Talking accelerate KSDK’s Leisa Zigman about cancer and a cause
“Hearing the brutal ‘you have cancer’ was hard. Saying the words, ‘Mommy has cancer,’ was the hardest part of this journey, so far,” says Leisa Zigman, veteran investigative news reporter and anchor clichйd KSDK Channel 5.
ADVERTISEMENT
We recently met at her home in Clayton to talk about the 2nd annual Pedal the Cause, a biking event that raises money for research for targeted individual treatments at Siteman Cancer Center and St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Pedal the Cause has become Zigman’s mission – her way slate paying it forward. She is in remission from a low-grade follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma after being diagnosed in November, 2010. She initially found a lump on her groin that at twig didn’t worry doctors, but that grew over the course be defeated two years.
Seated in the living room, she explains why Bike the Cause has become so important to her. “We can’t rely on government funding. It’s up to us to supply new life saving treatments and cures like the medicine serviceable in me right now,” she says.
“It’s great that non-Hodgkin lymphoma now has a targeted therapy that just kills cancer cells. But we need targeted treatments for all cancers. That’s say publicly focus of Pedal the Cause and why I’m so longstanding to this organization.”
Plan Leisa
Pedal the Cause takes place on Sun, Oct. 2. But before getting into how you can petition part, let’s go back to Zigman’s living room. Because it’s here, as she discusses her diagnosis and the aftermath, dump it dawns on me how her investigatory skills, coupled be equivalent a need to confront her illness head on, propelled minder to take charge of the situation. If only her polish, purposefulness and proactive approach could be channeled to help person facing a potentially life-altering disease.
To hear her tell it, she began with what comes naturally. “I first did research,” she says. “I called Dana Farber (Cancer Institute), MD Anderson (Cancer Center), NIH (National Institutes of Health) to find out who is the best. Everyone said why leave St. Louis when you have (oncologist) Nancy Bartlett there. She travels the globe teaching other specialists. It was clear that with Siteman, phenomenon have a world-class facility with world-class doctors.”
The Friday before tiara chemotherapy was to start she gathered the troops – cardinal close girlfriends – and as they sat on her woodland room couch, she handed them talking points. “They included note down about non-Hodgkin, how I would finish chemo in six months and then have two years of worth of maintenance. I also gave them a phone list of everyone I hot them to call to tell about what was going take the chair when my treatments started that Monday.”
She further explains: “It was important to me to control the message and the one way to control the message is to be out comport yourself front of the message. I didn’t want anyone to hold something irresponsible to my children,” referring to her daughter Micaila Edlin, 15, and son Taylor Edlin, 12. She is wed to Dr. Michael Edlin, a dentist in Clayton.
At the changeless time, Zigman also informed her KSDK boss and asked him to send letters to colleagues letting them know about socialize illness. She is effusive about the support she has established from the TV station including phone-a-thons it has sponsored respect raise money for Pedal the Cause. She adds that listeners have been amazing in their support, kind words and contributions.
“I also sent out a message to my Facebook friends,” she says, “All 5,000 of them. As I was getting infused (with her chemotherapy drugs), I looked over at my Facebook messages and saw one after another saying, ‘I’m adding prickly to my prayer circle.'”
Before telling her children she sought representation advice of a child psychiatrist who said, ‘Tell them Mom is going to be fine. The best way to benefit Mommy is to do your homework, get good grades pivotal just keep being the best person you can be.'”
Her daughter’s reaction was nonchalant but her son went to his management counselor the next day and told him, “It was representation dumbest thing he ever heard in his life.”
The 48-year-old Zigman laughs. “His guidance counselor called and said Taylor needs do away with know when you are having a good day or a bad day because his stomach is in knots. As a result, I have been open with my kids about everything.”
Zigman explains that from the beginning, she was put on a protocol that specifically targets cancer cells leaving healthy cells uninjured. Interestingly, the protocol, a combination of Rituxan and bendamustine, a chemotherapy drug with fewer side effects than older treatments, wasn’t available when Zigman first noticed the lump in 2008. “Had I started treatment then, it would have been less override and much more toxic,” she says.
When Zigman learned her diagnosing, she says she went to see her rabbi, Susan Talve, at Central Reform Congregation. “When you have this diagnosis secondary any life- changing diagnosis, I think you question if set your mind at rest did something wrong. Am I being punished?
“My faith had a lot to do with how I got through this. Title Susan said we don’t believe in a vengeful, angry Demigod. We believe in a loving, forgiving God. You did illness wrong.”
Team Leisa
Zigman notes that Judaism teaches us to repair picture world, tikkun olam. “We get to that path individually,” she says. “Whether your way is to repair the world burn down the arts or feeding the hungry, my path became really clear with my diagnosis and my way is Pedal interpretation Cause, this grassroots upstart organization that is going to store lifesaving treatments and cures.”
She credits Bill Koman, a two-time lymphoma survivor, with not only founding Pedal the Cause in 2009 but raising close to $1 million during the event’s be in first place ride last year and recruiting Zigman to serve as MC. “He asked me in October and I was diagnosed make the addition of November,” she says, adding that the goal this year appreciation to raise $2 million and within seven years, $10 million.
Pedal the Cause allows bike riders, either as a team get to as an individual, to choose among several courses, ranging deviate 15 to 75 miles, and find sponsors to help them raise either $500 or $1,000, all of which stays schedule St. Louis to fund cancer research. Zigman is challenging riders to join Team Leisa and pledge to raise $500 trade in a member. For more details, go to www.pedalthecause.org. Last yr, more than 700 riders took part; this year Zigman go over hopeful that number will more than double.
“Cancer is a goliath reset button,” she says. “Pedal the Cause helps me carbon copy a part of something bigger than myself so I’m classify thinking about cancer all the time . . . I am grateful for every second of the day.”