, she had a long, long journey with him,
but she wasn't She wasn't a cancer person, you know.
And there are sort of two kinds of people when
it comes, when it's coming towards the end.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
There are people who need to.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Acknowledge coming toward the end and embrace that, you know,
maybe you know, do a set of activities to a
group of people, you know, things that you maybe want
to do.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And other people who.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Just they know it, but they just want to live
every day as fully as possible and not have that
be a part of their active existence that it's getting
towards the end.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And that's why.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I think, you know, you saw her full tilt and
then all of a sudden you know it was done.
In fact, though she did she did have a quote
unquote bucket list. Though I don't think she you know,
I don't think it was a kind of bucket list
where she felt like, you know, I better get that
list organized real, for real, fit really fast, you know,
(17:52):
because I'm going to have that short of a time.
I think it was a bigger, more long thing. But
she did have a bucket list.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I don't love that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I don't love that term myself only because I just,
you know, I just believe in enjoying the fullness of
something for what it is, and the idea that when
it's doing it so it gets, you know, sort of
crossed off the list before your time is done has
a I don't know, it changes a little bit for me,
but I know many people use that term. But and
(18:23):
she used to every once in a while, mainly when
she got offered the opportunity to do something that she
really wanted to do. She's like, you know, one of
the trips that we did, she goes, I know, you
invited me because you knew that was on my bucket list,
and I was like, actually, I invited you because I
thought it would be fun and I thought you would
have a great time, and I wasn't really thinking about
(18:45):
your bucket list.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
But you can put it that way if you want to.
It was and.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Of course, like a comment like that would turn into
a very jovial like discussion of bucket list and we
would go back and forth and it would wind up
ending with a laugh.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
But it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It was really really amazing, really amazing human, amazing conversationalists,
you know, amazing actress, amazing wits, so many things to
to enjoy, which again, you know, it's just I'm sure,
(19:24):
like in the middle of this, I have my ringer
off right now my phone since I'm doing this podcast.
But I'm telling you, if I had the ringer on,
I would be relatively sure she'd be calling at some
point because I'm really not at all. You know, it
doesn't feel at all like she's not just you know,
off working somewhere and being quiet for a minute. Because
(19:44):
of that, you know, Shannon was very honest in her
her you know, conversations in the podcast about the decisions
that she made, and because she was so smart and
(20:06):
so definitive, you know, she participated in every decision and
she owned it, you know, and that's the thing, you know,
she owned her decision making. She never said, you know,
why did I do this or why did I do that.
She made the decision, made the best decisions she could,
and that was it. And then there was a go forward.
(20:26):
There was no review later if it didn't turn out
the way she.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Hoped it would.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And and we talked about, you know, the reasons that
she didn't take you know, tmoxiden in the very beginning,
because she had been on you know, hormone blockade for
a little while for a few months and didn't really
like you know, the feeling and what.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
It did to her.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
And so after we finished chemo and surgery and radiation,
she'd want to go on that. And I brought it
up with her every single time that we met in
the office, said do you do you want to revisit
this decision? Are you sure you know about that decision?
You're shure making the right decision, we look at the data, whatever,
(21:18):
And each time she you know, recommitted to the fact
that she'd want to do that. And of course, you
know when a few years later, on a scan you know,
shows up some spots that are now making stage four
are you, like heart sinks into your stomach about not
having taken a new look. We don't know if that
(21:39):
would have happened, even if she would have taken it.
Because when you're taking quote unquote adjubant therapy, which is
what that was, adjubant meaning there's no evidence of cancer
and you're taking.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
This pill to decrease the odds that comes back.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You know, you don't know if you would have been
someone where it was destined to come back, or whether
the pill would have saved you, but certainly makes you,
you know, wonder and wonder about that decision.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
But she, you know, she really didn't spend.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
A lot of time and regret and I admire that,
you know, you know, we all should live that way.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
We all try to.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yet many times we spend time focusing on why we
made a certain decision and regretting it when it was
an outcome we didn't expect.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And so sometimes you're looking in the rear of your
mirror trying to.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Figure out how you got where you are instead of
looking forward in terms of where you're going. And then
mac truck hicks, you, you know, so you really got
to be focusing, You got to be focusing your attention
on where you're at and where you're going forward, and
not trying to double back on the decisions that were
made before, because it's a that's a losing game. It
doesn't never makes you feel good, never makes you feel better.
(22:50):
Often you don't ever kind of piece it back together
because you don't always remember all of the the vectors
that were impacting your decision of the time you were
making it. So because in retrospect, some of those vectors
you know, are still evident and some are not so evident,
and and so you forget some of them, and then
you retrace it, you can't remember them all, and you
(23:12):
get caught up in this you know, web of you
know of situation. And so I would say that, you know,
it's really it's really of no.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Value to do that.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
The best thing is just look at where you're at,
and look at the data for where you are, make
the bests as you can, and move forward and don't
don't revisit it. And she certainly that was the Shannon way,
and I think it was incredibly you know, healthy, every
person with stage four cancer as a different course, and
you know, it depends on what type of cancer and
(23:47):
with the inspective of breast cancer. You know, there's estrogen
receptor positive and negative.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
There's hurt too, positive and negative, many.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Different you know, things that stratify your your your likely
outcome and what the treatments are. And there's high volume
disease and low volume disease, and it depends on which
organ it spreads to. But there are many people with
stage four disease that are able to live even decades,
(24:18):
you know, coexisting with the disease or with it in
a remission, but sort of knowing if the treatment or
is stopped, maybe it would grow back. So everyone has
a different course. And we certainly got a very long
and good course and beat the odds in a lot
of ways, and that there's some people who beat the
odds even more. And then there are some people who
have more difficult and shorter courses. So I don't think
(24:42):
it's good to personalize if you have stage four cancer.
