Answer Man: After battling cancer, Leisa Zigman leaves TV for corporate world
Q. What happened to Leisa Zigman at KSDK-TV, Channel 5? I haven’t seen her for quite a while.
— Joan Seipp, of Belleville
A. After fearing for her very survival five years ago, the award-winning reporter has begun what she hopes will be an even brighter future.
With her non-Hodgkins lymphoma in remission, Zigman left her 22-year career at KSDK last November to become president of G-Corp., a company that organizes science and technology conferences. But if you’re a fan, don’t worry, she’s not going far. G-Corp.’s headquarters is part of the Center of Emerging Technologies at 4320 Park Ave. in midtown St. Louis. So she is still asking friends and followers to join her Team Leisa for the sixth annual Pedal the Cause that rolls off the starting line in September to raise money for research at the Siteman Cancer Center and St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
When she agreed to be master of ceremonies for the first ride in October 2010, she had no idea how critical the benefit’s mission would be for people like her. She had discovered a small lump in her groin in 2008, but for more than two years, doctors told her it was nothing to worry about. With that in mind, she joined 800 other bicycle riders in October 2010 to raise $900,000 in the first Pedal the Cause, which had been organized by Bill Koman, a fellow lymphoma survivor, and his wife, Amy.
Just one month later, the then 47-year-old mother of an 11-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter was rocked by a bombshell. Concerned about that growing mass, she sought out additional testing that soon uncovered low-grade follicular non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Stage 4. The most dire diagnosis possible.
“I had tumors everywhere, and the lymphoma had spread to 40 percent of my bone marrow,” she tearfully said at a Pedal the Cause press conference the following spring. “It was overwhelming and frightening. I asked myself all the questions I think all cancer patients ask. How much time do I have? Will I be around to walk my young children down the aisle? Will I hold my grandchildren?”
But as she had done for so many years at KSDK, she quickly put on her investigator’s hat to seek the best available treatment. She first considered what she thought were some of the most prestigious cancer centers in the country such as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. But the more she talked to people, the more the road led right back to St. Louis.
“Everyone said, ‘Why would you go anywhere when you have the Siteman Cancer Center in your backyard and you have Dr. Nancy Bartlett?’” Zigman told the press conference. “‘She travels the world teaching all of the lymphoma specialists the latest protocols and treatments.’”
She took their advice — and was very glad she did. For a six-month course of chemotherapy, Bartlett designed a mix of Rituxan and bendamustine that targeted only Zigman’s cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. Had the cancer been discovered when she first noticed the lump, the treatment at that time likely would have been far more toxic, she said. As it was, Zigman kept working and, when people complimented her on the hairpiece they assumed she had to buy, she was able to reply that it was still her own hair.
Just hours before speaking at that May 2011 Pedal the Cause press conference, she received news that was as exhilarating as the cancer diagnosis just six months before had been devastating.
“Yesterday, Dr. Bartlett’s office called and said, ‘Remission! Remission!’” Zigman said, choking back tears as she held up first one fist, then two. “God, it’s a great word! So with that part of my journey complete, I am now ready to move forward with renewed hope that one day there will be a cure.”
Ever since, Zigman, who left an anchor job in Fort Myers, Fla. to come to St. Louis in 1992, has been an fervid supporter of Pedal the Cause. Her Team Leisa has raised more than $56,000 over the years, according to the current statistics on www.pedalthecure.org. Zigman, who plans to ride 50 miles during the event this year on Sept. 26-27, has raised $32,000 herself.
“For 21/2 years, new breakthrough chemo drugs that targeted only cancer cells ... worked to shrink the tumors in my body,” she wrote on the benefit’s website. “This chemo is considered a major advancement in cancer treatment. But we need new treatments, like mine, for all types of cancers. That is the mission of Pedal the Cause, and it is why I ride!”
Q. Last fall in your Sunday BND Magazine, you asked local restaurant workers what their favorite food was in their workplace. One person said lobster pizza from a tavern on Main Street in Belleville. What is the name of the tavern?
— M.M., of Belleville
A. Your question reminds me of that “ Who’s on first?” skit between Bud Abbott and Lou Costello about a baseball team’s crazy nicknames, including a first baseman called Who. You know, the one with such classic lines as: “Who’s playing first?” “That’s right.” “When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?” “Every dollar of it.”
Turns out you may be having the same miscommunication problem. The “tavern on main” is just that. It’s Mark Onstott’s Tavern on Main at 301 E. Main St., which he opened in the fall of 2012. As you saw in the magazine, the Lobster BLT Pizza was bartender Heather Horn’s favorite with its rich, thick white cream sauce that most people probably have to eat in small portions.
“It’s one of the most popular items on the menu,” she said then.
It tops the specialty pizza page with, depending on your hunger, three sizes available for $10, $15 and $22. Call 233-6246 for more information.
Bon appetit.
Today’s trivia
For whom is Nashville, Tenn., named?
Answer to Saturday’s trivia: Anyone who has seen the Broadway musical “Cats” several times (like me) will instantly recognize the line, “Macavity’s a mystery cat, he’s called the hidden paw ...” So it should come as little surprise that in 1987 Mystery Readers International instituted the annual Macavity Awards to honor the best mystery stories in four categories. In the first year, for example, P.D. James won the best novel award for “A Taste for Death” while Sue Grafton, who is close to finishing her alphabet series of mysteries, picked up the honor for “The Parker Shotgun” as the best short story.
This story was originally published April 11, 2015 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Answer Man: After battling cancer, Leisa Zigman leaves TV for corporate world."