October 19, 2024 • 30 mins
Lung cancer is the one of the most dangerous forms of cancer that exists. Here in the US, it is the leading cause of cancer deaths each and every year, and often, people don't realize they have it until it's too late. Hildy Grossman's diagnosis caught her by surprise, and as a performer, she decided to use her experience to start Upstage Lung Cancer, a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness and funding to fuel research to find a cure. Hildy shares her dynamic story with Nichole, along with details about the impact they've already made to bring an end to this insidious disease.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week right here we come together, we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. It is so good to be back with
you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis. You know, lung
cancer is one of the most dangerous forms of cancer
out there. This year alone here in the US, more
than two hundred and thirty thousand new cases are expected
(00:29):
to be diagnosed. It's also the leading cause of cancer deaths. Oftentimes,
people don't even realize they have it until it catches
them by surprise. That's actually what happened to Hildy Grossman.
One quick slip led to an unexpected journey which led
to her diagnosis. Now she's a long time performer, and
so she channeled that journey into founding Upstage Lung Cancer.
It's a nonprofit around here dedicated to raising funding for
(00:51):
research through the arts, and they've got a new performance
coming up in a matter of days. Hildy is here
with us now to talk about the performance and her
incredible story. You know, Hildy, thank you for being here.
And it really does seem like this came completely out
of nowhere tell us what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, I always say if I could get lung cancer,
anyone listening could get lung cancer. There's kind of a
buzz phrase among the group of all of our advocate groups,
which is, if you have lungs, you can get lung cancer.
So my lung cancer was found totally by accident. I
had purchased a new pair of shoes. They were kind
(01:31):
of sandals, but now I pay attention all the time
because they were just leather bottoms. And I stepped on
the threshold going down to my basement, which is very narrow, thankfully,
and I just sort of sailed into the air, you know,
because it was so slick anyway. So that started this
whole ridiculous You couldn't write this. If you read this,
(01:55):
you'd say, this is so silly, this whole sequence of
events which which made no sense. So I slipped on
the shoes. I kind of hurt my arm going down,
So I thought, well, maybe I'll go talk to my doctor.
My doctor was out of town. Somebody else was there
who didn't make much sense, said go see a hand person.
(02:15):
But the hand person was ready to give me a
cortizone shot, which made no sense. They couldn't say why.
So I went over to have it looked at, and
the person said, it's not your hand, it's your elbow.
I don't do hands, so I had that. They sent
me up to neurology to have nerve tests and at
that point they said, oh, you know it's not your wrist,
(02:41):
which we knew in the first place, right, Yeah, So
they said go and get an MRI, and so that's
what said this. This is the sort of in the
middle of the sequence, which then led to an MRI,
a PET scan. Nobody was sure. Finally came out that
with a CT scan that there were two tiny little
(03:03):
tumors in my right lung, and thank heavens, it was
super early. This was totally found by accident. One of
the things we say at upstage lung cancer is survival
should not be by accident. We should be able to
diagnose and treat. So I was very lucky only had
(03:24):
surgery and I'm grateful. And this was in two thousand
and eight January, and I thought, why me, you know,
not why ma die it happen to me, but why me?
Did I survive? At that point there was only a
five year twelve and a half percent survival rate. So
I thought, well, hey, why am I one of those?
(03:48):
And so I thought, well, what I know I could
do is I'm a psychologist by day, but jazz singer
by night. So what I knew I could do would
be to use music and the performing arts and create
great shows that could also help highlight the situation and
(04:09):
raise funds for lung cancer research.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
What a cool idea. And you know, before we get
into what the work that you do, I would love
to know what it feels like after going through all
that medical rigmarole to be told you have cancer. Tell
me what was going through your mind and through your treatment? Like,
what tell me about the emotional toll this takes on somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, the initial sense was we all know that we're mortal, right,
we all know that, but none of us really believe it. Right. Yeah,
we know there's only a finite amount of time on
this earth, but we think we'll be here forever because
that's just how we exist, you know, in this world.
(04:54):
So hearing the word cancer was awful. I think I thought, well,
this is a death sentence. And so you know, my
husband and I hugged each other lots of tears, and
so again I was very, very lucky because it was
found by accident. Had I not had this stupid series
(05:17):
of events, which my normal self probably wouldn't have gone
through all this testing at some point always said this
is silly, but for some reason I didn't. So I
was stage one A, which is the earliest possible, you know, sequence,
and I only needed surgery. You know, I was very lucky.
(05:39):
And had I not had this ridiculous sequence of events,
then you know, could have been six or seven years
until some kind of symptom pops up. Because for lung cancer,
early stage just doesn't have symptoms. So many of the
people who wind up finding it early due by acts accident,
(06:00):
and again that's no way to treat or diagnose an illness.
But we're working on it. We're working on it.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, and let's talk about how you're working on it.
You have this incredible musical talent that you are using
not just to entertain, but also to uplift and contribute
to research. So how did you put together upstage lung cancer?
It must have been a lot of work, pulling together
all the different sides to get everything going well.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
It's still another funny story because I'm not someone and
I don't mean this in any derogatory way, but I'm
not a ladies who lunch. I don't go to luncheons,
and I'm not on boards of various organizations. So I
just thought, what can I do? And so I thought,
(06:48):
the only thing I know how to do is put
on an absolutely smack dab wonderful show. I'll put it
up against any joyful events that you can come up with.
