If you Google MDS, you may find some scary stuff, including statistics that my doctors insist don't apply to me. They say I'm younger and fitter than most people who confront this disease and will be cured.Today, I will start what is known as pre-treatment -– chemotherapy in advance of a bone marrow transplant later this year. Bone marrow donors are scarce and particularly for African-American women. I am very fortunate to have a sister who is an excellent match, and this greatly improves my chances for a cure. As you know from my recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg, organ donation is vitally important. Many people don't realize they can be bone marrow donors. I encourage everyone to sign up on a donor registry like bethematch.org.I received my MDS diagnosis on the very day that Good Morning America finally beat the Today Show for the first time in 16 years. Talk about your highs and lows! Then a few weeks ago, during a rather unpleasant procedure to extract bone marrow for testing, I received word that I would interview President Obama the next day. The combination of landing the biggest interview of my career and having a drill in my back reminds me that God only gives us what we can handle and that it helps to have a good sense of humor when we run smack into the absurdity of life.Bottom line: I've been living with this diagnosis for awhile and will continue to anchor GMA. I love what I do and the people with whom I do it. Along with my faith, family and friends, all of you at ABC News give me the motivation and energy to face this challenge.Going forward, it's business as usual at GMA, which means I'll be right here every day with George, Sam, Josh and Lara. When I miss a day here or there, I'm fortunate that some very talented friends at ABC News will fill-in. When I undergo the transplant later this year, I'll miss a chunk of time.When I faced breast cancer, your prayers and good wishes sustained me, gave me such hope and played a major role in my recovery. In facing this new challenge, I ask humbly for more of your prayers and love – as I will keep you in my mine and update you regularly on my condition.
Love and blessings,
Robin
2. Lance Armstrong
When I was 25, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I was given a less-than-40-percent chance of surviving, and frankly some of my doctors were just being kind.
My career stopped. The months of chemotherapy were grueling. I thought I’d never be able to get back on a racing bike. There were times I was so sick I couldn’t eat, couldn’t watch TV, couldn’t read my mail.
But when I was sickest from the chemo, I started to beat cancer. In the fall of 1997, I passed the one-year mark of recovery. Finally I made my mind up: I would try to race again.
It was a disaster. I managed to finish only fourteenth in the first professional race of my comeback. I was used to leading, not finishing fourteenth.
Two weeks later I entered the Paris-Nice, an eight-day haul notorious for its raw wintry weather. On the second day I dropped out. This is not how I want to spend my life, freezing and soaked on a bike.
Back in Texas I told my fiancée, Kik, my agent, Bill Stapleton, and my riding buddy, Chris Carmichael, that I was going to retire. When you have lived for so long terrified of dying, you feel like you deserve to spend the rest of your days on vacation. I pretty much became a bum. I golfed. I water-skied. I lay on the sofa and channel-surfed.
One day Kik told me, “You need to stop lying around doing nothing. I love you no matter what. But this isn’t you.”
She was right. I could picture myself bumming around for the rest of my life and I didn’t like it. As the days wore on, I began to waver on retirement. Bill persuaded me to commit to one last race, the U.S. Pro Championships, that May. Chris insisted that I needed an eight- to ten-day intensive training camp to get back in shape.
“Let’s get out of town,” he said. “You can’t focus here in Austin. There are too many distractions.”
We headed for Boone, North Carolina, high in the Appalachians. I had won the Tour Du Pont twice there, and I had spent many afternoons cycling on its tallest peak, Beech Mountain. It was arduous but beautiful country.
3. Wanda Sykes
Wanda Sykes says it didn't take her long to decide to have both breasts removed.
"I just wanted the best odds," the comedian, 47, tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. "I made my decision because I love life."
Sykes was diagnosed with DCIS [ductal carcinoma in situ], a noninvasive type of breast cancer, after having a breast reduction in February. "My first thought was, 'Really? Me, breast cancer?' I just couldn't believe it," she says. "But I knew this was doable."
The comedian underwent a bilateral mastectomy in August, and spent the next month healing at home with her wife, Alex. "I was miserable. Every day I had to change the bandages and look at it, and it was not pretty at all," says Sykes. "I just wanted my life back."
4. Sheryl Crow
After finding out she had breast cancer seven-and-a-half years ago, Sheryl Crow changed her perspective on marriage and children.
The 51-year-old star, who has been busy promoting her eighth album Feel's Like Home, spoke to the Daily Record about how cancer was her motivation for adopting Wyatt, 6, and Levi, 3.
In her first-hand account, Sheryl said: 'My perspective on everything changed. You grow up with this story of what your life will look like - you get married and have kids.
'I held on to that for a long time but once I got diagnosed, someone told me I was limiting the parameters of my life by putting that pressure on myself.
5. Jaclyn Smith
“I walked in and was asked if I was alone. That should have been a major red flag,” Smith told the Daily News.
The doctor then delivered the news — she had cancer in her left breast, but it was small and doctors found it early, thanks to her yearly mammogram.
The shock made it difficult to think straight, said Smith, 66.
“When I heard that news, I panicked,” she said, adding that much of what the doctor said wasn’t getting through.
“The word ‘cancer’ is what stood out. That’s a word I didn’t even like to say. It was very surreal. I couldn’t get a grip on it,” she said. “I think my first words were, “Will I be here for my children?’ ”
Her daughter was in high school and planning to study dance with Alvin Ailey in New York that summer. Her son was four years older.
The doctor assured the iconic actress her chances were good with conservative treatment, but within minutes of the diagnosis, she was demanding a mastectomy, she recalled.
“I said right then, ‘Just take my breast off. I don’t want to deal with it.’ I just wanted to get it over with,” she told The News. She asked to meet with a surgeon that very same day.
“I just wanted it out so it would be behind me,” she recalled. “I wasn’t in my right mind. I was scared. Fear is a difficult thing."
Back in her car, Smith called her husband, Dr. Brad Allen,who was in Chicago, and then her mother. Both refused to believe her at first. Then they rushed to be with her in Los Angeles.
“I remember getting in bed that night, and the dark scared me. I wasn’t educated in the area of breast cancer. I didn’t know statistics. I just panicked. Panic is a horrible thing,” she said.
“When I think back and go through that day, I never should have been there alone.”
She remembers crying at breakfast that first week.
“I went to a dark place. But then I read and educated myself,” she said.
Friends helped a great deal, she said, including her “Charlie’s Angels” co-star Kate Jackson, who had survived her own bout with breast cancer.
Cancer is a very serious diagnosis. There are many people who have cancer in the world. We support them in many ways such as: volunteer work, fundraisers, walks, and even have a month for some cancers. We support the people who are trying to fight breast cancer with motivation and treatments. We also do a lot of things to prevent cancer and try to treat it the best way possible.
