Koppel covers 'Living With Cancer'

When Ted Koppel learned that cancer had spread throughout the body of his friend and longtime colleague Leroy Sievers, the news was "shattering." The two had covered wars in Kosovo, Somalia and Iraq, but it was the disease, not violence, that sent Sievers to the doctors. The only way Koppel could cope, he says, is by staying "in total denial."

Sievers, a former Nightline producer, is "really an oak tree of a man," Koppel says. "He just looked like someone who can't be touched by anything like cancer. But cancer doesn't play the game that way."
lmost a year and a half after cancer spread to Sievers' brain, lungs and spine, and doctors told him he had only six months to live, Sievers is educating others about living with the disease. On Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, Discovery Channel will air a three-hour special, Living With Cancer. The show features Koppel's conversations with Sievers and Lance Armstrong, as well as a town-hall meeting with others affected by the disease.

Sievers says television usually focuses on the medical aspects of cancer by interviewing doctors, but "you rarely hear from the patients." He says he hopes the show will give people a sense of the day-to-day lives of cancer patients.

"It's just a way of saying yes, even when you know cancer is going to kill you, you can still live with that cancer and live a very productive life," Koppel says.