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Spacewalkers Remove Faulty Cooling Unit; Ted Stevens: Reflection From a Friend; Preparing for the Next Storm; Deadly, Devastating Floods in Pakistan; Russia Burning; When Doctors Get It Wrong; The Stakeout

Aired August 11, 2010 - 13:58   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It's a new hour on "The Rundown." Houston, they have a problem, and they're trying to fix it right now. Two space-walking astronauts are making what could be their most important repair yet to the international space station. It's live, and we've got play-by-play for you and we'll tell you what happens if they fail.

Plus, it's the kind of natural disaster that Pakistan hasn't seen in decades. Devastation on a massive level, and it could hamper the war on terror.

Also, she thought she had a deadly form of cancer. Turns out she was misdiagnosed. Now, she's trying to make sure others don't go through the same medical nightmare. I'll tell you about that shortly.

But first, let's take you into space and tell you what's going on. Let's take a look at the international space station, which is very pretty. It's about 200 miles or more over the earth right now. There is a spacewalk under way at the moment to fix a faulty cooling -- let's call it a heat transfer module, because the heat in space -- or the cold depending on which way you're facing -- if this thing is facing the sun, the hot side can get up to 250 degrees. The dark side can get down as low as minus 250 degrees. So you have a 500-degree spread, and this is what you need this cooler to do. It transfers heat or cold and generates the right temperature.

It broke. On July 31st, an alarm went off that said there's something wrong with it. This is on the U.S. side of the space station. There are six astronauts on it right now. They've had to shut down some operation on the U.S. side.

It was supposed to take two spacewalks to fix this. The first one was on Saturday but nothing went right on that spacewalk. So they started another one this morning at 8:00 a.m., and it has gone swimmingly, so we think. It's supposed to end right about now.

Let's go to Miami first, where John Zarrella is standing by with the latest on this current spacewalk -- John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Ali. Five and a half hours in, and everything is going swimmingly, as you mentioned.

About half an hour ago, Doug Wheelock, one of the two astronauts outside, actually grappled this giant ammonia pump and removed it, pulled it out while he was standing on the end of the robotic arm, pulled it out of the compartment that was holding it. Now, remember, this thing weighs 800 pounds. Well, that's weightless up there, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? But the mass is still there.

VELSHI: Right.

ZARRELLA: So, it's about the size of a refrigerator. And when I asked one of the astronauts, well, "What is it, a single door refrigerator, a double door?" It's a double-door refrigerator basically that they're moving in space, Ali. But that was successful.

So now they've moved that out of the way and they're getting ready now to start making preparations to install the new one. And that will come on Sunday.

VELSHI: All right. Very good.

And you got a flavor. You've been watching this very carefully because we need to know how this turns out.

You got some sense of what the mood is like about that, because if I'm on that space station and an alarm goes off and tells me a cooling module is in trouble, you can imagine some tension has been building up there for the last few days. But you eavesdropped a little bit on a conversation today which seemed casual and normal.

ZARRELLA: Yes, we actually did have an opportunity. We were listening to Tracy Caldwell Dyson, who's up there. And, you know, at one point she was disconnecting connectors and things, and she made a reference. And she said, "Oh, man, my dad would be proud of me doing that." Sort of like repairing a car, right for a woman?

And so she did that and it was great. And she was really excited about that. And then she was just kind of chitchatting about flying over California.

VELSHI: Are we going to hear that? Oh, we don't have that. I'm sorry.

ZARRELLA: No, we don't have that.

Well, anyway, bottom line on that was, she was talking about, well, where are we? Are we on the north side of California -- northern California, southern California? Talking to ground control. And just having this conversation as she was up there working, disconnecting lines and things.

So they've practiced and practiced for so many years, but yet they like to have the little distractions and to have the conversations back and forth while they're going through this incredible feat, a high-wire act 220 miles up -- Ali.

VELSHI: All right, John. Thanks very much for that. We'll stay on top of this until we find out exactly what happened to that.

John Zarrella in Miami.

