The closest person to me that died of cancer was when I was in elementary school. My best friend?s mom, Tana, died of breast cancer when my friend and I were both about 10. I've had some relatives die of cancer as well, but none of them were as close to me as this woman. She was probably responsible for a quarter of my total upbringing up until the point of her death. It was so sad. Not a worldly or wise or melancholy sadness like an adult would feel, but the confused, tip-toeing sadness of a ten-year-old old who is trying to learn how to mourn and do it well like everyone else. Once he's figured out what "mourn" means, that is.

One afternoon I was watching TV at their house and she yelled at Jonathan (my friend) about vacuuming the rug and running over the power cord attached to the vacuum, because she would be dead soon and they would be a single-income family then and she didn't want Jonathan's dad to have to buy a new vacuum. She said this that plainly to him while I was just a few feet away. It wasn't that unusual that Jon would have to do chores while I was over or vice-versa. Jon and I practically lived at each other's houses in the summer time. But here's the point: I think that statement was the most honest thing anyone ever said to me about Tana's condition, and I'll always appreciate her for that.

Anyway, I'll remember that comment for the rest of my life, and Mr. Sievers's blog is full of that kind of honesty and integrity.

I posted a link to your blog from my own (healthbolt.net). Thanks for having the courage to write about this. It must be hard for you, but I'll bet reading this makes it easier for someone else and that is noble.

Sent by Wade | 10:39 AM ET | 07-03-2006

I was really interested in your column about believing that you really have cancer. If you can't see it, it is hard to believe it. I was diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer in 1998 after a hysterectomy. When I woke up, my doctor told me that they had found cancer, that they had removed both ovaries, uterus, appendix and omentum (I learned that is what they call the fat under your stomach muscles). They also washed out everything to make sure they got every microscopic particle. I never saw any x-ray or MRI with an obvious tumor. I did not have pain (except for the discomfort that caused me to have the hysterectomy). I did not question the doctors. I went through 6 months of chemo and 6 weeks of interperitoneal chemo. I got through it better than I ever expected I would, although when I read the journal I kept at that time, I was reminded of just how lousy I really felt. But, I was never sick and missed minimal work. I went through the years of semi-annual check ups, always fearing the results. But, I am fine and still cancer free, even though in the back of my mind, in a little recess, there is always the reminder that they say I have a 50-50 chance of recurrence.

But now that I am well, I sometimes wonder if I really did have cancer. I did not see anything or feel anything. had no pain, no blurry vision, no fatigue, none of the typical warning signs. So, how do I know I really did have cancer? Do you just take their word for it? I never did get a second opinion. I trusted my regular doctor that I had gone to for years, and he had a specialist in gynecological cancer assist with the surgery "just in case." I think he told me there might be a 1 in 1000 chance of something being there based on a CA-125 test, but come on! 1 in 1000? So, I did not even worry about it prior to surgery. No one in my family had ovarian or breast cancer, as far as I know.

I dread the thought that it could come back. I found out that even if you have no ovaries, if cancer comes back they still call it ovarian cancer - I dont understand that at all. But, if it does ever come back, I will just face it. I never thought I would be able to get through something like this, but I did. And like you, I had a lot of people tell me they were amazed that I did so well. Maybe I was lucky to have good doctors. I know for sure that I was lucky not to have gotten ovarian cancer 10 years earlier. I doubt I would be here now, or at least I would have suffered a lot more being "cured."

I don't really want to read your column, but find myself drawn to it. Why do we always want to read stuff like this? I do think there is a link between all of us who have gone through this that others can't understand. I also have to tell you that I had the honor of meeting Peter Jennings twice. The story of how we first met is long (but interesting), and twice I visited him at ABC news and watched him do his nightly broadcast. The second time I visited was in May, 2005, the week before he announced he had lung cancer. I was devastated because I felt like I could really say I knew him. After he died, colleagues who knew about my visits sent me condolences, as if he was a family member. I still can't believe he is gone - and that it happened so quickly.

