Everybody's Got Something by Robin Roberts, Veronica Chambers Read Free Book Online

mammogram came back normal. Good thing Dr. Knapp also ordered the ultrasound. As the technician was performing it, Dr. Mona Darwish, the attending physician, watched the screen. She has an extensive background in breast cancer work, and her trained eye picked up a tumor that had not been detected with the mammogram. It’s not unusual for that to happen. This is especially true for young women whose denser breast tissue makes it harder to detect abnormalities. I can’t stress how important it is for younger women and those with a high risk for breast cancer to have ultrasounds.
    Dr. Darwish told me she wanted to do a core biopsy. I just wanted to get out of there. I was tired and hungry. It had already been a long day. When I asked her if we could do it another time, she gently squeezed my hand and said, “Why don’t we just take care of this right now.” Truth be known, if I had gotten off the examining table, there’s no telling when I would have come back. Dr. Darwish was patient and persistent. (Sound familiar?) I agreed to have the biopsy—a memorable experience, to say the least. I’m not a fan of needles, especially one being inserted into my breast. Dr. Darwish said she would get the results back as soon as she could.
    After GMA the following morning, I flew to Atlanta for an assignment. As the plane pulled up to the gate, I turned on my BlackBerry and cell phone. There was an e-mail from my then assistant, Ayana, saying that Dr. Knapp’s office had called, and I needed to answer my cell phone because he would be trying to reach me. Just as I finished reading Ayana’s message, my phone rang. It was Dr. Knapp. He asked if there was any way I could come to his office. I told him I was on the road and to please just give me the news now. He didn’t want to but I insisted. I was still in my seat on the plane when he gave me the test results. “Robin, it’s cancer.”
    I know he said more than that, but to me it sounded like the adults talking in a Peanuts cartoon. “Wawppp, wawppp, wawppp…CANCER…wawppp, wawppp, wawppp.” I do recall agreeing to have a breast MRI the next day in New York and to meet with a breast surgeon.
    There is no way to prepare yourself to hear the words: You have cancer. Trust me, it’s less than ideal to be sitting on a plane when you hear it. After all, in the movies when you learn you have cancer you’re seated in the doctor’s office holding a loved one’s hand. I was all by myself, surrounded by strangers, about to get off a plane in Atlanta. When I boarded in New York I was just Robin. Now I was Robin with breast cancer. My eyes started to fill with tears, and I put on sunglasses so no one would notice.
    A driver was waiting to take me to Pine Mountain, Georgia. I wanted to call Amber. We’d been dating less than two years at that point. I also wanted to call my family and friends to let them know I had cancer. But I didn’t want the driver to know what was going on, because I wasn’t ready for the public to learn about my diagnosis. I’d only had minutes to digest it myself. The driver could not have been nicer, but he was also a bit inquisitive, and I knew he’d be listening in on my conversation. So I played a little guessing game with my loved ones. “Remember how I told you I was going to have that thing checked out?” I asked, in a quivering voice. “What do you think I found out?” I guess my tone was a dead giveaway. They knew. They’d been praying for the best, but were prepared for the worst. And here it was. The Big C.
    Revealing my diagnosis to Amber and my family was difficult. I remember in particular telling Sally-Ann. She was just back in her flood-damaged home that had taken nearly two years to rebuild following Hurricane Katrina. I called Sally-Ann and she sounded so happy. She was in her car at the drive-thru of the newly rebuilt Popeye’s near her neighborhood in New Orleans. (We both like two pieces of white meat—spicy—with french fries.)