Well, listen, another story we've been covering very thoroughly here is this crash in Alaska. Federal investigators say they have not ruled anything out as they try to pinpoint what actually caused that Alaskan plane crash that killed former Senator Ted Stevens and four other people. We're also learning that that brutal terrain and bad weather made it difficult for emergency responders to get to the scene. What they found when they arrived finally is today's "Sound Effect."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN DAVIS, ALASKA AIR NATIONAL GUARD: There was a scar on the hillside where it impacted and skidded up the hill. That was probably about 75 yards long. And as we approached the aircraft, you could smell the fuel. The wings were swept back. The engine compartment of the plane had broken off or buried itself into the ground.

What else?

KRISTOPHER ABEL, ALASKA AIR NATIONAL GUARD: The fuselage itself was presently intact, and that's where all but one of the survivors and everybody else were located.

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN ALL-PLATFORM JOURNALIST: And what was it like inside the aircraft? How would you describe that scene?

ABEL: Well, it's a jumbled mess. And it's wet and, as I said, fuel smell.

The volunteers who got in there, spent the night there, were frazzled. They were dirty and wet and tired themselves. They had been treating these guys overnight. But as I said, it was relatively intact and they were able to ride out the weather there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Four passengers did survive the crash with injuries, including former NASA chief Sean O'Keefe. It is believed that the youngest survivor, who is 13 years old, was able to get out of the plane and spend the night under the wing.

All right. Listen to this. Can you imagine seeing this story of this plane crash and thinking to yourself, I was supposed to be on that plane?

Well, I'm about to talk to a guy who was supposed to be on that plane. His name is Russ Withers. He joins me now by phone.

Russ, are you there?

RUSS WITHERS, LONGTIME FRIEND OF TED STEVENS: Yes, sir. I'm here, Ali.

VELSHI: Russ, tell me what happened. You were invited on that fishing trip.

WITHERS: I was invited on the trip. And I told him I didn't think I could rearrange a prior commitment.

And we communicated Friday, and I told him that I couldn't make it. I had to be in Sarasota for a presentation that had been a long time planned. And he said that it was going to be a great trip, that Jim May, who is a dear friend to both of us and who now is head of the Air Transport Association, and his wife Catherine were going to be there. And we scheduled a tentative fishing trip in September, because he and I have been fishing with friends for some 40 years.

VELSHI: Russ, at one point did you realize in the coverage of this event that that was the plane, that that was Ted Stevens on that plane?

WITHERS: 5:30 yesterday morning, when I had the first e-mail. It rolled me out of bed to the fact that the plane that they thought he was on had impacted -- well, had left, as you know the story now. I didn't know the time thing.

It had left the lodge about -- or left where it was about 3:00. And, of course, with no flight rules, no IFR (ph) filing. They found it, and I was -- we knew there were some survivors at that time. We knew there were some fatalities. But none of us knew until we got the word yesterday afternoon.

VELSHI: Russ, did you know anybody else on that aircraft?

WITHERS: Yes, I knew the -- Bill was -- had been a former staffer of -- Bill Phillips (ph), I think is his last name. I lost track of all the people that were on it. And the senator and I had had dinner with the NASA chief in New York about four years ago when he was still with NASA.

VELSHI: Russ, how do you manage the emotions you've got to be feeling, the loss of a close friend for 40 years, and the fact that your life could have been saved by the fact that you weren't on that plane?

WITHERS: It didn't hit until about 10:30 last night. And I had one of those "Oh, my God" moments.

And my first duty was to get in touch with my daughter and tell her that I wasn't -- I didn't make the trip, that I was fine. And Ted had watched my daughter Dana (ph) grow up, and literally had -- as I had watched Lily, the daughter of he and Catherine. And so he was "Uncle Ted" to her, and like she said last night, it's like getting kicked in the stomach. She is torn between the fact that a dear family friend is gone and her father wasn't on the airplane.

So, it is something that I'm sure someday it will hit me a lot harder than it has right now, Ali. But so far it's there.

VELSHI: It needs time to settle in, Russ.

WITHERS: It does.

VELSHI: Tell me -- we all know the public face of Ted Stevens, and certainly over the last day, we've heard a lot more about things that we didn't know about him. Give me one recollection or one warm spot that you remember about Ted Stevens.

WITHERS: The man was loyal to a fault to all of his staffers, to his friends. And when we read the history of Alaska, we're talking about the history of Ted Stevens.