So I knew I could do that. And what I
did was I called a good friend of mine, Crispin,
and I said, I want you to meet me at
(07:10):
the Starbucks down the street from my house. And when
I see you and we sit down, I'm going to
ask you something and I want you to say yes
to the question. Okay. So we met at Starbucks and
I told him that I've been through this whole, you know,
lung cancer. I had had surgery only and survived. And
(07:33):
I said, I wanted to, you know, use music and
the performing arts to to help, you know, raise awareness
and make it joyful. And so I said, so will
you join me in this? And what could he do?
He already committed to saying yes, there you go.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You're real demand. I'm going to use that tactic from
here on out.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
By the way, Oh yes, oh yes, I give it
to you as someone thank you successful. And then we
had one other friend, Susan, who had had lung cancer
six months before I did, and asked her to join too,
So it was the three of us who started it up.
(08:12):
And at that point I actually had looked around. This
was now sixteen years ago, and I looked around to
see if there were other organizations to get involved with
her to volunteer. There was hardly anything going on then.
It's very different now, but not much there. So that's
(08:33):
why I was either foolish or courageous enough, depending on
your perspective, to start this organization. And yeah, so that's
how we started. And then I was very very lucky
Joyce Cole Hawick, whom many of your listeners know and love.
(08:54):
She's just she is the sweetest soul. Anyway, I asked
her to be an EMC for our first year and
so she said, oh, well, I'll do it for a year,
but this is now the sixteenth year. She returns, Wow, see, okay,
she's very committed. And yeah, we've we've we've gone through
(09:19):
lots of upstowns and a rounds, and I cannot say
enough wonderful things about Joyce. So yeah, so, and then
I was very lucky Alice Robbins, who is a director, producer, choreographer,
amazing person about in this area, and she helped me
(09:42):
invite some people to join me. One of one of
the people I reached out to outed just out of
the Clear Blue because I liked his voice so much,
was Scott Wally Okay, previous WBS guy, and I just said,
here's what I'm doing, blah blah, would you like to
join us? And so I'm not even sure at that
(10:03):
point I knew he was a singer, but I just
for some reason I was I felt drawn to him.
Turns out he had a lung cancer death in his
family and so he was with me for many years
as well. So I've just I always say, you know,
having lung cancer was not a treat that's not a positive.
(10:28):
You know, you could view it as a negative. But
what has what has come from having it was knowing
the most extraordinary people. I cannot tell you how many
people are in my world who are lovely and generous
and talented and kind and giving you know, we don't
(10:48):
care much about all these good people. There's just like
focus on crazy and horrible. But I'm telling you there
are a lot of really lovely people in this world
and may.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Have been giving so much you talk about giving. You know,
I was doing some research on your website just to
learn a bit more about all this wonderful work. You've
done more than three point eight million dollars so far
raised for cancer research, specifically early detection lung cancer research.
That is an incredible footprint that you and your team
(11:19):
have made, and obviously you're continuing the efforts that could
change a lot of lives.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well it could, because again we're in some respects for
a small organization, all volunteer, and so we every dollar
we get we're grateful for. You know, there are big
organizations which you can write a check for ten thousand
dollars and there it is. You know, it's just one
(11:46):
of many, you know, for us. One of my favorite stories,
oh my favorite favorite stories was we got an email
from a woman whose son was I think it was
in the second grade and his class project was they
had to do some kind of philanthropy. Who knows why,
(12:07):
but he found us online and really liked it, and
he went door to door with two other friends. It's
gonna make me cry, but anyway, he went door to
door with two other friends and they raised I think
fifty dollars. Those fifty dollars mean as much as fifty
thousand dollars. I So that's you know, we've just had
(12:32):
good hearted, really caring people both on our board and
who generously contributed to us. And because we're interested in
early detection lung cancer research, which definitely saves lives if
you can find it early and treat it. Yeah, so
(12:53):
because of that, we've funded some extraordinary If anybody looks
on Upstage long Cancer's website the research page, that's the
research we've funded, and it's really outside of the box,
just like we're outside of the box and as an organization,
and some of you know, some of the funding that
(13:15):
this year we funded something that's just brilliant at the
Coke Institute at MIT, where we've funded a number of
extraordinary projects, again pushing, pushing, pushing toward trying to you know,
look at early detection. And this one is on biomarkers
for inflammation, which is really unusual and I think it
(13:39):
can be you know, groundbreaking in so many ways, So
that's been wonderful. And also it just reminds me that,
you know, we've had concerts not only in the theater
our upcoming concert at the Most Sessien Center on October
twenty ninth in Watertown. We've been there many years, but
(14:04):
we also have done house concerts. So if anybody's listening
who has a nice house and a bunch of friends
who would like to have a musical concert in their house, yeah,
reach out please. But we also have We've done a
concert at MIT, We've done a concert at Dana Farber
where they'd never know such thing before. And also Blueprint Medicine.
(14:29):
So again, just trying to get the word out, create
an evening of joy and helping people learn more about
lung cancer.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And speaking about getting the word out. You and my
buddy Jordan Rich. You might have heard of him if
you're listening to the show here. Everybody's heard of Jordan Rich.