Thank you for sharing your life with us.

Sent by Pat Grossman | 10:43 AM ET | 07-03-2006

I am terrified of breast cancer. Just waiting for the results of my mammogram absorbs most of my thoughts.

Thank you for sharing your fight with the rest of us.

Sent by Cecily Cavet | 11:04 AM ET | 07-03-2006

I admire you and people like you who fight the battle. My son passed away at the young age of 31 from brain cancer. He was positive and got up every day and fought. He was my hero and I still miss him every day. I do believe people who get the horrible disease are somehow given strength to fight with all their strength. I pray for a cure for you and all of the other people with the disease and lots of strength.

Sent by Mary Smith | 11:08 AM ET | 07-03-2006

Wow!!! You are amazing. I plan to read your blogs and articles for a long long time, cause with your attitude, you are going to make it. I have a friend, who with the help of the NIH, has recovered from a cancer like yours, which started with a melanoma, and has been cancer free for 8 years, living an amazing vital life. She was interviewed and on Tom Brokaw's evening news several years ago — I expect to see you making the same gains.

Sent by Joanne Bauman | 11:12 AM ET | 07-03-2006

On target ? my wife was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in May 1999. IBC is a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer. In the year that followed her diagnosis she underwent a treatment program that can best be described as "everything including the kitchen sink" ? conventional chemo for 21 weeks, a double mastectomy and high-dose chemo/bone marrow transplant (22 days in virtual isolation in a bone marrow transplant unit where they flood your body with high doses of chemo, as lethal as antifreeze, and then bring you back with your own bone marrow). This was then finished off with six weeks of daily radiation.

Next, three years of "freedom" from treatment as we watched and waited to see if the cancer would re-occur.

It did ? January 2002.

Several small spots are identified on her spine ? discovered by a bone scan. Treatment resumes ? this time with monthly visits to the oncologist at Lombardi Cancer Center and weekly infusions of herceptin at "Five North" at Georgetown Hospital. Lombardi and Five North ? two places run by just the kind of medical people you describe in your posting. Doctors and nurses with knowledge, experienceand a deft touch. People ? like Dr. Liu, Herela and Anne ? filled with so much compassion, warmth and humor - caring for an unending number of patients ? treating so many people ? with so many different kinds of cancer.

After six months of weekly infusions of herceptin, the cancer shows no sign of further grown on her spine ?that is good ? but then it reappears on her skin ? typical of the IBC beast. Now to the weekly infusions of herceptin they add taxotere ? chemo ? and this current treatment plan has her getting herceptin four times a month and taxotere twice a month until further notice ? this is code for either "years" or "until it doesn't work anymore and we can try another drug."

She has been on this herceptin-taxotere treatment plan for over a year now and it is working in the sense that the visible cancer on her skin has vanished and the spots on her spine have not really changed since they were first discovered three and one half years ago.

Even though the chemo is a "low" dose ? it comes with a constant, unending set of chemo-driven side effects. All manageable ? perhaps. But each one ? loss and thinning of hair, upset stomach, swelling of the ankles, loss of feeling in the fingertips and toes, etc. is a constant reminder to her and me that her battle to live with cancer is 24/7.

She looks great. She works. She raises her family. She enjoys theater and her role as a Helen Hayes judge. But it is work to live with cancer. It is hard work. It never lets you forget it is there.

It is work for me too ? the caregiver. All I can do is take her to the doctor. Be with her for her weekly infusions at Five North. Hold her hand on the two weekends a month when the side effects from the chemo will wreak havoc with her system and keep her close to home. I listen as she tells me about the sadness and anger deep within her soul brought on by the cancer and the unending, yet lifesaving, treatments she silently endures. Sometimes I find myself in the backyard early in the morning, crying for her and looking up at the sky saying, "give her a break, damn it!"

Now it is summer. Friends and relatives are off on vacation to faraway places. Africa, London, and simple trips to the shore. For her and me ? we listen and we are jealous ? even angry.

