Delia Ephron on Her Personal Rom-com and Surviving Leukemia

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Now, a second chance at life is something many people would like but very few people get. Delia Ephron is the screenwriter behind blockbuster rom-com’s like, “You’ve Got Mail”, directed by her late sister, Norah Ephron. In her memoir, “Left on Tenth”, Delia details how her life has, at time, felt like one of those films. It’s about finding love after loss and exploring this love during her treatment for leukemia. Delia, who is in remission, tells Walter Isaacson what she has learned.

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WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Thank, you Christiane. And Delia Ephron, welcome to the show.

DELIA EPHRON, AUTHOR, “LEFT ON TENTH”: Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.

ISAACSON: Your book coming out in paperback now, it begins almost like one of the screenplays you did. Sort of a big thing, but also how it becomes personal. Your husband died and then you have to try to disconnect his phone line. Tell me about that.

EPHRON: Well, I called up Verizon because I needed to disconnect his landline and they disconnected my internet by accident. And then I spent days, nights, on the phone begging them to fix it. And they couldn’t just fix it. So, I’m in this rage. And what I always do when I get angry as I write about it and I try to make it funny. So, I wrote this piece sort of about Verizon and also losing my husband. So, it was sort of sad and funny, and it was in “The New York Times”. And it gotten — it turns out everyone hates their phone company. So, I got just a ton of mail, just unbelievable amount of mail. And then a few months later I got an e-mail from Peter. And Peter is a union analyst psychiatrist living in the bay area, in Marin County and — just north of San Francisco. And he said we had two dates 54 years ago. OK. I was almost 18 years old, right? So, I did not remember him. At all. But this letter was so charming. So, we started — and he lost his life, recently. And we started to communicate by e-mail. So, it was — I’m embarrassed to say, I actually did think I had fallen into my own romantic comedy because that is what they do when “You’ve Got Mail”, right? They’re in love in — on e-mail and they don’t know each other. Well, they do know each, they hate each other. But either — we didn’t have that part. But, anyway — so, we just began to e-mail constantly about everything. And all day and all night and we just fell in love.

ISAACSON: You know, you’re right. It’s like one of the romantic comedies that you and your late sister, Nora Ephron, wrote like “You’ve Got Mail”. And one of the things that she has written, and it, sort of, comes across in your book is one way to control some processing of pain or anything else is to control the narrative. To write about it. How does that help you process what you go through in life?

EPHRON: It get — it means I get in control. It is my story now. You are not doing it to me. It’s my story now. And that, of course. became the most important thing to me because after I met Peter and fell madly in love with him, I got leukemia. And it was — I mean, this book of mine, “Left on Tenth” is a collision of love and illness. And amazingly, here I am. I survived it. But it was so traumatic, the entire process of trying to get well, that getting to write about it was the most marvelous thing in the world. I thought it was — everyone kept saying, wasn’t it awful to have to revisit it? No. It was so powerful to get to sit down and make it my story.

ISAACSON: You were diagnosed with leukemia and it’s the same type of leukemia, I think, that afflicted your sister, Nora —

EPHRON: Yes.

ISAACSON: — and she died from. And in the book too, you say, I am not my sister. Tell me how you wrestled with that connection.

EPHRON: You know, I was a second born, all right. And Nora was, like, a shot out of a cannon. And she was going around the track so fast. I mean, I couldn’t keep up even though I was trying. And I realized when I got older, you know, especially when you become a writer, you have to differentiate your writing is your fingerprint. And so, I had spent my life, even though we collaborated, I wrote my own books. I wrote novels. I did all sorts of things. As well as live my life, that was mine. And then when I got the same illness she did, I — it felt like not being like her was betrayal. It just flipped on me. And my doctors all knew that this was a problem. That they were the ones who said to me, you are not your sister. I didn’t say to myself. They said, you are not your sister. You can have a different outcome. They felt I needed to believe that in order to survive. And it was very — my doctors were so smart with me, psychologically. Because, of course, I was in the same hospital she was in. They would never put me in the same room. They were very — they — they knew we were so tight and they knew that I needed that to make it.

ISAACSON: You kept your diagnosis secret, which your sister Nora also did, famously. Kept it a secret. And yet in the book, you talk about how secrets can eat you up. Tell me why you kept it secret and what it did to you?