Ted Stevens is the moving force that took Alaska from -- he helped get it statehood. And he knew he was elected to represent the citizens of Alaska, and his job was to bring home Ted's money, and that's what they called it there. And Uncle Ted did.

He literally, when you see -- and the way he cared for the -- he saw something that needed to be fixed in the villages, he got it done, whether it was improved air service -- we've flown in, and I have into airports into Alaska that is the biggest and finest thing there because that's how they communicate with the outside world. And he fixed the mail system so they can get air mail.

They're even receiving groceries by mail. It's awesome what they've done and what he did. And he'll be long remembered, long revered.

But I tell you, I've never met a man who was a warmer, closer, personal friend than -- he had a great sense of humor. And it was a travesty, and I'm glad that Holder got it remedied while he was still alive on the trial that happened.

VELSHI: Russ, thanks very much for joining us. A sad occasion. We're glad you're still with us though. Sometimes these decisions are fortuitous.

Russ Withers was supposed to be on that deadly flight yesterday.

Russ, thanks very much for joining us.

WITHERS: Thank you for the opportunity.

VELSHI: All right. Coming up ahead, we're going to give you a little more on that crucial repair on the International Space Station. Happening right now, we know that they've met with some success. I'm joined by an astronaut who's been up in space, Mae Jemison, right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Want to bring you a little more on that spacewalk that's being undertaken right now.

There's a cooling module on the International Space Station -- that is, the space station that's occupied by six astronauts: three Americans, three Russians. Right now, two of those Americans are out there. They are trying to fix this thing. It's going to take another full walk to fix it, but it was supposed to take two in total. They went out on Saturday, unsuccessfully. They went out again today and they finally got that cooling system out -- you can see.

And then they have to put the new one in -- they've got spares up there -- and reconnect it. This is complicated stuff.

On the phone with me right now is former astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, a pioneering astronaut, the first African-American woman astronaut in the United States. She joins me by phone from Houston.

Dr. Jemison, thank you for being with us again.

Tell us a little bit about what they're experiencing out there in space as they are out there with this thing that is the size of a fridge, even though there's weightlessness. What are the issues that they're facing?

DR. MAE JEMISON, FMR. ASTRONAUT: Well, I think you had been talking about it before. One of the issues is that the coolant pump itself has a lot of mass, or weight. So, even though it's weightless, people might think about being in a big tank of water and you move something. Even though you could move it and you normally couldn't, to stop it requires you to put a lot of strength and effort in it.

I think what we have to look at when we talk about this particular spacewalk is that even though it's taking three, when originally they thought it would take two, I would never classify the first spacewalk as unsuccessful. We have to remember, this is equipment that's been in temperatures ranging from plus or minus 250 degrees either side of zero.

VELSHI: Right.

JEMISON: Right? We're talking about equipment that's been up for six years, or been together. So you don't know exactly how you're going to take this apart and put it back together again.

We've worked on the scenario. We have an idea. And so all of this was designed relatively quickly.

So, I wouldn't say that nothing went right. I think it was characterized that way. Actually, a lot of things went right, because they were able to understand what's going on so that they could come back --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Right. And everybody's safe and everybody's -- and I guess that's part of the point, that this is what NASA does for us, right? You conduct experiments, you find out how things work out there. Part of what's going on, on the space station right now is a lot of scientific experimentation.

You were telling me last hour, while they're doing this, that's what's on hold.

JEMISON: Well, that's what's on hold. The scientific experimentation, what we get from NASA, is the scientific work that can be done only in a weightless environment where we look and understand things about the planet Earth, our geology. And we understand also about a lot of the technological advances that are going on that happen just to put people up in -- just part of putting people up into space, that's part of the vehicle design.

All of these things are quite incredible. But I want to do one thing. I want to go back.

I heard a comment when I was waiting on line. I think it was from John Zarrella.

He said that Tracy Caldwell Dyson said her dad would be proud and it's like a woman repairing a car. Look, anybody's dad would be proud of them doing what she's doing.

VELSHI: That's true.

JEMISON: This is more like repairing a multibillion-dollar piece of equipment 300 miles in orbit while wearing a 200-pound suit. So I want to make sure that we understand that the casualness of the conversation that goes on --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: It belies how sophisticated and how much work and how much practice and how much training and bravery goes into it. We definitely -- we get that point, yes.

