'Stone Phillips: 15 Years of Dateline'

Stone Phillips Anchor • Profile

I want to take you back to some of my favorite stories from the past 15 years.

Judging from your letters and e-mails, the stories that have stayed with you over the years are about people facing immense challenges and finding the kind of inner strength we all wish we had.

As my time here at Dateline draws to an end, that's where we begin.

PROFILES IN COURAGE

"Lucky," 2005

Melissa Etheridge: It's the closest to death I have ever been. The chemotherapy takes you as far down into hell as you've ever ever been. Yeah.

Melissa Etheridge took her battle against breast cancer to the stage

Etheridge: I had such a good time at the Grammys

Her heroic performance at the 2005 Grammys turned a Janis Joplin classic into an instant anthem for breast cancer survivors everywhere.

Stone Phillips:Are you surprised by the impact it had? How it moved people?
Etheridge: Yes. Yes, I'm definitely taken aback. And I remember when I finally made the choice. ‘Yeah, I'm going to do it bald, and you know what, maybe this will help somebody who's sitting on chemo, laying in bed, and going "God, I'm bald, isn't this weird?" Maybe it will help them feel a little better.'

As exhausting as the performance was, for Melissa it was music as medicine.

Etheridge: To be able to throw my head back and scream the last six months out of me, I'm completely grateful for that.  

Stone Phillips:  Well, here's to healing and here's to the healing power of rock and roll.
Etheridge:  Oh yes, that's for sure.

"Tools for Life,"  2001
Robert Tools made medical history when he volunteered to receive the first fully implanted artificial heart. It was highly experimental.

Stone Phillips:  Give us a report. How's the man and how's the machine?
Robert Tools: Machine is fine. The man is fine. It works.

Doctors said if the 59-year-old former marine lived 60 days with his bionic heart, it would be a major success.  When his story aired on Dateline, it was day 123 and counting.  

Stone Phillips: You're eating hamburgers. You're drinking milkshakes.
Tools:  I enjoyed the first heart, but I'm going to enjoy the second heart even more.

With spirit as irrepressible as his appetite, Bob Tools was living for the moment - even as he was fighting for his life.

Stone Phillips: Why do you think they picked you?
Tools: the doctors say I seem like a fighter, I refuse to give up.

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