EPHRON: I kept it secret in the beginning because I thought if it got out, people were going to, say oh, her sister died, she is dying too. So, I just did it to protect my hope. And it didn’t suit me. I mean, you know, one of that — I am not my sister, she could do that for years. You know, she kept her illness secret. I — it — I could go out to lunch with friends and I felt like I wasn’t being honest. So, when I went into remission the first time, I told everybody. And I actually wrote it in a “New York Times” piece in order that everyone got the same story. And I — it didn’t — if it was going to be out there in some way on the web, it would be out there my way. I was very aware of that. And then I never kept it a secret, and I was so relieved. One of the things about being a patient is that you are still that same person. You will be who you are when you are sick. Don’t fight that, you know. I knew I had great friends. I knew I had to pick which ones were the best to take the journey with me. I knew I had Peter who was a doctor.

ISAACSON: The book is very much about friendship and about friends.

EPHRON: Yes.

ISAACSON: Is there any secret you can give us about friendship?

EPHRON: You know, no. I think it’s like a talent or something. I mean, I think it’s something that you either have a — I mean, I think women are better at it than men. They are more intimate. It is about sharing, I think. But, you know, I always say to people, be careful who you take on a journey with you when you get sick. I’m just fanatic about this. Because you know which friends are going to be wonderful to you in that hospital and you know which are going to bring in trouble. So, it’s not a party. You know, be careful who you invite to go with you on that trip.

ISAACSON: The bone marrow transplant you had was a real scientific breakthrough. Something new. To what extent did you try to understand it? And did you — you kept in touch with one of the bone marrow donors, right? What was that about?

EPHRON: Yes, if you have a bone marrow transplant and you have it from a donor who is alive, you can get it from cord blood which a mother donates when she gives birth. By the way, please donate your cord blood. It’s otherwise thrown in the trash and it can save a life, or you can get it from an adult donor. And I had a very sophisticated cutting-edge transplant. I had two donors. I had an adult donor and the cord blood from a birth. And I was allowed to contact my donor, my adult donor, Casey — which she doesn’t like me to use her last name. She’s quite modest about it.

ISAACSON: And when you asked Casey why did she do, it what did she say?

EPHRON: Her mother was a nurse and she told her about it. And she was — you know, it’s better the younger your transplant, the better your odds. The stem cells are richer when you’re younger, their stem cells are richer. So, she said her mother told her about it and she said to me, I think everyone should do it. And so, she registered. I was just stunned, really, because I was thinking, you know, being that young, did she — you know, how could she know that the feelings of mortality that somebody I’ve — you know, something that I feel in my 70s. You know, that there are — she’s such — must be such a compassionate person. I mean, she’s just simply charming, we text and everything, but it seems so wise and thoughtful. It’s not, you know, getting one, receiving a transplant is grueling. But giving is nothing, it’s very little. She had to have a checkup. She had some shots before, the week before. She was told not to eat certain things. And she went to the hospital and she is hooked up to a machine for five hours that takes her blood out, takes the stem cells, harvest them, and puts her blood back in. It’s like a transfusion that goes, you know, out and in.

ISAACSON: If people want to do this, what do they do? Go online and look for what?

EPHRON: Yes, just — you go to — if you’re in — the states — just got to be a match. They’ll send you a kit, you swab the inside of your mouth, send it back, and you are register. And one day, maybe, with thrilling unexpectedness, you will get a phone call saying that there is someone out there whose life you can save. And that — and you may never get the call. I mean, the odds are not that high. But if you do, I mean, thank God, Casey, she was thrilled. She’s — I mean, I think she said it was one of the most wonderful things she’d ever done. I mean, how fabulous?

ISAACSON: You were so sick at one point that you asked the people around you to help you die. You asked your doctor that. You write about telling your doctor, here are your words, I want out. I can’t take another pill. I can’t take another pill. I can take another pill. I say that over and over. I want to die. What I am saying sounds strong, but I am nearly a skeleton, limp as a rag, on oxygen, unable to stand up without help, hardly able to sit up, my voice barely over a whisper. Tell us about that time and how your doctor responded to you.

