¡HOLA LEUKEMIA. FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!

So we took a family Christmas trip to Mexico. San Miguel de Allende, to be exact. Beautiful place. Burnt Sienna buildings. Cobblestone streets. The world’s greatest taco stands on virtually every corner.

But even as we moved into our beautiful rental home for five days—we all kinda knew something wasn’t right. It had started about a week before we left LA. Nancy started getting all kinds of random but intense pains where she’d never really had them.

Her neck. Her back. Her hips, and shoulders, ribs, and feet. They'd hit her out of nowhere-- hang around for a day or two-- then go away. Only to be replaced by another. We assumed she might have pulled something or pinched a nerve while doing yoga or some spine decompression exercises she had recently completed. But just like the rest of us, she was really looking forward to the trip. So we loaded her makeup case with plenty of Advil and off we went.

The anti-inflammatories seemed to help with some of the symptoms. But she also wasn’t sleeping. And would often feel woozy. We tried to chalk that up to the 6,000 feet elevation.

And God bless her— because she’s normally as active as our golden retriever Zingo— she did everything she possibly could to keep up with us. A mile long hike to scale up and down both sides of an ancient pyramid ruin. Treks all over town to shop and eat. Galleries, museums, even swimming. 

But by the end of our final day— she just couldn’t fake it any more. Nancy was in terrible pain. And I was counting the hours till we could just get home and see our doctor.

It was a long and very uncomfortable flight back. And the next morning— she could barely get out of bed. So we grabbed some of the kids’ old crutches from out of our shed— and headed for the closest ER at Encino/Tarzana hospital. On New Year’s Eve— easily one of the worst times to walk into such a place. But we took our place in line and patiently waited it out. After all, the last time we had been there was when our youngest, Cosmo was born. But that was a much happier occasion than what we were about to experience.

The ER doc on call did a full exam and ordered a standard battery of x-rays and blood tests. There were even a few blissful moments when he had us at least partially convinced that indeed, she might have just “pulled something.”

But then the blood work came back. And her white blood cell counts were high. As in, DANGEROUSLY HIGH. So we called our family physician, Dr. David Kayne. (World’s Best Doctor with a practice in Encino, if you’re interested). And after he conferred with the ER doc— suddenly the Oncologist on call was summoned (a lovely and brilliant doctor herself named Dr. Julie Huehyn).

Dr. Huehyn ran more tests. Then had Nancy admitted overnight at Encino/Tarzana in a room with a mural of Tuscany, or Greece, or some non-descript tropical isle on the walls.

And on the last night of 2016— a year that will go down in infamy for all kinds of crappy reasons— we got the news that nobody ever wants to hear.

“I think you have leukemia.”

There would need to be more tests performed in order to determine what kind. And we needed to make some immediate decisions about exactly which Southern California hospital we wanted to begin her chemotherapy in.

Wait.. what? We haven’t even unpacked our bags yet. Can we just slow down a minute here? 

But apparently, no. You can’t do anything slowly once somebody hits you with the “L” word. In fact, you need to make some major decisions— very, very quickly. We had to figure out where we were going next.

And worse than anything we’ve ever had to do in our lives— we had to tell our broken-hearted but unbelievably brave kids.

So after a bunch of tears, a barrage of new tests, and a bunch of urgent emails and phone calls by us and our family… on the night of January 1, 2017, Nancy was transported by ambulance to the UCLA Hematology and Oncology Center at Ronald Reagan Hospital in Westwood, California. 

To say our lives have suddenly turned upside down would be a ridiculous understatement. I'm still running a new TV series called APB, with multiple cuts in the pipeline, the finale currently shooting, and a massive publicity push next week in preparation for our February 6th debut. But I have canceled all of my travel to Chicago for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, our boys had to go back to school for the second semester of 7th and 10th grade. Our daughter has to go back to college exactly one week from the day we shared the news. And Nancy? Oh, boy— is she in for a ride.

In short, we don't really know what we're doing-- except fighting. 

AND WE WILL NOT BE DEFEATED. 

So for the first couple of days, after being overwhelmingly humbled by an outpouring of love and support (AKA - total email, text, phone, and voicemail explosion) we began sending out an email blast to our closest friends and family. And now that has become a blog. Why? Because we desperately need to connect with all of you. 

And in God knows how many ways… we’re going to need a whole lot of your help.