Is there anything to love in surviving cancer? Ask someone who has experienced the double shock of discovering the first symptom and then their doctor's confirmation of his or her worst fear. Ask someone who has faced the worst and survived the rigors of treatment. Ask someone who may never know the certainty of total remission.
All cancer survivors are grateful for being alive, certainly. Most are wiser for the struggle and pain. Many have found courage from knowing fear -- and facing it. But it is the rare cancer patient who has come through and learned something new to love.
First of all, Linda Ellerbee is a fighter. Starting in 1964 in Chicago, she worked her way through a series of radio jobs. It was a time of struggle -- years of hard work creating her niche in the male-dominated world of broadcasting. In 1972, she landed her first TV news position in Dallas. Through the next twenty-five years, her feisty persona evolved as a respected and outspoken journalist, television news correspondent, anchor, writer and producer.
She pioneered late-night news with NBC News "Overnight". It was cited by the Columbia duPont Awards as "the best written and most intelligent news program ever." In 1986, Ellerbee won TV's Emmy for Best Writing for the ABC prime time historical series, "Our World." And she published And So It Goes, her book that was on the New York Times bestseller list for five months.
In the midst of her career struggles in the early '80s, Ellerbee had a personal cancer scare. For almost ten years she had been among the small number of women trying to forge a success in national TV news. She was working twice as hard as her male competition to prove herself. She felt threatened taking time off for family or personal matters.
She was greatly relieved when her cancer scare proved unfounded. Leaving the hospital, she was charmed by a stuffed yellow duck in the gift shop. It struck her as a perfect symbol. It meant luck, for one thing. But the toy also implied the powerful paddling it takes to get ahead in the profession she dearly loves. This duck became her talisman.
In 1987 Ellerbee and her partner, Rolf Tessem, started their own full-service television company, Lucky Duck Productions. She had felt a mandate to develop a series that would enlighten, entertain and empower children. The partners worked hard, assembling a mix of proven directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and on-camera talent. The company earned an excellent reputation as a supplier of children's programming. "Nick News," Ellerbee's creation, became its flagship. And she cracked the code to producing a show that not only captures the kids' attention, but has also won the trust of parents. "Nick News" received its first Parents Choice Award in 1992.
In February 1992, while showering, Ellerbee noticed a lump in her breast. Her doctor told her it might be a tumor. Ever the researcher, she at once read everything she could find about breast disease. Then she went to a cancer specialist who found cancer in one breast and a precancerous condition in the other. It was Ellerbee's decision to have a double mastectomy.
She tried to have only Tessem with her in the hospital, but friends and family rallied. All were relieved when doctors told Ellerbee that they had caught the cancer before it spread. Back at work within ten days, she taped a Nickelodeon special on AIDS featuring Magic Johnson that won the Cable ACE award for best news program. Ellerbee was functioning so well that her staff seldom asked her how she felt.
Often the answer would have been negative. Chemotherapy left her nauseated and exhausted. In four months of treatment, she temporarily lost her hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, fingernails and toenails. On the advice of other cancer survivors on how to cope, she did her crying in the shower.
Ellerbee found comfort in laughter. "There are funny things about cancer," she told People magazine, "Really there are." Her daughter once walked into the bathroom moments after Ellerbee stepped out of the shower. "There I was with no breasts and no hair...Vanessa looked at me, smiled and said, 'Momma, you look just like Buddha - only without the wisdom.' "
With Tessem at her side, Ellerbee has seen Lucky Duck Productions thrive: Nick News won a Columbia duPont Award in 1993; racked up the Parents Choice Award a second and third time in 1993 and 1994; in 1995, it took an Emmy for outstanding series and a Peabody Award.
Ellerbee's dedication to honesty and high ideals for children's programming is evident in the Lucky Duck news specials. She responded to kids' fears through a special within days of the 1996 Oklahoma City bombing. It included a dialogue on how to deal with the impact of traumatic events. Other timely specials for children similarly addressed the issues raised by the O. J. Simpson trial verdict and the Polly Klass murder. And when the space shuttle Columbia orbited the earth, the astronauts fielded questions from kids during a live, precedent-setting special.
In her life's work, Ellerbee finds great meaning in what she has done for children. "Unless you make 'cancer' a scare word for them, it's not," she said in an interview with Coping Magazine. "We have done a number of stories having to do with cancer...stories where kids have had cancer...stories where their parents have had cancer...stories where other kids at school have cancer and how to deal with it. We want to give them positive models of people living with cancer. Not dying with it. Living with it."
Ellerbee has developed a genius for living. And there is another thing, a new thing, something about being a cancer survivor that she has come to love. It is when women, strangers on the streets, in airports, stop her. She told "Coping Magazine" that she loves it when women will spontaneously share their cancer experiences with her. "That is very sustaining. It's very encouraging, and nobody can quite give you that support but these people. Nobody but us really knows what it's like."
Linda Ellerbee was the first to be honored, to be singled out and inaugurated into the CR&T Cancer Survivors Hall of Fame. The ceremony took place at Le Cirque 2000, in New York City, on Tuesday, October 14, 1997.