JEMISON: Yes. It's due to the confidence and stuff.

So sometimes I think it's really important for us to remember and say, what's going on now? Are people -- not only just the astronauts on EVA are doing the spacewalk, but it's the folks down on the ground. It's a coordination with the astronauts inside who are actually making all of this happen, and it's pretty spectacular choreography.

VELSHI: Yes. I agree with you there. It's not like you just walk outside your house and try to fix something. There's a lot of people involved in this.

And we appreciate you coming on and giving us some of the perspective on it. And that's the part that always fascinates me when I talk to astronauts, or former astronauts like you. It all seems so casual and so easy, but we know that you've all dedicated a great deal to knowing how to deal with moments like this.

So thanks so much for being with us.

JEMISON: And it's also part of what we as the United States have to offer and some of the things that we can do.

VELSHI: That's right. That's exactly right. Thank you. It's a good message.

JEMISON: You're welcome.

VELSHI: All right.

Preparing for a future disaster, it's tough when you're still recovering from a previous disaster. But the people of New Orleans, well, it's never too early to gear up for the next storm. They are "Building Up America," and I'm going to tell you how they're doing that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Hard to believe, but the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is just a couple of weeks away. Now, since the disaster, the people of New Orleans have made enormous strides in rebuilding their city. But they're also mindful that another devastating storm could strike. One group is working hard to make sure everyone is ready for it.

With today's "Building Up America," here is Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the wake of Katrina, tens of thousands of New Orleaneans were stranded because they lacked transportation, information, or the inclination to evacuate before the storm.

Beverly Mitchell, with a clunker of an old car, was one of them.

BEVERLY MITCHELL, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: I really didn't believe Katrina was going to be so devastating.

FOREMAN (on camera): You found out otherwise?

MITCHELL: I sure did. Yes, I did.

FOREMAN (voice-over): She wound up in the Superdome's heat, squalor and darkness for days.

Now, in the shadow of that same building, a group is building up their plan to avoid a repeat of this calamity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need this to save lives.

This is evacuteer.org. Volunteers from all over town who are training to help their fellow citizens get out when a big storm comes in.

Robert Fogarty is the founder.

ROBERT FOGARTY, DIRECTOR, EVACUTEER.ORG: If we're not preparing our vulnerable residents for a way to leave, and have them feel safe in that process, we're not doing the best that we can. FOREMAN: About 30,000 residents lack reliable transportation. So when an evacuation is called, 700 evacuateers man collection points all over, offering information, assistance with bags, help with paperwork, getting those people on to buses and on their way.

(on camera): What is the number one sort of mission for you?

LAINE FREY, VP OF OPERATIONS, EVACUTEER.ORG: For me, personally, it's to get every person in this city somewhere safe if there's a storm coming.

RAFAEL DELGADILLO, VP OF OPERATIONS, EVACUTEER.ORG: We're here to make sure that there's grease between the gears and that people are calmed down.

SHAWN CHOLLETTE, SR. VP OF OPERATIONS, EVACUTEER.ORG: So, evacuteer.org is about me taking care of my family, my extended family. And hopefully the rest of -- everybody feels like we're family.

FOREMAN: Hurricane Gustav tested their skills two years ago and they say it went well. But the evacuateers keep improving, always mindful of the chaos of Katrina.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think our organization exists to reduce and never have happen what happened five years ago. I mean, that just can't happen.

FOREMAN: Beverly Mitchell is counting on that.

(on camera): There are people here who don't have transportation, there are people who have medical problems, there are people who have financial problems, people have questions, who are afraid.

MITCHELL: Yes. Yes. You know? So, Evacuteer is a blessing for all of us.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And assurance that as long as the evacuateers can find a way in, they will have a way out.

Tom Foreman, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: I want to bring you some breaking news now on this story we've been following about these escaped prisoners.

As you know, there are two on the loose right now. The U.S. Marshals Office has received information that the Arizona escaped prisoner John McCluskey and his accomplice, Casslyn Welch, were believed to have been spotted in Gentry, Arizona, possibly involved in a beauty store robbery today.

The U.S. Marshals Office is on the scene. They're investigating. They are cooperating with local law enforcement. The story, as we know it right now, is that the suspects from that robbery got away. They ran away. But they are believed at the moment to be John McCluskey and his accomplice, Casslyn Welch, in Arizona.