I don't think it's good to personalize other people's you know,
journey and outcome towards your own, because there are so
many stratifying factors that weigh upon it. And when you're
listening to someone else's story, you usually don't you know,
you don't have those other factors, You don't have those
(25:05):
other elements because they may not have told you in
the story, they may have shared that with you, so
you can't really personalize it in a way that's meaningful.
And so I think, you know, it's certainly good to
you know, use some people have had good courses as
an inspiration. Maybe that, I mean, I think that's a
nice thing. But if if someone else is having a
(25:26):
bad course, it just it just doesn't mean that you.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Know that it's going to apply to you.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And you know, we talked a lot about quality of life, right,
but your mental state, right, your mental state, your ability
to feel like I'm on this planet with two feet
on it, on solid territory, engaged in my life, engaged
with my wife or my husband, my children, my parents,
(25:55):
my friends, whoever they are that.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Are engaged in your world.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
But that you're you're planning on the ground, you're really here,
You're engaged in your life and you're enjoying your life.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
This is quality of life, This is meaningful life.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
If every day is just wondering what the next scan
is going to bring, and you know what the next
turn of events is going to be with regard to
your disease. This is not quality of life because then
when you look at your kids, you're, you know, your
eyes missed up, wondering am I going to you know,
(26:31):
see them graduate or see them get married or whatever,
And it just takes you to a place where every day,
you know, is filled with sadness, remorse and loss, you know,
rather than joy, hopefulness, you know, and possibility. And so
I know it's easier to say that than to do that,
(26:53):
but we all have to live every single day embracing
and fully engaged as much as you can. And I
can tell you lots of situations of patients that I
have who have stage four cancer and they outlive other
people in their lives who were not even diagnosed with
cancer at all, but during the course of their life
(27:16):
with the stage four cancer, the other people in their
life get something and pass away from it and they're
still alive with stage four cancer.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
So or there are car accidents or other kinds of things.
So none of.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Us has any guarantee of how much time we have
or what's coming. So we should all be engaged every
single day and make it real and to pay deference
to what we call this podcast.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
What Shannon call this podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Let's be clear, you know, let's be clear about the
fact that we should all engage as much as we
can in life because there are no guarantees of time.
And although it seems like someone with stage four cancer,
you know, might have a clearer path to you know,
the time length they have and what's likely to happen,
(28:07):
and often other people get surprised. So I feel I
feel like people Shannon, like Shannon, you know, inspire me
in my life to try to make sure I do
everything that I want to do as much as I
can each day, in addition to doing the things that
I have to do, so that when the day is done.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I feel like, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Lived a full day that I was engaged in and
that I enjoyed, and I think we should all try
to do that. I think the concept of living with
(28:52):
cancer is something that is hard for people to understand
because a lot of times cancer and historically has been
something you either find it early and you cut it
out and.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
You're done with it, or you cut it out.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And you take some chemotherapy and maybe some radiation therapy
and then you're finished with.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It, or you can't remove it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And the treatment or the treatatment doesn't work that well,
and it progresses and you die. But we're living in
an era where in addition to traditional chemotherapy and radiation
therapy and surgery, we now have targeted therapies, therapies that
are directed toward specific molecular abnormalities and tumors for which
(29:40):
there are drugs that interact in that molecular abnormality and
change the course of how the cell grows and moves
and does things. And then we also have this vast
important field of immunotherapy where we're now able to manipulate
the immune system to see the tumor cells and to
kill them. And there are tremendous drugs that are now
(30:03):
you know, available that are immunotherapies. And so now we
have a situation where we may not be able to eradicate.
Sometimes we can't eradicate the cancer altogether and have good
long remissions and or cures. But in some situations of
stage four where we can, we can arrest it or
(30:24):
put into remission and then it relapses and then another
remission and all of that, and sometimes it's possible to
piece together all those pieces into a time frame where
you're actually living out the longevity the lifetime that the
universe intended for you before you've got cancer. So I
(30:45):
think that that you don't have to think of stage
four cancer as and of course it varies directly, you
know immensely by cancer which type of cancer you have
to think about it necessarily that it's automatically define in
your longevity, but rather something you may have to live with.
But if you have to live with it, that's where
(31:06):
I say the quality of life is so important, because
when you're going ten in fifteen years and you're not
in remission, but you're not progressing, and you may be
taking some medications and pills, some infusion once a while,
but everything's okay, then you need to embrace life and
live life and not let cancer define you. And that's
(31:30):
what and that's one of the things that Shannon did
so well is she didn't let cancer define her. And
I say that a lot to patients when I'm meeting
with them and talking to them and beginning it's say,
you know, listen, especially if it's something where you know
we're going to be able to do some treatments and
(31:51):
most likely put it into a remission that will will
be a cure, you know, especially young people, young people
with Hodgkins ease or maybe testicular cancer some of those
other things that might be curable. I say, I don't
want you to become a cancer person. I want you
(32:12):
to be a person who once had cancer, but don't
be a cancer person because you know it. You know
it consumes you know, it does consume your life and
your identity, and it's always going to be a part
of your history, but it shouldn't be a part of
your you know, your identity. And a lot of times
people they find incredible wealth of point of view and
(32:37):
even sort of patina on life after having gone through it.
