Robin Shares Inspiring Words
- Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts, 60, is spreading joy and positivity to start the week off right, encouraging others to not hide their gifts but to share them with the world.
- Roberts battled breast cancer after her 2007 diagnosis and treated her disease with surgery.
- She has maintained an incredibly upbeat and empowered attitude as a cancer survivor, and while battling cancer on the public stage; being optimistic can have a positive impact on the cancer journey.
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Robin’s Breast Cancer Battle
In 2007, Roberts was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she went through her cancer battle quite publicly, too. In addition to her breast cancer battle, the anchor had to have a bone marrow transplant to treat her MDS, a rare type of blood cancer. Roberts discovered her breast cancer while on the job: She was preparing for a news story about the need for early detection for breast cancer, and she performed a self-check at home. While doing an exam on herself, Roberts discovered a lump.
Related: Breast Cancer: Overview
"At first I thought, 'This can't be. I am a young, healthy woman,” Roberts said after the incident. She treated her breast cancer with surgery, one of several treatment options for this disease. Breast cancer can also be treated with radiation and chemotherapy. As Roberts discovered, early detection is critically important when it comes to saving lives and expanding treatment options as well.
Related: Risk Factors for Breast Cancer
When discussing surgical options to treat breast cancer, Dr. Ann Partridge, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, says in an earlier interview, “So when I talk to a woman who comes to me and she has breast cancer, I evaluate what the standard options for treatment for her are, which typically include cutting out the cancer which is either a lumpectomy if you can get it all with just a little scooping around of the area that’s abnormal or a mastectomy for some women meaning taking the full breast because sometimes these lesions can be very extensive in the breast. And I’ll talk to a woman about that and I’ll say these are two main options or the big fork in the road.”
When Should You Consider a Mastectomy?
Seeking the Good After Cancer
We love Roberts for how she continues to put good out into the world, lifting others up with empowering messages like today’s, and offering encouragement to people who may be struggling. Her upbeat attitude is inspiring, and that same upbeat attitude may have been helpful to Roberts through her cancer journey, too. Experts have told SurvivorNet that keeping a positive attitude while battling cancer has shown to improve prognosis in some cases.
In an earlier interview, Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, said, "My patients who thrive, even with stage 4 cancer, from the time that they, about a month after they're diagnosed, I kind of am pretty good at seeing who is going to be OK. Now doesn't that mean I'm good at saying that the cancer won't grow.”
“But I'm pretty good at telling what kind of patients are going to still have this attitude and probably going to live the longest, even with bad, bad disease,” says Dr. Murrell. “And those are patients who, they have gratitude in life.”
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