We all love Jordan Rich. You two have your own
podcast as well where you talk about this and all
the performances and a lot of other stuff going on.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's called Backstage at Upstage with a little ampersan okay,
we're at and so backstage and upstage, we've had a
best set of podcasts with various topics from finding joy
when you've lost the thing that's important to you, and
(15:15):
that one was the first one we did when we
started the podcast and so, and that was just after
COVID hit, Just after COVID hit, and who was going
to a theater? I wasn't, So I thought I am
not to be stopped. So I had this idea for
a podcast series and grab Jordan and you know, there
(15:38):
we go. And so that was the first topic. So
in some ways it was about you know, losing losing
your freedom at some level because of our initial reactions
to COVID. And then it was about there were theater
people who were interviewed, and about what happens when you
(15:58):
can't you can't act, you can't be in the theater.
So that was the beginning, and then all kinds of topics.
One of my favorite, which sounds a little esoteric, but
it's not, was what did the Human Genome project do
for me lately? So if you don't know what the
human genome is, and you clearly don't know what it's
(16:21):
done for you, I guarantee you. It sounds esoteric, but
it was one of the most fun podcasts. They're all wonderful,
My guests are superior, they're really good. We did one
I wanted to like, how do you explain what the
immune system is? So what you know, we're all talking
about getting diseases, we get COVID, we get other diseases,
(16:42):
we get cancer. How does our immune system work in
the first place? So doctor Dave Barbie from from Dana Farber.
I grabbed him and said, you just got to explain,
like the immune system for dummies. I didn't call it
that the copyright, but basically, and then that led to
(17:03):
another one he did more recently, which was on immunotherapies,
which is one of the There have been two really
groundbreaking directions since I was diagnosed with one cancer, and
one is using your own immune system to fight the
disease immunotherapy, and the other is biomarker testing, which identifies
(17:27):
what gene, what mutation or gene drives this cancer, what's
behind this cancer. And so we've done a number of
podcasts talking about biomarker testing and how important it is
for any any cancer. I don't care what you know,
if you've got breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, I don't care
(17:49):
what it is, ask your doctors or ask your relative
or friends doctor to make sure they do biomarker testing.
So those were a great direction. And yeah, they're all
on those podcasts and they're all uplifting, they're all positive
without sounding like Disney Worlds. You know, it's just about
(18:09):
what can we take from this that gives us hope.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, explain it like I'm five as well, because look,
a lot of this medical stuff can be a little overwhelming.
And I know here on this show, we try to
do a lot of educational stuff, like in that vein
that you're doing with Jordan, we really try to take
the big issues and kind of bring them down to
a level where we can all understand. So I appreciate
that approach to it, because if you're just sitting there
and listening to a lot of hardcore medical talk, I
(18:34):
know that my brain is going to start, you know,
a little monkey with the symbols.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I'm not going to understand the thing that's funny. That's funny.
Well see, I at some level I won't allow it
because I always say, please don't use jargon please, under
no circumstance use what I call trigrams, which are three
letters people think they know. They'll say, oh, that was
the qRT of that. It's like, well, wait a minute,
(18:58):
wait a minute, what does that mean? You know?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I was just at a lung cancer meeting and there
were a lot of people presenting scientific stuff, and every
time somebody came up with a trigram, I said, can
you just explain what that means? Because there's so many interpretations.
So I really I think every podcast is, you know,
something that you can grasp. Nothing is really and I'm
(19:25):
always happy to be the ignorant one. So if something
comes by that seems complicated, I'll say, hold on, hold on,
I don't understand this. Can you say that in a
different way? So I think your audience would love them
and the help you know, they really are helpful.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Sure, Well, let's talk then about this upcoming event, because
I mean, you've had so many cool concerts, everything from
Sinatra to Disney to I could spend probably twenty minutes
talking about all the shows that you've done in the
past that are just really really fun. This time, though,
is going to be a joyce cool Wick is coming
back and it's called do you Believe in Magic? So
(20:03):
tell me what this concert, what research this concert is
hoping to fund, and who you're doing this for. Specifically,
we have a returning cast what Mike Jazz groups.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
The Fallen Angels with an Oh Fallen Angels. My band
is the band behind the singers, and we have again
returning wonderful, wonderful committed performers of Brian de Lorenzo, Michael Hammond,
Paula Markowitz and as obviously Joyce again. And this year
(20:42):
we also are going to have a magician. Yes, Ethan
Child is coming to do some magic tricks. And so
why did I come up with magic? And what has
that got to do with lung cancer? Well, again, I'm
just happy to have a joy evening. But I for me,
it was sort of a metaphor four if you would
(21:05):
said back in two thousand and eight January of two
thousand and eight when I was diagnosed, that there were
ways of using your immune system, and now we can
have drugs to you know, to boost your immune system
to help you fight cancer or hold on. You don't
need chemotherapy only that that's the only option. Now there
(21:29):
are biomarker driven targeted therapies that only target that mutation
don't have. It just seems like magic, right, And so
that's the idea. And what we've got now in these
sixteen years is going so quickly and expanding so quickly.
It's like a bigger magic one. So that's what's behind it.