The U.S. authorities had asked Interpol to put out an alert. There was some concern that they may have gone north into Canada.

We'll of course keep you posted on what we find out about this.

All right. Record flooding in the Midwest, it's submerging parts of Iowa. Plus, there's some high heat, there's bad air circulating around the U.S.

We're going to tell you if it's heading your way.

Stay with us. I'm back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: A lot of flooding going on in other parts of the world, too. In fact, imagine the population of New England, have all those people fighting to survive amid the worst flooding in memory. Well, that's sort of like what you've got in Pakistan right now.

That country's deadly, destructive flooding is the worst in decades. We're "Globe Trekking" there after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I want to show you some flooding that's going on in Pakistan right now.

Let's show you a map of Pakistan. You can see India to the south, Afghanistan to the north. Islamabad, the capital on the top of the screen there. Karachi, the port city, largest city at the bottom there.

Now look at that. All that tan area is the area that's affected by flooding, worst in 80 years, more than 1,300 people have been affected. The brown part of the map showed the flooded districts. The red area that you can see there -- so the brown is the area that's flooded, the red is the area that is most affected by the flooding. And down -- if you go down near Karachi, you can see the green spot there, that is an area where flooding is expected.

So pretty much the whole country, from the north to the south, is affected by this, and it is having an effect not only on the lives that are begin effected in Pakistan, but it's actually having an effect on the war on terror where Pakistan is the bull work between the West and terrorists in Afghanistan.

Here's Dan Rivers in Islamabad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This used to be a vibrant food market, but look at it now, Kushalpur (ph) is completely choked with mud and debris.

Two hundred and fifty food shops have been completely consumed by the foul-smelling sludge. Ton after ton needs to be cleared, including rotting produce that shopkeepers didn't have the time to take with them as they fled the sudden inundation.

It's tough, back-breaking work, but with the start of Ramadan, it will be even harder. These people will be fasting all day and aren't supposed to even have a sip of water during daylight hours.

Tuma Goul (ph) surveys the damage to his vegetable shop. This business has been in his family for 20 years and now it's in ruins. He shows me how high the water was and complains that he's lost thousands of dollars of stock and lost trade.

He set up a temporary store by the side of the road, but all the produce have increased in price; tomatoes have doubled, so have cucumbers, the other vegetables are up by a third.

Customers like this Neaz Ali (ph) complain they have already lost work and money is tight but now with the cost of food rising, they're simply having to eat less.

Market manager Ikram Ullah says it's really difficult not just for the poor but for shopkeepers as well. With Ramadan coming up, he says, it's difficult for everybody. This flood has really increased prices.

(on camera): It's not just the food in this market that has been lost, but the crops in the fields which are still soaked are also in jeopardy. The economic impacts of this flood will be felt for months or perhaps even years.

JEAN-MAURICE RIPERT, U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY: The crop has been lost and it's a race against time, to be sure, that the next sowing season can be met.

RIVERS (voice-over): You only have to look at the banks of the mighty River Indus to see why prices have gone up. This should be fertile, productive land, but it's still submerged.

U.N.'s World Food Program has already delivered supplies to 340,000 people, but many more will need help if these waters and therefore food prices don't go down soon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Let me take you over to Russia and show you what the situation is over there. We've seen the heat -- we've seen the fires that are going on. They're creating smog all over the country, basically a cloud all over central Russia. Let me show you the first map. This is the heat wave that we're looking at. Take a look at the temperatures there. The deepest of the red is obviously the hottest. Temperatures up to 108 degrees Fahrenheit. The fires and the drought are expected to last at least a few more days.

Now I want to show you another graphic and that is of carbon monoxide. You can see the reddest part, the darkest red is where the intense carbon monoxide is largely around Moscow and that area in central Russia, compared to other parts of Europe. Take a look at the top of that screen where there's no yellow at all, very little at all. So that's carbon monoxide over western Russia.

I want to show you the fires and smoke. OK, so the red little dots there are active fires, the rest of it is smoke. That's Moscow on the left and there's smoke, you can see all over Russia. These are the deadliest wildfires since 1972.

And I want to show you one last map which shows smoke clouds -- you can see this from space enveloping much of the country as well. This would be the equivalent of there being sort of smoke all the way from San Francisco to Chicago here in the United States.