Some people just have terrible PTSD and are just so fearful,
and it really very adversely affects them, even if they're
in remission or cured. But some people, if they dig deep,
who've dug very deep and really looked at it, they
(32:59):
find if I'm new meaning. And I've even had some
artists in musicians who you know, really were not being
that successful. They were great musicians, but they hadn't hit
that kind of place where they really took off, you know,
before having cancer and then and then once they had
(33:23):
the cancer experience, I said to them, listen, I want
you to know that you're going to go through this
journey and it's going to give you grit, and it's
going to give you, you know, gravitas, and it's going
to give you life experience that is not going to
feel very good, but it's going to give you something
(33:43):
to talk about.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
It's going to give you something to feel. And if
you if you really process this both in your mind
and your heart, but in your music, you will have
the most successful career that you possibly have coming out
of this. And there have been many occasions where I've
(34:06):
been one hundred percent correct about that that they really
took off during and after this therapy because they they
had they now knew how.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
To say stories and say things that that relate to
other people. You know that they lived life. They lived
life in the grittiest, most difficult way they could, and
that causes you to just see it all differently and
to be able to tell the story in a way
(34:40):
that moves others. So I think that instead of thinking
of this as a scary, big thing, we should think
about it as just one of those things that can't
happen and you embrace it and whatever the circumstances are,
but you try to, you know, you try to own it,
(35:00):
and you try to use it to build yourself forward
if you can.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Not everyone has that. Not everyone has that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Of course, it's quite a vary thing, but I think
I think that's the way you have to begin looking
at it and know that the universe has a wisdom
about it and for whatever reason, you know, your destiny
had this piece in it, and so how can you
take this piece and turn it into something that makes
(35:33):
the next phase of your life, you know, even richer
and better and sort of more unexpectedly amazing. I think
one of the things when you think about a person
that you've known and their time comes to an end,
I think it's very important to reflect what did that
(35:55):
person leave me with? How am I changed from from
her or from him or them? How I changed? Because
every person that you commit real time to helps uncover
(36:21):
pieces of you that you wouldn't have uncovered have they
not entered your life. You think of your life in
a way as kind of a big jigsaw puzzle. If
you think part of the mission of life, maybe the
most important mission of life is to turnover as many
of those pieces as you can in the time that
(36:42):
you have, so that by the time you're finished, you've
revealed the clearest picture of who you uniquely were. And
the more pieces you turn over, the better that picture is.
And that who you are takes into account your gifts
and your talents, and your commitments and your intelligence and
(37:07):
all the unique features that each of us has. And
so when people come into our lives, they help us
turn over pieces of that puzzle that we wouldn't have
turned over on our own because we maybe you didn't
have the courage to, or we didn't really know anything
about that part of who we were. We never had
(37:27):
anyone in our life that was like that, And so
they challenged you into your discomfort zone, and you, for
some reason, trust them and go there and learn things
about yourself. So I think that you know, with Shannon,
if you knew her from Afar, you know through her
work and all that.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I think, watching the way she lived her.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Life and all that, you might ask yourself, what did
she leave me with? And that becomes her everlasting, you know,
contribution to you. I know, for example, you know I
had the great pleasure of being Pharah Fawcet's doctor. And
she was an incredible woman. And as you may remember,
(38:15):
you know, she.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Left Charlie's Angels when it was the top television show
and perhaps perhaps the first television show maybe ever not
sure to be a number one TV show with all women,
three women as the stars. And she left the show
after only about a year because she wanted other things.
(38:41):
And most people would be afraid to do that when
you get such stardom of that type, that would be
afraid to leave.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But Farah Fawcett was fearless. And she wore a bracelet
and ankle bracelet around her ankle had some silver beads
on it, and on those beads or inscribed the word
fearless in Sanskrit. And I always remember that because she
(39:13):
was fearless and you can see that in the choices
that she made throughout her career, and that was really
a very defining feature of who Faarah was. And she
left me with that message very strongly, to try to
not live a life guided by fear, but to live
(39:34):
a life embracing the light of what you want and
to try to go for that, whether you succeed or not.
And Shannon had similar, very similar qualities. Shannon was also fearless.
When she believed in something, she was embraced it and
(39:57):
stood up for it and.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Went for it.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
And that was manifest if you look at at her
career as well as manifest in her personal and social interactions.
But it was manifest by what I'll give you is
the way I describe it and something that you know,
I think this is always my best way to describe
(40:25):
what Shannon did, and that's Shannon always did Shannon. Shannon
always did Shannon, and you should always do you. That's
what I believe is the last thing legacy and if
and that's I believe Shannon would have to say, because
whether it had consequences or not, if she thought she
(40:48):
had to do it, she did it, and she always
did it, you know, true to her set of principles.