We yearn for the time when scheduling our lives didn't have to be around cancer treatments and the management of the constant cumulative side effects. But it is, and as difficult as it is, we go on. Our son has graduated from her alma mater, and this fall he begins law school. Our daughter follows in her mother's footsteps with her own passion for theater and performing, and this fall begins her own pursuit for a performing arts degree.

These are all events and developments my wife never thought she would live to see when she was first diagnosed in May 1999 and our world stood still ? which makes us stop and think ? maybe ? just maybe ? it is has all been worth it.

Sent by Joel Widder | 3:33 PM ET | 07-03-2006

I am a former TV Journalist and enjoy your writing. A poet friend of mine gave me this years ago before he died.

"The spirit never dies,

The spirit is reborn,

Another face, another place,

Some other shape or form,

If time and space are endless,

And the human spirit true,

There should be something in us,

That is immortal too."

The reporter's world is shaped by reality and there is a preoccupation with the drama of stories of death, but this poem helped open a new dimension for me as I fight cancer. Maybe it will help someone else.

Sent by Warren | 3:43 PM ET | 07-03-2006

Mr. Sievers,

As a loyal reader I feel the need to disagree with one important point because that point denies the great inspiration you provide to people on a daily basis. That inspiration comes from your writing, but I am sure it also is provided by your very presence in the lives of many people.

You deny that you are courageous but to many of us you are just that. There is an old quote that is often attributed to different people. I believe the most accurate attribution is to Mary Anne Radmacher but cannot be sure. Regardless, the quote's meaning is the same.

"Courage doesnt always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'"

Every day you provide us with your thoughts. Some days they come in the form of a roar, just as some days I am sure your spirits are as strong as those of a tiger. Other days, as you have written before, your spirits are not so grand, but are instead hampered by various events. Yet, every night you go to bed saying that you will try again tomorrow, and every morning I read the next beautiful post. Saying you will try again tomorrow, saying you will be here tomorrow, even acknowledging to yourself and to the world that there is in fact a tomorrow that you may not see, is true courage. Do not now, after you have been through so much, short change yourself. You deserve better, and you have earned more.

Best wishes,

Seth Presser

Sent by Seth Presser | 11:14 AM ET | 07-04-2006

Leroy Sievers is dying?a brave and courageous man who I never knew?until a few days ago, when I started reading his blog?But in those few days I believe he has instilled life in those who live and gave hope to those who are dying. As mere humans we can only have faith for "faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for?" We all want to believe that "there should be something in us that is immortal too." So, "when things are at its darkest? this is when you need to have the most faith. Good things will come." Inspiring words from the Bible, from a poet friend and from my heart?

Sent by Miles | 11:17 AM ET | 07-04-2006

Thank you for sharing your experience. I have also sent your link to my son. He is 24 years old and 4 months ago was diagnosed with primary level 4 astrocytoma after having had a seizure. He has since undergone brain surgery and just completed a 6 week course of radiation AND chemotherapy. He is on a 4 week break before embarking on 1 year of chemo. He is AMAZING and his girlfriend - equally AMAZING in their FAITH and determination fighting this battle. I hope that they will find your site helpful and enlightening as well - and share their stories with others in this same battle.

Sent by Amy Sheppard | 11:19 AM ET | 07-04-2006

How true it is that often people just don't know what it takes to do the best you can everyday. You never know as you talk with someone what it is taking for them to just be there engaged with whatever the conversation is....or what they face when they go home. It is courage....we do all have it...not everyone takes it out and uses it.....not everyone can...Be well...

Sent by Sandra Yudilevich | 11:30 AM ET | 07-04-2006

I have uncontrolled epilepsy. I am 49. The condition was controlled for over 20 yrs...but changed June 7th, 2003. My mother says I am so strong to stand up to the condition. Ha...what a joke. I lost my job, declared BK, home went into foreclosure. I can no longer drive. I can no longer go beyond my own garden gate. The drugs I take make me sleep most the day. My neurologist says I should be thankful I don't have cancer. I'm just angry, lonely, isolated...and contine to have grandmal siezures. Your cancer, my epilepsy...no cure, life goes on.