Matthew Chance is in Moscow, here's his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): As you can see, the winds have finally blown away the thick blanket of smog that's been smothering Moscow for the past week. We can finally breathe again without choking.

But meteorologists say the smoke is likely to be back. Hundreds of wildfires that were its cause are still raging across vast swaths of Russia, despite the efforts of tens of thousands of firefighters.

Among them now, Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, pictured on state television actually piloting an aircraft being used to drop water on the forest fires.

Throughout this crisis, Putin has been at pains to show himself in personal charge. He's criticized local officials for negligence. He's assured villagers their burned homes would be rebuilt. Now it seems he's taken to personally putting out the flames.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: This is pretty exciting. Starting this Thursday, tomorrow, I'm going to have a new segment on the show. It's called "Q&A." Each week, your friend and mine, Richard Quest will be coming to you simulcast around the world, both CNN and CNN International, to talk about business, about travel, about innovation.

What's unique about this, though, is that you're going to be deciding the topics. You send the questions -- the "Q" -- we've got the "A" -- the answers. Nothing is off limits.

All you do is go to our blog at CNN.com/ali, tell us each week what you want to talk about, what answers you want and we'll bring them to you.

It all gets started this Thursday at 2:00 p.m. That's tomorrow 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

Imagine being told you had a rare and deadly cancer and it turns out the doctors were wrong. Well, we've got an empowered patient who is trying to put a stop to those medical nightmares. "Mission Possible" up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I've had a lot of response from those of you after I posted on Facebook and after you saw Elizabeth Cohen on with me. She's got a new book out, it's called "The Empowered Patient." You've got to buy it. It's an easy read, an inexpensive book, but it's what Elizabeth has committed to and that is allowing you to be an empowered patient.

One of the things she covers in her book is what happens when doctors get it wrong. How do you be an empowered patient and step up? We're all so intimidated by this whole thing.

Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent, is with us here in studio.

Doesn't matter what you do for a living and how important you feel at your job, when it comes to facing a medical problem or being in a doctor's office, you are the small player. You are not -- you don't feel like you're in charge.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You're in their world. When you're in the hospital, you're in their world. You're just a guest in it. And you know what? Things don't always go right.

For example, doctors have done studies where they look at cadavers -- this is awful -- and they say, what did they die of and what did the doctors say they died of. And they found that about 15 percent of the time, doctors are wrong.

So I want to introduce you to a real pioneer of the empowered patient movement. Her name is Trisha Torrey and she's coming to us from New York. Welcome to the show, Trisha.

TRISHA TORREY, EVERY PATIENT'S ADVOCATE: Thank you. Thanks, Elizabeth. It's great to see you.

COHEN: Great to see you.

Trisha, I included your story in the book because it is so incredible what happened to you. So tell us your story.

TORREY: Well, in the summer of 2004, I found a lump on my torso. It was about the size of a golf ball.

Eventually, I got to the doctor. They removed me and called me two weeks later and told me I had a very rare type of lymphoma -- subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma.

Of course, I went instantly to the Internet to see what I could learn about it, and mostly what I learned was that it was very, very rare and that anybody who was diagnosed with it died either within a few months or if they tried chemo, they might buy themselves an extra year.

From there, my gut just told me there's something wrong. I felt fine. They ran a CAT scan, they ran bloodwork, couldn't find any other evidence of that cancer. And eventually, making a very long story short, as you can imagine, I was able to show that I didn't have cancer at all. And eventually, that was confirmed by the National Institutes of Health.

VELSHI: Wow.

Trisha, let me ask you this, what's step one in this? Because we would all like to not have what the doctor says we have. What is step one? Who do you first tell that you think this is not the right diagnosis?

TORREY: Well, you know, I say this to you giving you some of my best advice because I actually made all the mistakes patients could make.

And so, when I first started asking about it, it didn't occur to me that I didn't really have it. I was told that two labs had independently confirmed that I had this.

And so I would say to anyone else when you're given a diagnosis, the first thing you need to do is ask, what else could it possibly be. And actually, Elizabeth, you talk about that in your book. What else could it be?

But then the second thing you need to do is get a hold of the test records and the results and start looking them all up yourself to see if, in fact, what you're learning on the Internet matches what you're being told by your doctors.