So Shannon always did Shannon. And I would say that
the best legacies you could have and the best way
you could honor her, and maybe the best way that
you can live your own life to the fullest, and
(41:12):
in some way similar way Shannon would be to always
do you. M h
Speaker 1 (41:19):
M hmmmmmmmmm
This is let's be clear with Shannon, Drney a little
Let's be clear family. This is doctor Lawrence Pirou.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm the president CEO of the Angelus Clinic and Research Institute,
an oncologist, and most of you listening to this know
me because I was Shannon's doctor and Shannon's friend. And
this is really the first time I've talked about Shannon
since she passed away. I wasn't even sure I wanted
to do that. It's been hard to talk about her,
(00:33):
even amongst family and friends. Oh, because you know, she
was bigger than life. She was so big and so present,
and when she was in your life, she was, you know,
hugely in your life. And so it actually doesn't seem
like she's gone. It seems like she's on location doing
(00:54):
a film or series somewhere and she's working super long hours,
and so we're not really talking very much. And that
kind of makes the processing of all of it, you know,
a little bit more more difficult, because there's still the
idea that, you know, when that gig is done, she'll
be back and we'll be having dinners and long conversations
(01:15):
and talking and about all the things and doing all
the things that we always did. And so when I
was thinking about whether I wanted to do this, and
I sat down with Rosa, we had a chat. I
see Rose all the time. I take care of Rose
as well, and I know all of you are concerned
about her too. So Rosa's doing fine. She's she lives
(01:38):
in Shannon's house, and she's taking care of the dogs
and doing all the things that she did before, and
she's you know, she's grieving.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It's a long process.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I mean, you know, Shannon started acting on sets at ten,
and Rosa was with her all the time because she
didn't want to trust her to any other kind of
you know, on set keeper. So Shannon and Rosa have
been obviously together all their lives, but they've been joined
at the hip, and in the sense of when Shannon
(02:11):
became kind of a professional adult at ten, if you
were not certainly not an adult, but you know what
I mean, a working person with her own opinions and things.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
They've been joined at the hip from then forward.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
And Shannon and Rosa with Shannon for so much of
everything that Shannon did, you know, if she went places,
if she did things, all of that sort of thing,
they were together. So you can imagine that just the
you know, the the sheer emptiness of Shannon now being there,
you know, is certainly hard for her.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And then her mother and you know, all of that, but.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
She's actually processing it very well, very naturally and normally
though difficult.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's difficult, but she's doing well.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And she she you know, she's so dedicated to Shannon's
fans and to their you know, memory of Shannon, and
they're keeping Shannon's memories alive and their loyalty to Shannon.
And so I should I should express that to you,
you know, on her behalf. She wanted me to to
express that because it's very meaningful to her, and it's
(03:19):
a great sense of.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's a great sense of sort of peacefulness and recognition. Really.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I mean, it's like when you lose someone, to know
that they're you know, loved and recognized by so many people.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's a great consolation, That's what I should say.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It's a great consolation and and she feels that, and
so I passed that along to all of you. You know,
people have asked me a lot, not just fans from Afar,
but also people who saw Shannon with me, you know,
socially at places you know, a few weeks before she died,
(04:00):
and she looked so great when we were out to
dinner and did not.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Look sick and all of that.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So when news of her death came, you know, was
particularly shocking. People knew she had a long journey with cancer,
but nobody was really expecting that she was going to
pass away at that time.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And that is due to several reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
One is that, you know, Shannon, it's incredibly healthy and
great at putting herself together, and she looked great even
no matter how sick she was.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
She really really looked great. You know, there were no
limitations of her movements or anything like that, so there
were really no no visible evidence to others who didn't know,
you know, how much the disease had progressed, that it
had progressed that much, and you know what, she didn't
want anybody to know.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
She absolutely didn't really want anybody to know. And they
knew that she had stage four cancer, but she didn't
want anyone to know exactly where it was at.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Because she wasn't looking for you know, sympathy.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
She was fighting every day, you know, fully forward and
she wanted to look good and look active and live
her full on life and things just you know, hit
a turning point and happened very quickly.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It was probably that she was so well compensated for
so long despite the condition of things, that after it
hit a certain critical point, then it couldn't be compensated anymore.
And and so then things went you know, relatively quickly.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And but but.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
The job at that point was for her to be very,
very comfortable and and and so she was.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Sometimes people want under like, how could it have turned
to stage or they don't really understand that that particular
process of what happened. And you know, she did very
well after her initial therapy and you know, did you
very aggressive treatment on her, and she was in a
great remission. And then on you know, routine follow up,
(06:24):
it turned up. And people have asked, well, wouldn't it
turn up on skins and things. Yes, that's exactly what happened.
It turned up on routine follow up. She's completely having
no symptoms or anything, and it turned up, you know,
just unexpectedly, and and it was not there was not
(06:47):
very much there, but it had spread in a way
that it was stage four And so that changed our
journey and changed our course of treatments and changed the
balance of things, you know, for her, and so then
she had to make different choices about things and what
was important to her. But we, you know, marched on
(07:08):
for a very very very long time, and she did
so well, and she lived her life to the fullest.
And as everyone's surprised to see how active she was
and how much she was doing and then suddenly she
was gone.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
That shows you that she lived every day to the fullest,
all way up to the very end.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And also people have asked me about clinical trials for her,
and yes, we looked at many clinical trials along the way.
Clinical trials are complicated because they're very rigidly structured, so
you have to have certain criteria and you have to
meet those criteria. And what clinical trials you know, might
(07:53):
have been interesting to us for her particular situation were
things that she couldn't fit those criteria for a variety
of reasons that are you know, beyond really what we
want to discuss here. But she just couldn't fit the
exact clinical trial criteria for those and so we didn't
(08:15):
ever enter into a clinical trial per se.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You know. One of the things that was so interesting
and meaningful.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
In the last year of her life was this podcast,
you know, and so that this podcast holds a very
special place in my heart because Shanna was very, very smart.
