Mel Dzelde on cancer, motor neurone disease, life, love and her friendship with Oprah

Radio personality Mel Dzelde is finding joy in each day, to balance the stress of having cancer return and being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

Mel Dzelde is terminally happy.

The radio personality-executive and mother of three is a fighter who counts Oprah Winfrey as a friend and has beaten rectal cancer three times only to have it return for a fourth bout — she is now recovering from yet more surgery.

Then came the diagnosis of motor neurone disease.

While morning radio is a notoriously hard gig, life’s twists can be harder — but Mel, 51, is getting on with the joy of living.

“I’ve always been a positive person and I look for the joy in each and every day,” she said.

“It is challenging and it can be scary but I don’t want to live in fear — I want to live, love and laugh every day.”

Unconditional love and support from husband Chris, and adult sons Shannon, Mackenzie and Casey, is part of that daily joy. So is writing.

The former Mix 102.3 and Power FM host has penned a children’s story, Azzurra, about a little girl who has cancer who finds her inner dragon to help her cope.

Mel Dzelde with her “rock”, husband Chris Dzelde.

In another of life’s turns, Mel met Oprah at a woman’s conference in Detroit in 2002, they became friends and stayed in touch, with Mel even convincing the superstar to add Adelaide to a lecture tour.

On learning of her health challenges Oprah asked Mel to write a piece for her Oprah Daily website.

The intensely personal article starts with the confession that she is too young to die, but that thinking about such things steals the joy of the day.

It details how her job as a radio executive had “consumed” her to the point of not knowing how to relax; losing 75 per cent of her liver in surgery but still being hooked to her laptop in recovery; and how what she thought was a side effect of chemotherapy turned out to be motor neurone disease, diagnosed in January.

“This time, I had to hand my life over to the universe, to a power greater than me,” she wrote.

Mel Dzelde with her family. Picture supplied by Mel Dzelde

“With the realisation that I couldn’t fix it, I stopped trying. Working in radio had taught me to tune into the right frequency. I needed to raise my vibration to the frequency of JOY. So in each and every moment I tune myself to that frequency and if I go “off station” I simply turn the dial back to where the healing is, to joy.”

Mel is happy to “breathe each moment” in the family home in the Adelaide Hills which backs on to a farm.

“I have time to look around and appreciate how lovely it is,” she said.

“I have three grown sons, and in many ways, our bond has deepened. We share more and are more honest with each other than we ever were.

“My second husband, Chris, is my rock. We are supporting each other through this and don’t dwell on death. Of course, we have to discuss how we will adapt and plan for the physical changes to come, but we also live in the now.”

Mel has a message to everyone dealing with a disease or just the dramas of everyday life.

“Beautiful, smile-on-your-dial happiness is a choice we make every single second. It lights your entire being and shines like a beacon for others,” she wrote.

Mel Dzelde in 2019. Picture: Brad Fleet

Dzelde met Oprah in 2002 and the pair have stayed in touch over the past two decades. Picture: Adam Bettcher/Getty Images

“The good news is you don’t have to be terminally ill to feel it!”

Mel says Motor Neurone Disease South Australia has been an enormous support and is delighted that Masonic Charities has provided a grant of more than $228,000 to MNDSA to fund its expansion to a purpose-fitted facility at Mile End.

It means MNDSA has expanded from a cramped two-roomed office suite to a new self-sufficient centre of excellence with ample office space, an on-site warehouse for storage of equipment and devices, and a custom vehicle.

MNDSA chief executive officer Karen Percival said the association relies on the financial support of organisations such as Masonic Charities.

Originally published as Mel Dzelde on cancer, motor neurone disease, life, love and her friendship with Oprah