Joel Siegel's Struggle With Cancer

March 28, 2006 — -- In 1997, three years before I had the CT scan that detected that my colon cancer had spread, I had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

"If there's something in my body that is trying to literally eat me up alive, they will know how to deal with it," I said. "And I just have to surrender to them. If I try to fight it, it does me more harm than good, so I'm not frightened about the outcome, but I'm nervous."

By June 2000, I was feeling so good that we taped the CT scan for "Good Morning America." We taped the radiologist telling me I seemed to be fine. We taped me telling my son, Dylan, I was fine. I wasn't.

A second look showed a spot on my right lung. They weren't sure what it was. Six months later it grew.

I didn't know what to tell Dylan. We really are family at "GMA," and so I asked Dr. Tim what he thought. He felt that showing how to talk to your kids about cancer would be a very worthwhile segment.

Diane Sawyer helped. Charlie Gibson helped. We really are family.

"I don't mind if Dylan sees me cry, but I don't want him to see me scared," I said then.

As far as I know, he hasn't seen me scared, but he has seen me looking just terrible.

Last Thanksgiving, I'd just finished my second bout of chemotherapy. I looked like my grandfather. I'd been there before. The day we took Dylan home from the hospital in 1997 was my last day of my first round of chemotherapy. I was on chemo and radiation when I interviewed Brad Pitt. You couldn't see it, we hid it for television, but there was a bag on my right side, pumping the chemicals through a plastic tube right into my jugular vein. Brad Pitt couldn't see it either.