You know, she she grew up being educated on set
because she was acting since ten pretty much continuously. Little
(08:44):
House on the Prairie and nine O two one zero
and Charmed and all that.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
But when she's going through her education and it's.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Just you know, she was, you know, voracious about information
and incredibly intelligent, and so she always made her opinions
based on facts and her own thought process. And you know,
(09:13):
different people are attracted to different things than other people.
You know, some people are attracted to people because they're,
you know, whatever, pretty, or they're tall, or they're short,
or they're athletic, or the certain color hair, or you know,
what they do for a living or whatever it is.
Shannon was attracted to minds, She was attracted to intelligence,
(09:36):
and she loved a great conversation and she could carry
on a great conversation. Was a great participant in conversations,
and she came prepared, you know, she came prepared with
you know, with facts and things. She didn't just glob
onto opinions of other people or opinions that were not
well founded in facts. And I think that's why she
(09:58):
wound up up making opinions about certain things along her
career that she took stands on that sometimes you know,
cost her in terms of her career because she, you know,
felt very strongly about those things. But if you also
look at those things, they were there across the board.
They're not all a group of opinions or thoughts or
(10:22):
ideas or or or or you know, political positions or
personal positions that that all, you know, are all clustered
around a particular thing like being conservative or being liberal,
or you know, being you know, any of these labels
that you want to use for different things. None of
those labels fit. It was Shannon. It was Shannon's world,
(10:45):
and it was her opinion. And and so she, you know,
she's stood up for women's wages because she felt that
was right. But by the same token, she might not
have stood up for something else that would be congruous
with that point of view, because her analysis was different.
And I love that about her because it made her unpredictable,
(11:06):
but you know, intelligently unpredictable in the way we all
should be where we are finding our voice and our
message is based on facts and beliefs and truth, not
based on what another group of people, UH think we
should believe or or if you have a certain label
(11:28):
on you belonging to a certain religion or party or
or group or whatever association, that you have.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
To now have the opinions associated with that.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
We should all be making our own opinions and our
own on the basis of facts and the basis of passion.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And she did that so well, that's that's something I
think that's something that all of you probably recognize.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Maybe maybe maybe you did recognize that exactly literally like
I'm saying it, But inherently you recog did her personality,
which is why you know, you became so attracted to her,
attached to her, because because that's how she was, you know,
and she went hard for the things that she believed
in and felt strongly about, and she shouldn't pay a
(12:15):
lot of attention to the things that she didn't. She
wasn't trying to control the world. She wasn't trying to
control every topic, and she wasn't trying to control other people.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
She was just trying to move the needle forward for
those issues and those those causes that she felt important.
And that is you know, so many long dinners and.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Long conversations that were rooted in that. And you know,
if you look in today's world, I mean it's a
fast moving world, and you know television, things go and
snippets very quickly, and everything's about sound bites and pretty quick.
In life now there are that many people that can
(12:58):
sit down with a glass of wine and slip a
glass of wine over three hours and have an intense, intelligent,
fact based conversation that doesn't have fights her arguments in it.
It has meaningful exchange and an openness with the possibility
that you know, you might lead the conversation, you know,
(13:19):
with a different point of view than you came with.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Because that's what makes you a winner.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right when you're in a conversation, and if you're just
trying to hammer home your point, only.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What do you win from that? Right?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But if you if you're in a conversation and you
actually learn some new facts or develop some new opinions,
or we can't become more more open or broad minded,
or understand an issue in a way you didn't before,
then you've really won. You've really left the evening with
something of value. And that was always the case with Shannon.
You would you would leave the evening with something value.
(13:52):
Now I'm not saying that she didn't fight for her point.
Oh boy, did she ever five her points. She's very
tough for her points, and I loved it. But she
always did it with facts and with playfulness and with humor.
And that was great because she could laugh at herself
and she could laugh at situations she didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Really she really enjoyed life. I mean she really, she
really grabbed it, you know. And I talked before.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
About some of the dinner she would have, and like
you know, dinner with Shannon at her house was Shannon
in the kitchen cooking. She would always put out a
beautiful on apasta as appetizers, which by the time we
were done with this amazing bread and you know, fantastic
cheeses and beautiful meats and vegetables and other things, it's like,
(14:50):
we're really going to eat some more now. But then
would come pizzas. She was a she was an absolute
master at pizza. So then would come a course of pizzas.
Usually that would be sensational and there were almost always
three or four different types, so everybody had a taste
to suit them, and then would come maybe apasta course.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Or maybe meat, you know, but always something delicious.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
The only thing is she had served very much as
fish because she didn't like fish, didn't eat fish much,
but she did I remember on one occasion she did
serve fish along with other things. So she knew how
to cook it and she would serve it for others,
but she wasn't big on eating fish herself. She also
was so into food that, you know, she was up
on every new restaurant when it would open, and she would,
(15:39):
you know, she would get introduced and she would arrange
a dinner there, somebody's birthday dinner or just a general dinner,
and we would try all the dishes, kind of all
to divide and conquer order different kinds of dishes and
people could taste them. And she was very definitive about
that as well. She you know, she did a very
(16:01):
good vocabulary of cuisine and a good and a good palette,
and so she could very easily get to the bottom
of whether she was going back to that restaurant or not,
you know, anytime soon. It was pretty you know, pretty great,
pretty great. A lot of fun, such a so so
very much fun. And I think that's why she didn't.