(21:53):
And the music is great, all kinds of wonderful songs
from uh do you Believe in Magic? And Superstition and
Stevie Wonder going on. I like that. Yeah, love Potient
number nine. Anyway, they's all fun and I really guarantee
(22:16):
a very joyful evening for an important cause. And yeah,
I think I will guarantee you a great evening. Come
find me personally if you didn't have a good time.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
But I've never heard of and you're going to be
talking to about the Fan Award tell Us, who is
the recipient of the Fan Award this time around, and
the great work he's doing when it comes to cancer
in black women's.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
He's such an extraordinary person. His name is Jeffrey Yang
and he is a surgeon at mass General Hospital and
his interest has been on under served communities. So one
of the things that's really important to know. And we've
done several podcasts on screening. So getting a CT scan,
(23:11):
and there are certain criteria where your insurance company will
cover it entirely. I don't have the precise information, but
it's like, if you're over fifty and you've smoked a
certain number of cigarettes over a certain number of years,
you are eligible for a free CT scan, and so
(23:32):
do it, don't you know? Do that?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
On the other hand, unfortunately, for some reason or other,
the largest increase in lung cancer has been among non
smoking women, and so if that's the case, they're not
going to be eligible for these you know, free CT scans,
which is, hello, this doesn't make any sense, but alrighty
(23:56):
in any case, So what jeff Yng has done, he's
created this army of college students. They're incredible, incredible you know,
people who go out into the black community and talk
about the importance of screening and and you know, talking
about lung cancer in the black community. And he has
(24:21):
we have you know, given him some funding toward his
project where the CT scans are paid for. So bring
awareness to the black community, bringing awareness to black women,
providing you know, scans, and it's just it's wonderful, wonderful.
(24:43):
So each year we are so our logo is a
fan upstage lung Cancer's logos, and so we created this
Fan Award, which has multiple meaning. There's our logo of
the fan. The fan moves there along, you know, and
you could be a fan of shows, you know, of
music and the theater if nothing else. Were very creative.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
So I would expect a bunch of artists to be
very creative. I love We've.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
We've had some extraordinary people that we have honored. In fact,
a couple of years ago, one of the people that
we honored with our Fan Award was Bill Shields, who
was just the most extraordinary person. He was one of
the field reporters for WBZ, such a lovely, lovely human being,
(25:37):
and so we hadn't he had late stage lung cancer
once before and came back, and so he was in
the midst of treatment for lung cancer. And we had
a bunch of the veteran WBZ TV and radio folks
(25:58):
who came to the show and celebrated Bills life with
us and honoring him with this award, and it was,
you know, it was a joyful, joyful evening, and so
happy that his wife and his son, you know, that
his family and friends could be there to celebrate with him. Unfortunately,
(26:19):
he said to me, he said, this is wonderful. I
love this. He said, I want to come back next year.
And I said, yes, you'll come back next year and
you'll be one of our speakers. And sadly he did
not make it to the next year, but he filled me.
I was filled with gratitude for, as I said before,
knowing some wonderful, wonderful people. He's one of those really
(26:43):
special human beings. And yeah, so you know, we're really
proud of our fan Awards and uh yeah, it's it's
it's a great evening, full of smiles, full of full
of joy.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Let's talk about the logistics of this event, because of
course you need to know when, where, or why, how,
so on and so forth. So it's going to be
on October twenty ninth. Give us the details what people
need to know, where they have to go, how they
can get tickets, so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So they can get tickets online at they can go
to our website Upstage lung Cancer dot org. Okay, and
then just go to the performances page and right there
it tells you about the show and you can click
and order tickets right there. If you are a lung
(27:34):
cancer survivor, there's no cost to anyone. If you're a student,
so if you put in survivor then there will be
no cost. And if you're a student, it will only
be fifteen dollars if you put in student. So we
just try to make it available to everyone and no
(27:55):
one will be turned away. So if you feel like
you really want to come and do not have finances,
just go to our contact us page and you'll absolutely
get a seat. We don't turn anyone away, so you
can go on our website, or it's at the most
Sessian Center for the Arts in Watertown, so you could
(28:16):
call them and order a ticket, or you can just
show up the night of the show, October twenty ninth
at seven point thirty. Come a little earlier than that,
of course, but the show will start then and you
can get your ticket then, and the parking is free.
That helps restaurants all around. It's just you know, come
(28:37):
on now, it's time to get out and just you know, yeah,
save her life and have a good, good evening.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Enjoy yourself for a good cause. Right, absolutely, And if
somebody wants just to donate, if they maybe can't make
it to the event, but if they want to help
you out. They're hearing this and saying I want to
give what I can. Where can they do that?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
They can go to our website again, Upstage Lung Cancer
dot org. Okay, and then just go to the donate page.
And as I said before, you know whether it's five
dollars or five one hundred thousand dollars. I haven't seen
that yet, but okay, every dollar is appreciated. Every dollar
goes toward funding innovative research on early detection and it
(29:23):
will save lives. And you know, to have you join
us means everything. And I think you can feel really
good about yourself for participating in this.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Hildy Grossman, what a story, What an incredible ride it's
been so far with upstage lung Cancer. Thank you, thank
you truly for all the work you do. And I
don't want to tell you break a leg for this
upcoming show, king your legs and tact please, but I
hope you have a great show.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Thank you, thank you so much. It's been such a
pleasure to be on your show, Nicole and to your viewers.
