Robin Roberts home after breast cancer surgery
Sunday, August 05, 2007
ABC News ‘Good Morning America’ co-anchor Robin Roberts is home resting after undergoing surgery for breast cancer August 3. Her spokesman said the operation was ‘very successful’ and the prognosis is very good.
Roberts discovered a lump during routine breast self-examination after ABC News aired a tribute to colleague Joel Siegel who succumbed to prostate cancer. She announced that she had breast cancer July 31.
Roberts went through the main test that should show early signs of cancer, a mammography. In Robin’s case however, the mammography failed to show a lump. Her doctor then ordered an ultrasound, which did show the lump and a biopsy confirmed the diagnoses of breast cancer.
“I did not want you to hear this from anyone else,” Roberts told her viewing audience. “I have breast cancer, as my family here (at ABC) knows and my family at home knows. I am very, very blessed and thankful that I found it early.”
Roberts’s co-host Diane Sawyer acknowledged a flood of get well e-mail wishes August 3, the day of her surgery. The e-mails were printed out and taken to Roberts and her family, providing a great source of support for them. Roberts’s mother and sisters from Mississippi and New Orleans were at her side during the surgery.
Part of a message from Roberts on the ABC News Web site states:
“To you, our viewers please know that your thoughts and prayers very much sustain me as they always have each and every morning when I sit in the chair next to Diane and say ‘Good Morning America.’ You have always been there for me and I love you back.”
Roberts is not only very courageous, she is also very optimistic. She said the prognosis is so promising that her doctor expects her to be flying planes and hanging on to submarines in the middle of the Atlantic.
Test following surgery generally take some time to process. The results will determine the course of treatment that Roberts will undergo.
So glad you are doing so well, Robin. You should definitely investigate all the women who were Not able to return to work so quickly. I am a real estate professional and lost a breast in Oct. 2006 to cancer.My chemotherapy treatments completely immobilized me and I am just now recouping enough energy to work regular hours.
I had No insurance and learned so much about how this disease has no real financial aid for middle class women. Quit your job and you don’t pay anything is the only way to obtain much help at all.
A new preventive drug, Herceptin, was administered to me and in only two treatments, the cost was over $19,000. I could not afford this, so am doing without it.How many others are in the same situation....
I commend all the women who can take these drugs and work through them or go back full time to the workplace easily. Just remember there are many who cannot. The picture you paint is far easier than most of us can paint.
By Nita Haynes on 2007 08 16