EPHRON: Well, I was — I mean, it was grueling, all right. I was in the hospital 100 days. I was extremely sick with what this thing called Graft vs. Host Disease which means that your body is attacking the transplant, it doesn’t want it to work. And so, what they need to do is get you through that time. And I got immensely depressed. I mean, I am not a depressive. So, I did not know about that. You know, I have friends who’ve had depressive episodes and — but this — it’s stunning to be so dark. It really is. I mean, I was begging everyone to let me go. And my doctor, I texted my doctor and I said, you know, I want to die, please just let me go. And she came in and, you know, she said, I don’t think this is that time. But I said, please, please. And she said, give me 48 hours. And if I get somewhere, give me another 48. And I thought, I — at — I thought hope in an endgame in one sentence. I mean, how brilliant was that? And she didn’t say, in six months you’re going to be feeling fabulous, you’re going to be so glad. She knew I needed something small. I needed an immediate thing. And so, she said give me 48 hours. And about 48 hours later I was of oxygen, and my counts got better. But I — to this day, I think, how brilliant she was to understand that I just needed — she knew I needed a little hope. But she didn’t make it. She just knew how to give it to me. I mean, she was a — she’s an amazing doctor, this is Dr. Gail Roboz at Weill Cornell in New York City. I think she’s a genius. And that’s one reason I’m here. Oh, also, my other doctor, Dr. Koen van Besien who is a transplant doctor.

ISAACSON: These types of things can be really tough on relationships. Tell me how you and Peter held it together.

EPHRON: We had just fallen in love. So, we were in the height of that heavy thing that happens. It wasn’t any different at 72 than it had been at 32 when I had fallen in love with Jerry. It was so — we got married in the hospital, which was few friends came and it was pretty amazing and also sad. And the thing about Peter was, he had lost his mother when he was seven. He was playing outside and his mother was out there with him and she crossed the street and was hit by a car. And so, he — I think had trauma from such a young age that he had learned — I mean, he is now a psychiatrist. I think he really learned to take care of himself and of other people. And so, in the hospital, he was so constant and so present. I mean, he was remarkable. The odd thing is then you sort of have to — when you get well, you sort of, have to put a normal relationship back together. So, I was very surprised when we began to have arguments and things like normal couples. But in the hospital, he was phenomenal. And it’s important to have someone with you, I think, if you can have it. I think COVID has made all of these treatments much harder because there was a period where you had to get a bone marrow transplant during COVID, you could not have anybody with you. I don’t know how you would survive it.

ISAACSON: You’re collaborating on something called the Empathy Project. Tell me about that.

EPHRON: The Empathy Project is a project which creates films to teach empathy to doctors. If you’ve — I don’t know if you have ever had episodes with doctors where you felt ignored, not heard, misunderstood, or — it’s – – I had this one doctor when I was sick who walked into the room and said, you might be immune to this drug, CPX-351. I knew if I was immune to this drug I was going to die, because I needed to be put into remission, and I knew this drug was the one that could do it. Why did that doctor say that to me? There I was, feeling completely vulnerable. I went crazy with rage. I just — and I — and you know, you’re just sitting there in the hospital, center of attention, no power. And this doctor has just said something really stupid to you. And it gets into your head. And we’ve all — we’re all patients at one time or another. We all have our doctor stories, good and bad. And if I can put some films out into the world that help medical students become better doctors, and that’s what they are. It’s a brainchild of a doctor called Dr. Jon LaPook, who is the CBS Chief Medical Correspondent, as well as a practicing physician. And he’s passionate about it and so am I. I mean — and last year we did this wonderful film about implicit bias, just an eight-minute animated film about trying to help doctors understand what their biases are and what the patient feels like in that room. So, that is with the Empathy Project does. I’m very happy to be involved in it. I think it’s a wonderful project.

ISAACSON: And in some ways, your book is sort of an empathy project.

EPHRON: Yes, it is. It definitely is.

ISAACSON: It teaches people empathy. Tell me what you learned about empathy.

EPHRON: I suppose I had empathy for myself in a way because I knew that by — look, it you go through trauma like this that I did, it was a year of my life and it was frightening. I got to write it. And if you write it, it becomes yours. And if there is anything you can do with the trauma, if you can dance it, draw it, paint it, write it, do an oral history of it, anything that helps you get control of something that you went through. I think it makes you process it better.

ISAACSON: Delia Ephron, think you so much for joining us.

EPHRON: Thank you. I am delighted. It was wonderful.