COHEN: I think that's so key. She talks about what you're learning on the Internet, cause sometimes doctors dis the Internet.

VELSHI: I've heard a lot of doctors say, don't go do your own research, all sorts of crazy stuff is out on the Internet.

COHEN: And here's another place where the Internet really helped.

And, Trisha, I'm going to brag on you for a minute.

The mother of a 15-year-old boy named Danny Pegon Figuera (ph). Danny was also diagnosed with this same horrible form of lymphoma. And on the Internet, the mom found Trisha and guess what. Danny didn't really have it. It was nothing. It was nothing.

So that's really pretty incredible. There he is. He was in the hospital to get various biopsies and it turned out in the end, because his mother questioned the lymphoma -- and he was in the same situation as Trisha and was about to get chemo and it turns out he didn't need it.

So, Trisha, quickly tell us, every time you get a diagnosis, should you question it?

TORREY: Well, you know, I would say, Elizabeth, if you get something that's fairly simple -- I mean, we all catch the flu, we all get colds, we all have poison ivy, if you get something like that, I don't think you really need to question it because the treatment will probably be pretty similar to whatever it is the doctor thinks you've got.

But at the point where maybe your symptoms don't match those that you find should be classic ones or if you're being treated for a period of time and the treatment isn't working or at the point where your diagnosis means you need some kind of difficult treatment, surgery or chemo or a drug you'll need to take for the rest of your life, at that point I would say trust but verify.

Most of the time, the doctor is right, but it doesn't mean that he's right or she's right in your case and so, doing all that research can give you better answers.

VELSHI: What a great story.

COHEN: Trisha Torrey, thanks so much. And you can read Trisha's blog at about.com, she's their patient advocate.

VELSHI: Very good. Trisha, thanks very much for joining us.

TORREY: Thank you so.

VELSHI: You know, I've had a cough for over two months. It's mostly gone now. It's like five percent. But I was having trouble even doing my job. And the doctor kept trying different things, he ran a lot of tests. And he said to me at one point, he said, some things we only diagnose by how you respond to the treatment because he had run all these tests it showed nothing but I couldn't talk for ten seconds without coughing. And he said, we have to try different treatments on you just to establish what's wrong.

COHEN: Right, as a way of diagnosing. Right, that's an important thing. The treatment is not just to treat you but to see if the diagnose is right.

VELSHI: All right, this book is chock full of this stuff. It's an easy read. I don't mean to diminish by that. I'm just saying it's not a big commitment to go buy this and to read it. But honestly, it's the kind of thing, it's like Sanjay's book, you can make your life easier and better because we all end up as patients at some point or other and we all feel as unempowered as ever before. So good luck and thank you so much for putting this in print. Elizabeth will be with us very regularly doing exactly this. Check out her documentary "Empowered Patient." It is this Saturday, September 25th 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN. Set your TiVo right now if you're not going to be there. This stuff makes your life better.

When we come back, the White House well knows you win some and you lose some. President Obama is having an OK week. His press secretary, not so much. Ed is going to tell us why in "The Stakeout." He's at the White House.

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VELSHI: Ed Henry, as he always is, on "The Stakeout" at the White House. He's back from his trip to Texas and he's wearing a phenomenal tie, I have to say. I don't think I've described a tie of yours as phenomenal just yet.

Phenomenal is not what you would describe the week that Robert Gibbs is having.

But first of all, let's talk about what happened last night. People may not have been paying all that much attention, but there were primaries across the country.

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And you know, the White House, regardless of which party is controlling it, they're always picking their spots of which race is the one to focus on. Races they don't do so well, they say local issues decided it.

Last night, the one that the White House really wants to single out is this Colorado Senate race. You've got a big democratic primary. You had Andrew Romanoff who was supported by Bill Clinton. The incumbent, Senator Michael Bennett was supported by the president. And in the end, Michael Bennett won.

And they had been bracing here for the inevitable storyline that today we would be talking, if Romanoff had won, about how that Bill Clinton had more juice than President Obama and that's why he's on the campaign trail so much.

So now that Bennett actually won, they've been going overboard here. One of the president's advisers sent me a long e-mail with all the things the president did. You know, he did a town hall, a tele- town hall event a few days ago for Michael Bennett. He made what they call the robo-call, a taped phone call. He raised over $700,000.