(16:25):
She didn't want to do anything but live life to
the full. She wanted to share her journey with you
and tell you about about the cancer and and be
able to have camaraderie with others that had it and
inspire them and you know, connected them. But she didn't
want that to define her life. She she wasn't a
(16:47):
cancer person, you know. I don't think of her end
that way. Yes, she had a long, long journey with him,
but she wasn't She wasn't a cancer person, you know.
And there are sort of two kinds of people when
it comes, when it's coming towards the end.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
There are people who need to.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Acknowledge coming toward the end and embrace that, you know,
maybe you know, do a set of activities to a
group of people, you know, things that you maybe want
to do.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And other people who.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Just they know it, but they just want to live
every day as fully as possible and not have that
be a part of their active existence that it's getting
towards the end.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And that's why.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I think, you know, you saw her full tilt and
then all of a sudden you know it was done.
In fact, though she did she did have a quote
unquote bucket list. Though I don't think she you know,
I don't think it was a kind of bucket list
where she felt like, you know, I better get that
list organized real, for real, fit really fast, you know,
(17:52):
because I'm going to have that short of a time.
I think it was a bigger, more long thing. But
she did have a bucket list.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I don't love that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I don't love that term myself only because I just,
you know, I just believe in enjoying the fullness of
something for what it is, and the idea that when
it's doing it so it gets, you know, sort of
crossed off the list before your time is done has
a I don't know, it changes a little bit for me,
but I know many people use that term. But and
(18:23):
she used to every once in a while, mainly when
she got offered the opportunity to do something that she
really wanted to do. She's like, you know, one of
the trips that we did, she goes, I know, you
invited me because you knew that was on my bucket list,
and I was like, actually, I invited you because I
thought it would be fun and I thought you would
have a great time, and I wasn't really thinking about
(18:45):
your bucket list.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
But you can put it that way if you want to.
It was and.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Of course, like a comment like that would turn into
a very jovial like discussion of bucket list and we
would go back and forth and it would wind up
ending with a laugh.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
But it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It was really really amazing, really amazing human, amazing conversationalists,
you know, amazing actress, amazing wits, so many things to
to enjoy, which again, you know, it's just I'm sure,
(19:24):
like in the middle of this, I have my ringer
off right now my phone since I'm doing this podcast.
But I'm telling you, if I had the ringer on,
I would be relatively sure she'd be calling at some
point because I'm really not at all. You know, it
doesn't feel at all like she's not just you know,
off working somewhere and being quiet for a minute. Because
(19:44):
of that, you know, Shannon was very honest in her
her you know, conversations in the podcast about the decisions
that she made, and because she was so smart and
(20:06):
so definitive, you know, she participated in every decision and
she owned it, you know, and that's the thing, you know,
she owned her decision making. She never said, you know,
why did I do this or why did I do that.
She made the decision, made the best decisions she could,
and that was it. And then there was a go forward.
(20:26):
There was no review later if it didn't turn out
the way she.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Hoped it would.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And and we talked about, you know, the reasons that
she didn't take you know, tmoxiden in the very beginning,
because she had been on you know, hormone blockade for
a little while for a few months and didn't really
like you know, the feeling and what.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
It did to her.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
And so after we finished chemo and surgery and radiation,
she'd want to go on that. And I brought it
up with her every single time that we met in
the office, said do you do you want to revisit
this decision? Are you sure you know about that decision?
You're shure making the right decision, we look at the data, whatever,
(21:18):
And each time she you know, recommitted to the fact
that she'd want to do that. And of course, you
know when a few years later, on a scan you know,
shows up some spots that are now making stage four
are you, like heart sinks into your stomach about not
having taken a new look. We don't know if that
(21:39):
would have happened, even if she would have taken it.
Because when you're taking quote unquote adjubant therapy, which is
what that was, adjubant meaning there's no evidence of cancer
and you're taking.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
This pill to decrease the odds that comes back.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You know, you don't know if you would have been
someone where it was destined to come back, or whether
the pill would have saved you, but certainly makes you,
you know, wonder and wonder about that decision.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
But she, you know, she really didn't spend.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
A lot of time and regret and I admire that,
you know, you know, we all should live that way.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
We all try to.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yet many times we spend time focusing on why we
made a certain decision and regretting it when it was
an outcome we didn't expect.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And so sometimes you're looking in the rear of your
mirror trying to.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Figure out how you got where you are instead of
looking forward in terms of where you're going. And then
mac truck hicks, you, you know, so you really got
to be focusing, You got to be focusing your attention
on where you're at and where you're going forward, and
not trying to double back on the decisions that were
made before, because it's a that's a losing game. It
doesn't never makes you feel good, never makes you feel better.
(22:50):
Often you don't ever kind of piece it back together
because you don't always remember all of the the vectors
that were impacting your decision of the time you were
making it. So because in retrospect, some of those vectors
you know, are still evident and some are not so evident,
and and so you forget some of them, and then
you retrace it, you can't remember them all, and you
(23:12):
get caught up in this you know, web of you
know of situation. And so I would say that, you know,
it's really it's really of no.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Value to do that.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
The best thing is just look at where you're at,
and look at the data for where you are, make
the bests as you can, and move forward and don't
don't revisit it. And she certainly that was the Shannon way,
and I think it was incredibly you know, healthy, every
person with stage four cancer as a different course, and
you know, it depends on what type of cancer and
(23:47):
with the inspective of breast cancer. You know, there's estrogen
receptor positive and negative.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
There's hurt too, positive and negative, many.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Different you know, things that stratify your your your likely
outcome and what the treatments are. And there's high volume
disease and low volume disease, and it depends on which
organ it spreads to. But there are many people with
stage four disease that are able to live even decades,
(24:18):
you know, coexisting with the disease or with it in
a remission, but sort of knowing if the treatment or
is stopped, maybe it would grow back. So everyone has
a different course. And we certainly got a very long
and good course and beat the odds in a lot
of ways, and that there's some people who beat the
odds even more. And then there are some people who
have more difficult and shorter courses. So I don't think
(24:42):
it's good to personalize if you have stage four cancer.
