Melissa Etheridge's brave comeback

Melissa Etheridge describes chemotherapy as "hell." And she was right in the middle of it when she heard she'd been nominated for a Grammy. She figured this was one awards ceremony she'd have to sit out. But then her chemo treatment for breast cancer came to an end, and when she was invited to sing a tribute to a woman she considers a major influence, Etheridge decided she'd go to the Grammy's, with hair, or without.

Melissa Etheridge: “I didn't think, oh, I'm going to be brave and go do it. I thought, well, am I going to be well enough? Okay, I think I'll have enough energy. Yeah, I can do that, right. Maybe that's courageous.  I don't know. But it was just it's what I love to do.”

Stone Phillips: “It's something you had to do.”

Etheridge: “Yeah. I had to. I couldn't have sat here and watched someone else singing Janis Joplin's ‘Piece of My Heart.’ That'd have killed me.”

That was before cancer, before chemo, before this song became a new anthem for breast cancer survivors everywhere.

Phillips: “Are you surprised by the impact it had? How it moved people?”

Etheridge: “Yes. Yes, I'm definitely taken aback. I remember when I finally made the choice.  Yeah, I'm going to do it bald. And you know what? Maybe this'll help somebody who's sitting on chemo laying in bed and going, God, I'm bald. Isn't this weird? Maybe it'll help them feel a little better. I didn't know to what extent that would happen. But I'm honored.”

Phillips: “That song in particular, I mean, cancer is a heartbreaker itself.”

Etheridge: “Yeah.”

Phillips: “It tests people. It pushes people to the edge. How sorely tested have you been?”

Etheridge: “It was very hard. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Chemotherapy tests your sanity. Yet there is an amazing clarity to it that I'm grateful for.”

Phillips: “Pretty much cuts through everything.”

Etheridge: “Oh, you get a real clear sense of good and bad. Your own right and wrong.”

Phillips: “And what's important.”

Etheridge: “And what's important and what is real.”

Keeping it real is what Melissa Etheridge is all about. A plains girl from Leavenworth, Kansas, she's been more than a rock star since she very publicly came out as a lesbian in 1993, never hesitating to walk her talk. She got her first guitar at age eight and grew up listening to the Beatles and the Blues, to Bruce, and of course, Janis Joplin.

Years later, she would become famous for her own spirited live performances, that raspy rock voice and her soulful lyrics. Whether she's singing about love, loss, or her own sexuality, the songs tell her truth. And the truth is, lately, Etheridge had been really happy. After a painful split from a longtime partner five years ago, she had found love again with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels. You can hear it in her newest music.

She was singing those songs on the Canadian leg of her latest concert tour last October, feeling full of life when, at age 43, she found a lump in her left breast.

Etheridge: “It was rather large. And I didn't know why I hadn't noticed it the day before. But it was just this day that it was right here and very noticeable. And I touched it and there's something in your soul. You're like, this is different."

Phillips: “So you could feel it. Could you see it?”

Etheridge: “Yes, you could see it. And it was alarming because I hadn't seen it the day before.  And I didn't quite understand what it was.”

Phillips: “So this came up very, very suddenly?”

Etheridge: “Very suddenly. I had just had a physical two months before with a breast exam.”

Having lost an aunt and a grandmother to breast cancer, and her father to liver cancer, Etheridge has been vigilant about checkups and self exams. Now she knew she needed to get off the road and to a doctor. So after one more performance in Ottawa, she flew home to Los Angeles.”

Etheridge: “Immediately threw Tammy into the bathroom and said, look at this. And she was just-- it was astonishing how large it was.”

Phillips: “Over the next couple of days it had gotten even bigger?”

Etheridge: “Yeah. Yes. And my children could see it.”

Etheridge has a son and daughter from a previous relationship. Their biological father is fellow rock legend David Crosby.

Etheridge: “Tammy and I talked about it, and we decided because they're eight and six -- to say, we need to see if it has a cold. Because if this lump has a cold, it might spread to the rest of the body.  And so we need to take it out if it does. And so I got the biopsy, which is no pleasant thing either, and then the next day I was actually able to get the diagnosis of yes, it is breast cancer.”

Phillips: “So instead of staying on tour and going back on stage, you went into the operating room?”

Etheridge: “Which is another interesting aspect of breast cancer is they can't tell you exactly what's going on until they open you up. So they found my tumor.  It was a four-centimeter tumor. It's a Stage II, very grateful. And it did go into one lymph node, into the sentinel node. They took it out. That was positive. So they moved on and took out 14 other lymph nodes which were negative. Which means that, yes, I had a tumor. It got on the ramp. But not to the rest of the superhighway of lymph nodes, which is how cancer travels. Lymph nodes and bloodstream.”

Phillips: “And following the surgery, chemotherapy.”

Etheridge: “Yes. 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.”

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