Sent by Barbara McMullin | 11:31 AM ET | 07-04-2006

Hello. I've not read this in its entirety, but I must say a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer ran research on intravenous (absorption as key) Vitamin C. They have been working on it under shrouds of earlier attempts of other "orange cures," but this looks real . . . that it attacks only radical cancer cells and not the immune system. I plan to get juiced every six months. I am currently cancer free — breast cancer (bilateral) to brain tumor (removed noninvasive, no side effects), finishing radiation and receiving breasts in reconstruction next week. I'm rebuilding, but the miracles and a mountaintop experience have been personally and spiritually inexplicable, and more important. There has been divine magic where preordained dreams have come to promise and I have had cognitive clarity in an ordered brain I was destined to achieve at this place/point. Scriptural cliches are alive. And the past was not without its work/hells before this . . .

See church and work of sacred steroid administration in the middle of the nights waking up to crinkle in Christmas gifts of this work! The metamorphosis I didn't know I approached came from my former welcome of martydom, willing a greater Gospel message in it, remaining anger discovered unreconciled but mostly theologies on dignity and mercy in death from interfaith chaplaincy, as well as the reality of prayer and practicality. This transferred to a want to live. Forgivenesses changed my mindset in this for me and the hope of romantic love and perspective. I believe God wanted to know I wanted and was not indifferent to the gift of life, however hard. I continued seeing "evil" as almost an irrelevant term. Refinement was used for good/growth. And the necessity of "bearing one another's burdens," instead of pointing to a scapegoat. Humanity's systemic oppressed is still a great imperative in my life, and the life of what is really the church and understanding this from inner-city teaching and incarnational living.

Forgive me for going on. It was not my intent. I do plan to join the dragon boat support team now, FYI. Thank you for your time. And I pray you do not find the religious slant offensive, but see at least glimmers of truth in these words of one woman. Love you.

Please discuss the new movement/medicine. Oh, and transformed to cures/preventions in clean food from God's earth (nutrition not supplemental or diet) because we are killing ourselves with preservative and fraudulent food.

Take good care and add joy to the agenda of your "battle."

Cate

www.firstbapistardmore.com

Sent by Cate Leach | 12:08 PM ET | 07-04-2006

I'm going through treatment for Stage IV breast cancer now and, like you, I've been told by friends and family that I'm being very brave. What you said about courage is exactly how I feel. There are people in the world who struggle with much more than cancer. I play a somewhat morbid, reality-check game with myself — I imagine things that could be worse than my having cancer. I met a woman in the supermarket this week whose four-year-old son just had brain surgery. That's worse, much worse than going through cancer. I heard about women in Bangladesh who have had acid thrown in their faces and are disfigured for life — again, much worse than cancer since, if my face were disfigured, my children would be afraid to hug me. I'd rather have cancer in my body, hidden from them, so they can think their mommy is okay. Like you, I'm fighting my cancer because I have no choice. I can't crawl into a corner and wait to die. My kids need me. They're only one and three right now, and I'm fighting for enough years to plant memories of me in their brains. They're too young now to lose their mother. So I'm fighting this cancer with whatever I can — I've done the chemo, surgery and am now undergoing radiation. I'm also using diet supplements, exercise and am dabbling in reiki, meditation, whatever might give me a chance of living a bit longer. One thing that keeps me going is hearing stories of courage — real courage like the mother whose kid had brain surgery. And the courage of the families of cancer fighters. I think having cancer is, in many ways, easier than watching a loved one go through it. Here's another game I play with myself: I imagine that one of my kids has cancer. I say a prayer — "Please let me have the cancer instead!" And voila! My prayers been answered, my kid is cancer-free and I have it instead. Then I feel extremely lucky. It might be a weird mind game, but it sometimes gets me through the day.

Sent by Shin | 12:26 PM ET | 07-05-2006