Thank you for listening to this particular interview.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week right here we come together, we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. It is so good to be back with
you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis. You know, lung
cancer is one of the most dangerous forms of cancer
out there. This year alone here in the US, more
than two hundred and thirty thousand new cases are expected
(00:29):
to be diagnosed. It's also the leading cause of cancer deaths. Oftentimes,
people don't even realize they have it until it catches
them by surprise. That's actually what happened to Hildy Grossman.
One quick slip led to an unexpected journey which led
to her diagnosis. Now she's a long time performer, and
so she channeled that journey into founding Upstage Lung Cancer.
It's a nonprofit around here dedicated to raising funding for
(00:51):
research through the arts, and they've got a new performance
coming up in a matter of days. Hildy is here
with us now to talk about the performance and her
incredible story. You know, Hildy, thank you for being here.
And it really does seem like this came completely out
of nowhere tell us what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, I always say if I could get lung cancer,
anyone listening could get lung cancer. There's kind of a
buzz phrase among the group of all of our advocate groups,
which is, if you have lungs, you can get lung cancer.
So my lung cancer was found totally by accident. I
had purchased a new pair of shoes. They were kind
(01:31):
of sandals, but now I pay attention all the time
because they were just leather bottoms. And I stepped on
the threshold going down to my basement, which is very narrow, thankfully,
and I just sort of sailed into the air, you know,
because it was so slick anyway. So that started this
whole ridiculous You couldn't write this. If you read this,
(01:55):
you'd say, this is so silly, this whole sequence of
events which which made no sense. So I slipped on
the shoes. I kind of hurt my arm going down,
So I thought, well, maybe I'll go talk to my doctor.
My doctor was out of town. Somebody else was there
who didn't make much sense, said go see a hand person.
(02:15):
But the hand person was ready to give me a
cortizone shot, which made no sense. They couldn't say why.
So I went over to have it looked at, and
the person said, it's not your hand, it's your elbow.
I don't do hands, so I had that. They sent
me up to neurology to have nerve tests and at
that point they said, oh, you know it's not your wrist,
(02:41):
which we knew in the first place, right, Yeah, So
they said go and get an MRI, and so that's
what said this. This is the sort of in the
middle of the sequence, which then led to an MRI,
a PET scan. Nobody was sure. Finally came out that
with a CT scan that there were two tiny little
(03:03):
tumors in my right lung, and thank heavens, it was
super early. This was totally found by accident. One of
the things we say at upstage lung cancer is survival
should not be by accident. We should be able to
diagnose and treat. So I was very lucky only had
(03:24):
surgery and I'm grateful. And this was in two thousand
and eight January, and I thought, why me, you know,
not why ma die it happen to me, but why me?
Did I survive? At that point there was only a
five year twelve and a half percent survival rate. So
I thought, well, hey, why am I one of those?
(03:48):
And so I thought, well, what I know I could
do is I'm a psychologist by day, but jazz singer
by night. So what I knew I could do would
be to use music and the performing arts and create
great shows that could also help highlight the situation and
(04:09):
raise funds for lung cancer research.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
What a cool idea. And you know, before we get
into what the work that you do, I would love
to know what it feels like after going through all
that medical rigmarole to be told you have cancer. Tell
me what was going through your mind and through your treatment? Like,
what tell me about the emotional toll this takes on somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, the initial sense was we all know that we're mortal, right,
we all know that, but none of us really believe it. Right. Yeah,
we know there's only a finite amount of time on
this earth, but we think we'll be here forever because
that's just how we exist, you know, in this world.
(04:54):
So hearing the word cancer was awful. I think I thought, well,
this is a death sentence. And so you know, my
husband and I hugged each other lots of tears, and
so again I was very, very lucky because it was
found by accident. Had I not had this stupid series
(05:17):
of events, which my normal self probably wouldn't have gone
through all this testing at some point always said this
is silly, but for some reason I didn't. So I
was stage one A, which is the earliest possible, you know, sequence,
and I only needed surgery. You know, I was very lucky.
(05:39):
And had I not had this ridiculous sequence of events,
then you know, could have been six or seven years
until some kind of symptom pops up. Because for lung cancer,
early stage just doesn't have symptoms. So many of the
people who wind up finding it early due by acts accident,
(06:00):
and again that's no way to treat or diagnose an illness.
But we're working on it. We're working on it.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, and let's talk about how you're working on it.
You have this incredible musical talent that you are using
not just to entertain, but also to uplift and contribute
to research. So how did you put together upstage lung cancer?
It must have been a lot of work, pulling together
all the different sides to get everything going well.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
It's still another funny story because I'm not someone and
I don't mean this in any derogatory way, but I'm
not a ladies who lunch. I don't go to luncheons,
and I'm not on boards of various organizations. So I
just thought, what can I do? And so I thought,
(06:48):
the only thing I know how to do is put
on an absolutely smack dab wonderful show. I'll put it
up against any joyful events that you can come up with.