I don't think it's good to personalize other people's you know,
journey and outcome towards your own, because there are so
many stratifying factors that weigh upon it. And when you're
listening to someone else's story, you usually don't you know,
you don't have those other factors, You don't have those
(25:05):
other elements because they may not have told you in
the story, they may have shared that with you, so
you can't really personalize it in a way that's meaningful.
And so I think, you know, it's certainly good to
you know, use some people have had good courses as
an inspiration. Maybe that, I mean, I think that's a
nice thing. But if if someone else is having a
(25:26):
bad course, it just it just doesn't mean that you.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Know that it's going to apply to you.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And you know, we talked a lot about quality of life, right,
but your mental state, right, your mental state, your ability
to feel like I'm on this planet with two feet
on it, on solid territory, engaged in my life, engaged
with my wife or my husband, my children, my parents,
(25:55):
my friends, whoever they are that.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Are engaged in your world.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
But that you're you're planning on the ground, you're really here,
You're engaged in your life and you're enjoying your life.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
This is quality of life, This is meaningful life.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
If every day is just wondering what the next scan
is going to bring, and you know what the next
turn of events is going to be with regard to
your disease. This is not quality of life because then
when you look at your kids, you're, you know, your
eyes missed up, wondering am I going to you know,
(26:31):
see them graduate or see them get married or whatever,
And it just takes you to a place where every day,
you know, is filled with sadness, remorse and loss, you know,
rather than joy, hopefulness, you know, and possibility. And so
I know it's easier to say that than to do that,
(26:53):
but we all have to live every single day embracing
and fully engaged as much as you can. And I
can tell you lots of situations of patients that I
have who have stage four cancer and they outlive other
people in their lives who were not even diagnosed with
cancer at all, but during the course of their life
(27:16):
with the stage four cancer, the other people in their
life get something and pass away from it and they're
still alive with stage four cancer.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
So or there are car accidents or other kinds of things.
So none of.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Us has any guarantee of how much time we have
or what's coming. So we should all be engaged every
single day and make it real and to pay deference
to what we call this podcast.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
What Shannon call this podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Let's be clear, you know, let's be clear about the
fact that we should all engage as much as we
can in life because there are no guarantees of time.
And although it seems like someone with stage four cancer,
you know, might have a clearer path to you know,
the time length they have and what's likely to happen,
(28:07):
and often other people get surprised. So I feel I
feel like people Shannon, like Shannon, you know, inspire me
in my life to try to make sure I do
everything that I want to do as much as I
can each day, in addition to doing the things that
I have to do, so that when the day is done.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I feel like, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Lived a full day that I was engaged in and
that I enjoyed, and I think we should all try
to do that. I think the concept of living with
(28:52):
cancer is something that is hard for people to understand
because a lot of times cancer and historically has been
something you either find it early and you cut it
out and.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
You're done with it, or you cut it out.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And you take some chemotherapy and maybe some radiation therapy
and then you're finished with.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It, or you can't remove it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And the treatment or the treatatment doesn't work that well,
and it progresses and you die. But we're living in
an era where in addition to traditional chemotherapy and radiation
therapy and surgery, we now have targeted therapies, therapies that
are directed toward specific molecular abnormalities and tumors for which
(29:40):
there are drugs that interact in that molecular abnormality and
change the course of how the cell grows and moves
and does things. And then we also have this vast
important field of immunotherapy where we're now able to manipulate
the immune system to see the tumor cells and to
kill them. And there are tremendous drugs that are now
(30:03):
you know, available that are immunotherapies. And so now we
have a situation where we may not be able to eradicate.
Sometimes we can't eradicate the cancer altogether and have good
long remissions and or cures. But in some situations of
stage four where we can, we can arrest it or
(30:24):
put into remission and then it relapses and then another
remission and all of that, and sometimes it's possible to
piece together all those pieces into a time frame where
you're actually living out the longevity the lifetime that the
universe intended for you before you've got cancer. So I
(30:45):
think that that you don't have to think of stage
four cancer as and of course it varies directly, you
know immensely by cancer which type of cancer you have
to think about it necessarily that it's automatically define in
your longevity, but rather something you may have to live with.
But if you have to live with it, that's where
(31:06):
I say the quality of life is so important, because
when you're going ten in fifteen years and you're not
in remission, but you're not progressing, and you may be
taking some medications and pills, some infusion once a while,
but everything's okay, then you need to embrace life and
live life and not let cancer define you. And that's
(31:30):
what and that's one of the things that Shannon did
so well is she didn't let cancer define her. And
I say that a lot to patients when I'm meeting
with them and talking to them and beginning it's say,
you know, listen, especially if it's something where you know
we're going to be able to do some treatments and
(31:51):
most likely put it into a remission that will will
be a cure, you know, especially young people, young people
with Hodgkins ease or maybe testicular cancer some of those
other things that might be curable. I say, I don't
want you to become a cancer person. I want you
(32:12):
to be a person who once had cancer, but don't
be a cancer person because you know it. You know
it consumes you know, it does consume your life and
your identity, and it's always going to be a part
of your history, but it shouldn't be a part of
your you know, your identity. And a lot of times
people they find incredible wealth of point of view and
(32:37):
even sort of patina on life after having gone through it.
