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Authors: Robin Roberts,Veronica Chambers

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BOOK: Everybody's Got Something
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I
waited until the next day to share the news of my diagnosis with Amber. We met at the gym in my apartment building, worked out with our trainer, Angel, then came back upstairs to my apartment. I was glad I had waited a day; I was calmer and had time to sit with the news for a while. Like me, Amber had no idea what a bone marrow transplant or MDS was. I went over what the doctor had said and what I had read on the Internet. We were both just baffled at the idea that I could have this illness that we’d never heard of, with a treatment we couldn’t picture or really understand. It was so different from the breast cancer diagnosis. We both knew exactly what that was, and we knew people who had beaten it.

I explained that the next day I had an appointment with an oncologist, and Amber cleared her schedule to come with me.

“We’re stronger than this,” Amber said, squeezing my hand.

“Whatever
this
is,” I said.

“Whatever
this
is,” she whispered back.

Then she hugged me, and I felt so grateful knowing that whatever was ahead of me, I wouldn’t have to go through it alone. I pride myself on being strong for other people. It’s a gift to have someone in my life that has, again and again, shown that she is more than capable of sharing any load that I have had to bear.

The next morning, it was back to work. After nearly twelve years on
GMA
, my morning routine is, as you can imagine, well honed. My first alarm clock goes off at 3:45 a.m. Yes, I said my first alarm. On my nightstand, there’s a clock/radio alarm set to the latest hits. With Beyoncé or Lady Gaga blaring, I hit the snooze button. My BlackBerry alarm is set for 4:00 a.m. I purposely place it across my room so I actually have to get out of bed and turn it off. I get back in bed and turn on the TV. I spend a few minutes watching ABC’s
America This Morning
to get a sense if anything has happened in the world during the few hours I was sleeping. At 4:30 a.m., I take a shower…while listening to my friends on WABC, ABC’s New York station. Shortly before 5:00 a.m., I take KJ out for a quick walk so she doesn’t have to cross her legs until the dog walker comes at nine. I leave the TV in the kitchen on for KJ, and I always wonder: When we mention her name on
GMA
, does she start barking up a storm? By 5:00 a.m., I am out the door.

At 5:05 every morning, I head downstairs where my ride awaits. We’re fortunate that the show sends a driver to pick us up every morning. Actually, I don’t think they trust us to get to work on our own so early in the morning. Dario is my driver. As soon as I climb into the car, he says, “God bless you, Miss Robin!” And I say, “To you, as well.” Then we’re off for the ten-minute drive to the studio, listening to gospel tunes in the car.

Back in spring 2012,
Good Morning America
was still the number two morning news show. I’m very competitive by nature. I never experienced a losing season in any sport until my senior year at Southeastern. That really stung. At the local TV markets where I worked, I often enjoyed the feeling of being number one. Especially at the station in Nashville, where we won a number of prestigious Peabody Awards and were dominant in the market. And, of course, at ESPN we had no competition.

It was different at
GMA
. We were the perennial underdog to the
Today
show. I’ve always been proud of the work we have done there, and I never felt as if what we did was second-rate at all. It’s difficult to change people’s habits in the morning. We all have our routines. When I started at
GMA
, I had close friends who still watched the other show. They had grown up watching Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, Ann Curry and Al Roker, and despite our friendship, they couldn’t change their morning ritual.

After I became the third co-anchor with Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer, we came within forty thousand viewers of beating the
Today
show one week. It was very exciting, but that was as close as we came. When our current roster came together, things really began to change. George Stephanopoulos, a gifted political correspondent, joined the show as an anchor in 2009. ESPN alum Josh Elliott joined the show as news anchor in 2011. Sam Champion was our beloved weather anchor, and rounding out the team was Lara Spencer as our lifestyle anchor.

The five of us as a team had an undeniable chemistry, and we consistently started chipping away at the
Today
show. What you see is what you get on our show, and our affection and energy in the morning is real. We really like one another, have fun with one another and respect one another. The audience could sense that. Sam, Josh, Lara and I hung out together a lot after work. George would join us occasionally, but he has two young girls at home he wanted to spend time with.