So bottom line is they're feeling good that this is an example, Colorado a swing state, it was a democratic primary, but still a swing state where they feel like, look, they can put the president out there and the guy that he picks can win.

But it is fascinating how when your guy doesn't win, all of a sudden you say, it was a local issue. It wasn't a coattail issue, it was the fact that local issues decided this case. In this case, they're all about coattails.

VELSHI: That's why we have you to parse this stuff for us and tell us what it all means.

Sometimes we overparse and I wonder whether that is what Robert Gibbs is thinking right now about something he said. Tell us about this, about getting tested for drugs.

HENRY: You remember a couple of weeks ago he got hammered even by the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, over the fact that Gibbs on a Sunday show had said something that's pretty obvious, that maybe democrats could lose control of the House, but caused a big storm.

Now he's got another storm which is a couple of days ago he told the Hill newspaper that basically he thinks that some of the critics on the left of this president are not seeing all the accomplishments that he's had and that maybe they need to be drug tested.

Well, as you can imagine, the liberal blogosphere has lit up over that one saying this shows the White House is out of touch. That maybe some of the president's top aides like Robert Gibbs don't understand how much dissatisfaction is out there.

This has played out over two days. Yesterday, Robert Gibbs did not show up at the briefing. Instead, he had Bill Burton do it after this story exploded. And you can imagine, everyone started chattering did Gibbs pull out at the last minute. They insisted he had a cold and that's why, it had nothing to do with that story.

Bill Burton briefed yesterday and when I pressed him on this, he joked that he was maybe going to drug test me and give me a syringe. I said, look, thank you very much. I don't need to do that.

I think it shows you, though, that they're trying to shift the subject, joke around a little bit about the story, because then today Robert Gibbs did kind of the same thing. He went up to the podium, he did have a little bit of a sore throat, so I don't think they were making that up, he really was sick yesterday. But he said, look -- when pressed on whether he was going to resign, because there's a democrat congressman, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who said he should resign over these comments -- Gibbs joked, look, there's no truth to the rumors that is I've got an inflatable exit outside my office, a la that JetBlue steward, I guess, who jumped out.

So a little humor in there, but the humor two days in a row makes you wonder whether they're a little anxious to sort of get this story out there because they don't like talking about the fact that there's some anger on the left right now, maybe some people not pleased with this president's performance.

VELSHI: I'm fascinated by that job -- the job that he does. The fact that he has to hang out with you guys and you guys have to hang out with him and you have to criticize him and you got to be nice to him because he gives information. Truly fascinating.

Can you bring him on "The Stakeout" one of these days? HENRY: Yes, we got to get Gibbs. I've asked him to do it and we're going to ask him to do it. I think maybe he'll do it after this story blows over. He's less likely to do it this week.

VELSHI: All right, Gibbs, if you're watching, come on to "The Stakeout." It's the most fun place on TV right now.

Ed Henry, good to see you. Ed Henry on "The Stakeout."

HENRY: Appreciate it, Ali.

VELSHI: All right, working overtime in space astronauts are making some crucial fixes outside the space station. It is tough work and that is what makes it our "Wordplay." I'll be right back.

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VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it and boy, what a difference a year makes.

Let me take you back to June 2009. According to government figures, 268 airline flights were delayed on the tarmac for more than three hours -- 268 flights, almost nine flights every day that month.

Now look at June 2010. How many flights were stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours this June? Three.

What changed? The airlines say, not much. Flight delay and cancellations vary significantly from month to month, says the Air Transport Association.

I would point to April 29th, the day a new federal law took effect that sets fines as high as $27,500 per passenger for domestic flight that is sit on runways for more than three hours.

The airlines had argued that that would force a huge increase in cancellations. So did cancellations spike from June of '09 to this June? Nope. The largest U.S. airlines canceled 1.5 percent of their flights, exactly the same number as last year.

The consumer group fliersrights.org says the threat of monster fines has been a huge success for travelers, but the real proof will come during the holidays.

Still, as someone who spends more time in planes than in cars, I can't help but celebrate airline efficiency however it happened. And I can't help but wonder what took them so long.

That's my "XYZ." Time for "RICK'S LIST."

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