Some people just have terrible PTSD and are just so fearful,
and it really very adversely affects them, even if they're
in remission or cured. But some people, if they dig deep,
who've dug very deep and really looked at it, they
(32:59):
find if I'm new meaning. And I've even had some
artists in musicians who you know, really were not being
that successful. They were great musicians, but they hadn't hit
that kind of place where they really took off, you know,
before having cancer and then and then once they had
(33:23):
the cancer experience, I said to them, listen, I want
you to know that you're going to go through this
journey and it's going to give you grit, and it's
going to give you, you know, gravitas, and it's going
to give you life experience that is not going to
feel very good, but it's going to give you something
(33:43):
to talk about.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
It's going to give you something to feel. And if
you if you really process this both in your mind
and your heart, but in your music, you will have
the most successful career that you possibly have coming out
of this. And there have been many occasions where I've
(34:06):
been one hundred percent correct about that that they really
took off during and after this therapy because they they
had they now knew how.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
To say stories and say things that that relate to
other people. You know that they lived life. They lived
life in the grittiest, most difficult way they could, and
that causes you to just see it all differently and
to be able to tell the story in a way
(34:40):
that moves others. So I think that instead of thinking
of this as a scary, big thing, we should think
about it as just one of those things that can't
happen and you embrace it and whatever the circumstances are,
but you try to, you know, you try to own it,
(35:00):
and you try to use it to build yourself forward
if you can.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Not everyone has that. Not everyone has that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Of course, it's quite a vary thing, but I think
I think that's the way you have to begin looking
at it and know that the universe has a wisdom
about it and for whatever reason, you know, your destiny
had this piece in it, and so how can you
take this piece and turn it into something that makes
(35:33):
the next phase of your life, you know, even richer
and better and sort of more unexpectedly amazing. I think
one of the things when you think about a person
that you've known and their time comes to an end,
I think it's very important to reflect what did that
(35:55):
person leave me with? How am I changed from from
her or from him or them? How I changed? Because
every person that you commit real time to helps uncover
(36:21):
pieces of you that you wouldn't have uncovered have they
not entered your life. You think of your life in
a way as kind of a big jigsaw puzzle. If
you think part of the mission of life, maybe the
most important mission of life is to turnover as many
of those pieces as you can in the time that
(36:42):
you have, so that by the time you're finished, you've
revealed the clearest picture of who you uniquely were. And
the more pieces you turn over, the better that picture is.
And that who you are takes into account your gifts
and your talents, and your commitments and your intelligence and
(37:07):
all the unique features that each of us has. And
so when people come into our lives, they help us
turn over pieces of that puzzle that we wouldn't have
turned over on our own because we maybe you didn't
have the courage to, or we didn't really know anything
about that part of who we were. We never had
(37:27):
anyone in our life that was like that, And so
they challenged you into your discomfort zone, and you, for
some reason, trust them and go there and learn things
about yourself. So I think that you know, with Shannon,
if you knew her from Afar, you know through her
work and all that.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I think, watching the way she lived her.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Life and all that, you might ask yourself, what did
she leave me with? And that becomes her everlasting, you know,
contribution to you. I know, for example, you know I
had the great pleasure of being Pharah Fawcet's doctor. And
she was an incredible woman. And as you may remember,
(38:15):
you know, she.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Left Charlie's Angels when it was the top television show
and perhaps perhaps the first television show maybe ever not
sure to be a number one TV show with all women,
three women as the stars. And she left the show
after only about a year because she wanted other things.
(38:41):
And most people would be afraid to do that when
you get such stardom of that type, that would be
afraid to leave.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But Farah Fawcett was fearless. And she wore a bracelet
and ankle bracelet around her ankle had some silver beads
on it, and on those beads or inscribed the word
fearless in Sanskrit. And I always remember that because she
(39:13):
was fearless and you can see that in the choices
that she made throughout her career, and that was really
a very defining feature of who Faarah was. And she
left me with that message very strongly, to try to
not live a life guided by fear, but to live
(39:34):
a life embracing the light of what you want and
to try to go for that, whether you succeed or not.
And Shannon had similar, very similar qualities. Shannon was also fearless.
When she believed in something, she was embraced it and
(39:57):
stood up for it and.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Went for it.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
And that was manifest if you look at at her
career as well as manifest in her personal and social interactions.
But it was manifest by what I'll give you is
the way I describe it and something that you know,
I think this is always my best way to describe
(40:25):
what Shannon did, and that's Shannon always did Shannon. Shannon
always did Shannon, and you should always do you. That's
what I believe is the last thing legacy and if
and that's I believe Shannon would have to say, because
whether it had consequences or not, if she thought she
(40:48):
had to do it, she did it, and she always
did it, you know, true to her set of principles.
So Shannon always did Shannon. And I would say that
the best legacies you could have and the best way
you could honor her, and maybe the best way that
you can live your own life to the fullest, and
(41:12):
in some way similar way Shannon would be to always
do you. M h
Speaker 1 (41:19):
M hmmmmmmmmm
Host
Shannen Doherty
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