So I knew I could do that. And what I
did was I called a good friend of mine, Crispin,
and I said, I want you to meet me at
(07:10):
the Starbucks down the street from my house. And when
I see you and we sit down, I'm going to
ask you something and I want you to say yes
to the question. Okay. So we met at Starbucks and
I told him that I've been through this whole, you know,
lung cancer. I had had surgery only and survived. And
(07:33):
I said, I wanted to, you know, use music and
the performing arts to to help, you know, raise awareness
and make it joyful. And so I said, so will
you join me in this? And what could he do?
He already committed to saying yes, there you go.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You're real demand. I'm going to use that tactic from
here on out.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
By the way, Oh yes, oh yes, I give it
to you as someone thank you successful. And then we
had one other friend, Susan, who had had lung cancer
six months before I did, and asked her to join too,
So it was the three of us who started it up.
(08:12):
And at that point I actually had looked around. This
was now sixteen years ago, and I looked around to
see if there were other organizations to get involved with
her to volunteer. There was hardly anything going on then.
It's very different now, but not much there. So that's
(08:33):
why I was either foolish or courageous enough, depending on
your perspective, to start this organization. And yeah, so that's
how we started. And then I was very very lucky
Joyce Cole Hawick, whom many of your listeners know and love.
(08:54):
She's just she is the sweetest soul. Anyway, I asked
her to be an EMC for our first year and
so she said, oh, well, I'll do it for a year,
but this is now the sixteenth year. She returns, Wow, see, okay,
she's very committed. And yeah, we've we've we've gone through
(09:19):
lots of upstowns and a rounds, and I cannot say
enough wonderful things about Joyce. So yeah, so, and then
I was very lucky Alice Robbins, who is a director, producer, choreographer,
amazing person about in this area, and she helped me
(09:42):
invite some people to join me. One of one of
the people I reached out to outed just out of
the Clear Blue because I liked his voice so much,
was Scott Wally Okay, previous WBS guy, and I just said,
here's what I'm doing, blah blah, would you like to
join us? And so I'm not even sure at that
(10:03):
point I knew he was a singer, but I just
for some reason I was I felt drawn to him.
Turns out he had a lung cancer death in his
family and so he was with me for many years
as well. So I've just I always say, you know,
having lung cancer was not a treat that's not a positive.
(10:28):
You know, you could view it as a negative. But
what has what has come from having it was knowing
the most extraordinary people. I cannot tell you how many
people are in my world who are lovely and generous
and talented and kind and giving you know, we don't
(10:48):
care much about all these good people. There's just like
focus on crazy and horrible. But I'm telling you there
are a lot of really lovely people in this world
and may.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Have been giving so much you talk about giving. You know,
I was doing some research on your website just to
learn a bit more about all this wonderful work. You've
done more than three point eight million dollars so far
raised for cancer research, specifically early detection lung cancer research.
That is an incredible footprint that you and your team
(11:19):
have made, and obviously you're continuing the efforts that could
change a lot of lives.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well it could, because again we're in some respects for
a small organization, all volunteer, and so we every dollar
we get we're grateful for. You know, there are big
organizations which you can write a check for ten thousand
dollars and there it is. You know, it's just one
(11:46):
of many, you know, for us. One of my favorite stories,
oh my favorite favorite stories was we got an email
from a woman whose son was I think it was
in the second grade and his class project was they
had to do some kind of philanthropy. Who knows why,
(12:07):
but he found us online and really liked it, and
he went door to door with two other friends. It's
gonna make me cry, but anyway, he went door to
door with two other friends and they raised I think
fifty dollars. Those fifty dollars mean as much as fifty
thousand dollars. I So that's you know, we've just had
(12:32):
good hearted, really caring people both on our board and
who generously contributed to us. And because we're interested in
early detection lung cancer research, which definitely saves lives if
you can find it early and treat it. Yeah, so
(12:53):
because of that, we've funded some extraordinary If anybody looks
on Upstage long Cancer's website the research page, that's the
research we've funded, and it's really outside of the box,
just like we're outside of the box and as an organization,
and some of you know, some of the funding that
(13:15):
this year we funded something that's just brilliant at the
Coke Institute at MIT, where we've funded a number of
extraordinary projects, again pushing, pushing, pushing toward trying to you know,
look at early detection. And this one is on biomarkers
for inflammation, which is really unusual and I think it
(13:39):
can be you know, groundbreaking in so many ways, So
that's been wonderful. And also it just reminds me that,
you know, we've had concerts not only in the theater
our upcoming concert at the Most Sessien Center on October
twenty ninth in Watertown. We've been there many years, but
(14:04):
we also have done house concerts. So if anybody's listening
who has a nice house and a bunch of friends
who would like to have a musical concert in their house, yeah,
reach out please. But we also have We've done a
concert at MIT, We've done a concert at Dana Farber
where they'd never know such thing before. And also Blueprint Medicine.
(14:29):
So again, just trying to get the word out, create
an evening of joy and helping people learn more about
lung cancer.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And speaking about getting the word out. You and my
buddy Jordan Rich. You might have heard of him if
you're listening to the show here. Everybody's heard of Jordan Rich.
We all love Jordan Rich. You two have your own
podcast as well where you talk about this and all
the performances and a lot of other stuff going on.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's called Backstage at Upstage with a little ampersan okay,
we're at and so backstage and upstage, we've had a
best set of podcasts with various topics from finding joy
when you've lost the thing that's important to you, and
(15:15):
that one was the first one we did when we
started the podcast and so, and that was just after
COVID hit, Just after COVID hit, and who was going
to a theater? I wasn't, So I thought I am
not to be stopped. So I had this idea for
a podcast series and grab Jordan and you know, there
(15:38):
we go. And so that was the first topic. So
in some ways it was about you know, losing losing
your freedom at some level because of our initial reactions
to COVID. And then it was about there were theater
people who were interviewed, and about what happens when you
(15:58):
can't you can't act, you can't be in the theater.
So that was the beginning, and then all kinds of topics.
One of my favorite, which sounds a little esoteric, but
it's not, was what did the Human Genome project do
for me lately? So if you don't know what the
human genome is, and you clearly don't know what it's
(16:21):
done for you, I guarantee you. It sounds esoteric, but
it was one of the most fun podcasts. They're all wonderful,
My guests are superior, they're really good. We did one
I wanted to like, how do you explain what the
immune system is? So what you know, we're all talking
about getting diseases, we get COVID, we get other diseases,
(16:42):
we get cancer. How does our immune system work in
the first place? So doctor Dave Barbie from from Dana Farber.
I grabbed him and said, you just got to explain,
like the immune system for dummies. I didn't call it
that the copyright, but basically, and then that led to
(17:03):
another one he did more recently, which was on immunotherapies,
which is one of the There have been two really
groundbreaking directions since I was diagnosed with one cancer, and
one is using your own immune system to fight the
disease immunotherapy, and the other is biomarker testing, which identifies
(17:27):
what gene, what mutation or gene drives this cancer, what's
behind this cancer. And so we've done a number of
podcasts talking about biomarker testing and how important it is
for any any cancer. I don't care what you know,
if you've got breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, I don't care
(17:49):
what it is, ask your doctors or ask your relative
or friends doctor to make sure they do biomarker testing.
So those were a great direction. And yeah, they're all
on those podcasts and they're all uplifting, they're all positive
without sounding like Disney Worlds. You know, it's just about
(18:09):
what can we take from this that gives us hope.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, explain it like I'm five as well, because look,
a lot of this medical stuff can be a little overwhelming.
And I know here on this show, we try to
do a lot of educational stuff, like in that vein
that you're doing with Jordan, we really try to take
the big issues and kind of bring them down to
a level where we can all understand. So I appreciate
that approach to it, because if you're just sitting there
and listening to a lot of hardcore medical talk, I
(18:34):
know that my brain is going to start, you know,
a little monkey with the symbols.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I'm not going to understand the thing that's funny. That's funny.
Well see, I at some level I won't allow it
because I always say, please don't use jargon please, under
no circumstance use what I call trigrams, which are three
letters people think they know. They'll say, oh, that was
the qRT of that. It's like, well, wait a minute,
(18:58):
wait a minute, what does that mean? You know?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I was just at a lung cancer meeting and there
were a lot of people presenting scientific stuff, and every
time somebody came up with a trigram, I said, can
you just explain what that means? Because there's so many interpretations.
So I really I think every podcast is, you know,
something that you can grasp. Nothing is really and I'm
(19:25):
always happy to be the ignorant one. So if something
comes by that seems complicated, I'll say, hold on, hold on,
I don't understand this. Can you say that in a
different way? So I think your audience would love them
and the help you know, they really are helpful.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Sure, Well, let's talk then about this upcoming event, because
I mean, you've had so many cool concerts, everything from
Sinatra to Disney to I could spend probably twenty minutes
talking about all the shows that you've done in the
past that are just really really fun. This time, though,
is going to be a joyce cool Wick is coming
back and it's called do you Believe in Magic? So
(20:03):
tell me what this concert, what research this concert is
hoping to fund, and who you're doing this for. Specifically,
we have a returning cast what Mike Jazz groups.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
The Fallen Angels with an Oh Fallen Angels. My band
is the band behind the singers, and we have again
returning wonderful, wonderful committed performers of Brian de Lorenzo, Michael Hammond,
Paula Markowitz and as obviously Joyce again. And this year
(20:42):
we also are going to have a magician. Yes, Ethan
Child is coming to do some magic tricks. And so
why did I come up with magic? And what has
that got to do with lung cancer? Well, again, I'm
just happy to have a joy evening. But I for me,
it was sort of a metaphor four if you would
(21:05):
said back in two thousand and eight January of two
thousand and eight when I was diagnosed, that there were
ways of using your immune system, and now we can
have drugs to you know, to boost your immune system
to help you fight cancer or hold on. You don't
need chemotherapy only that that's the only option. Now there
(21:29):
are biomarker driven targeted therapies that only target that mutation
don't have. It just seems like magic, right, And so
that's the idea. And what we've got now in these
sixteen years is going so quickly and expanding so quickly.
It's like a bigger magic one. So that's what's behind it.
(21:53):
And the music is great, all kinds of wonderful songs
from uh do you Believe in Magic? And Superstition and
Stevie Wonder going on. I like that. Yeah, love Potient
number nine. Anyway, they's all fun and I really guarantee
(22:16):
a very joyful evening for an important cause. And yeah,
I think I will guarantee you a great evening. Come
find me personally if you didn't have a good time.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
But I've never heard of and you're going to be
talking to about the Fan Award tell Us, who is
the recipient of the Fan Award this time around, and
the great work he's doing when it comes to cancer
in black women's.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
He's such an extraordinary person. His name is Jeffrey Yang
and he is a surgeon at mass General Hospital and
his interest has been on under served communities. So one
of the things that's really important to know. And we've
done several podcasts on screening. So getting a CT scan,
(23:11):
and there are certain criteria where your insurance company will
cover it entirely. I don't have the precise information, but
it's like, if you're over fifty and you've smoked a
certain number of cigarettes over a certain number of years,
you are eligible for a free CT scan, and so
(23:32):
do it, don't you know? Do that?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
On the other hand, unfortunately, for some reason or other,
the largest increase in lung cancer has been among non
smoking women, and so if that's the case, they're not
going to be eligible for these you know, free CT scans,
which is, hello, this doesn't make any sense, but alrighty
(23:56):
in any case, So what jeff Yng has done, he's
created this army of college students. They're incredible, incredible you know,
people who go out into the black community and talk
about the importance of screening and and you know, talking
about lung cancer in the black community. And he has
(24:21):
we have you know, given him some funding toward his
project where the CT scans are paid for. So bring
awareness to the black community, bringing awareness to black women,
providing you know, scans, and it's just it's wonderful, wonderful.
(24:43):
So each year we are so our logo is a
fan upstage lung Cancer's logos, and so we created this
Fan Award, which has multiple meaning. There's our logo of
the fan. The fan moves there along, you know, and
you could be a fan of shows, you know, of
music and the theater if nothing else. Were very creative.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
So I would expect a bunch of artists to be
very creative. I love We've.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
We've had some extraordinary people that we have honored. In fact,
a couple of years ago, one of the people that
we honored with our Fan Award was Bill Shields, who
was just the most extraordinary person. He was one of
the field reporters for WBZ, such a lovely, lovely human being,
(25:37):
and so we hadn't he had late stage lung cancer
once before and came back, and so he was in
the midst of treatment for lung cancer. And we had
a bunch of the veteran WBZ TV and radio folks
(25:58):
who came to the show and celebrated Bills life with
us and honoring him with this award, and it was,
you know, it was a joyful, joyful evening, and so
happy that his wife and his son, you know, that
his family and friends could be there to celebrate with him. Unfortunately,
(26:19):
he said to me, he said, this is wonderful. I
love this. He said, I want to come back next year.
And I said, yes, you'll come back next year and
you'll be one of our speakers. And sadly he did
not make it to the next year, but he filled me.
I was filled with gratitude for, as I said before,
knowing some wonderful, wonderful people. He's one of those really
(26:43):
special human beings. And yeah, so you know, we're really
proud of our fan Awards and uh yeah, it's it's
it's a great evening, full of smiles, full of full
of joy.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Let's talk about the logistics of this event, because of
course you need to know when, where, or why, how,
so on and so forth. So it's going to be
on October twenty ninth. Give us the details what people
need to know, where they have to go, how they
can get tickets, so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So they can get tickets online at they can go
to our website Upstage lung Cancer dot org. Okay, and
then just go to the performances page and right there
it tells you about the show and you can click
and order tickets right there. If you are a lung
(27:34):
cancer survivor, there's no cost to anyone. If you're a student,
so if you put in survivor then there will be
no cost. And if you're a student, it will only
be fifteen dollars if you put in student. So we
just try to make it available to everyone and no
(27:55):
one will be turned away. So if you feel like
you really want to come and do not have finances,
just go to our contact us page and you'll absolutely
get a seat. We don't turn anyone away, so you
can go on our website, or it's at the most
Sessian Center for the Arts in Watertown, so you could
(28:16):
call them and order a ticket, or you can just
show up the night of the show, October twenty ninth
at seven point thirty. Come a little earlier than that,
of course, but the show will start then and you
can get your ticket then, and the parking is free.
That helps restaurants all around. It's just you know, come
(28:37):
on now, it's time to get out and just you know, yeah,
save her life and have a good, good evening.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Enjoy yourself for a good cause. Right, absolutely, And if
somebody wants just to donate, if they maybe can't make
it to the event, but if they want to help
you out. They're hearing this and saying I want to
give what I can. Where can they do that?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
They can go to our website again, Upstage Lung Cancer
dot org. Okay, and then just go to the donate page.
And as I said before, you know whether it's five
dollars or five one hundred thousand dollars. I haven't seen
that yet, but okay, every dollar is appreciated. Every dollar
goes toward funding innovative research on early detection and it
(29:23):
will save lives. And you know, to have you join
us means everything. And I think you can feel really
good about yourself for participating in this.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Hildy Grossman, what a story, What an incredible ride it's
been so far with upstage lung Cancer. Thank you, thank
you truly for all the work you do. And I
don't want to tell you break a leg for this
upcoming show, king your legs and tact please, but I
hope you have a great show.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Thank you, thank you so much. It's been such a
pleasure to be on your show, Nicole and to your viewers.
Thank you for listening to this particular interview.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio
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