There’s a rush to playing from behind, in seeing the gap shrink week after week. We could feel the audience begin to shift and follow us more and more. We all brought something different to the table. George Stephanopoulos is the grown-up. He’s very buttoned-up, but even he began to loosen up a bit without losing the essence of who he is. Sam Champion has a booming laugh but is serious and compassionate when out in the field covering storms, tornadoes, hurricanes. Josh Elliott is the tall, handsome jock, who melts when talking about his precious little daughter. Lara “I Brake For Yard Sales” Spencer is a bundle of energy who has perfected the art of covering pop news. I am often referred to as being the heart and soul of
GMA
. I’m serious when need be but not afraid to show emotion and empathy. When I’m asked why we have been so successful the last few years, my response always is the same: It’s because of the team in front of and behind the camera. The audience can tell we truly like each other, and we make others feel good, too. Our goal has remained the same: to produce the best possible program each and every morning.

The morning of April 19, 2012, was like any other, except that after the show I had plans to meet Amber and have a follow-up appointment with the MDS specialist. I was nervous; I still didn’t fully understand what MDS was. But at the same time, I was eager to see him again and get more information. Work can be a great distraction when you’re in the early stages of diagnosis. I said a prayer before jumping out of the car and let the day come at me.

I arrived at the studio in my sweats that morning and the first people I saw were our security team: Rich, Tony, Annie and Walter. Sometimes, especially if we are having popular stars on the show, a crowd is already waiting outside at five in the morning. They get a kick out of seeing me with no makeup and bed head.

I headed right to my dressing room. My assistant, Sonny Mullen, waited for me, along with Elena and Petula. My control room producer of three years, Emily O’Donnell, came in a short time later and reviewed the segments of the show with me. Emily graduated from Emerson College in 2005, a writing major and journalism minor. She related to my health struggles, because all four of her aunts on her father’s side have had mastectomies. While Team Beauty worked its magic and Emily ran down what lay ahead in that morning’s show, I thumbed through six newspapers: the
Wall Street Journal
, the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post
,
USA Today
, the
New York Post
and the
Daily News
. It felt good to be at work; it took my mind off my upcoming doctor’s appointment.

I don’t meditate as much as I’d like to, but there’s a way that the hum and the buzz of a morning TV show forces you to be in the moment and makes you feel profoundly connected to the world around you. If I had been in another line of work, I might well have found myself at 5:30 a.m. in my PJs, Googling MDS and saying, “Woe is me. Woe is me.” Reading the newspaper, listening to Elena and Petula talk and getting ready to greet the show’s special guests helped me connect to how much I love my life and my work. I didn’t know what this diagnosis meant for my future. The truth is, tomorrow is not promised to any of us. But as I sat in my chair, I said a prayer of appreciation for all the wonderful people whom I work with, all the people who help me do what I love to do best: wish a good morning to America.

Our executive producer, Tom Cibrowski, came to my dressing room around 5:45 that morning to go over last-minute changes. Lori Stokes, morning anchor at WABC, was still on the air at that time. She has such great style. Sometimes what she’s wearing helps inspire my outfit for the day. After Tom’s check-in, I quickly got dressed and ate a little something. I’m not really a coffee drinker, but I did eat a boiled egg before the show (not the yolk). Then I took a banana with me to the set to nibble on during breaks.

We had a good show put together for that day. Cuba Gooding Jr. came on and talked about his inspiring new TV movie,
Firelight
. The cast of
The Avengers
came on. Superheroes in the studio! A great Nashville band, the Civil Wars, were performing, fresh off their double Grammy win for Best Country Duo and Best Folk Album. Every year I host a country music special—it’s a little-known fact that I used to DJ a country music show in the early days of my career—so I was excited to see them play. One of the many things I appreciate about working at
GMA
is that no two days are the same. I’ve always had various interests, and being at
GMA
allows me to indulge my many passions. I’m as comfortable talking about politics as I am about sports. I feel at home everywhere, from the Country Music Association Awards to the ESPYs and everything in between. Maybe it’s because as a proud military brat I grew up all over the world, in different cultures and meeting people from all walks of life.

Soon it was showtime. I popped in the main makeup room across the hall to briefly chat with Josh Elliott and Sam C
hampio
n. Always good for a laugh or two. Then I headed down the hall to check in with my girl Lara Spencer. It helps to know what we’re each wearing. Want to make sure we’re dressed for the same party, so to speak. George was behind his closed office door prepping for the show. Don’t blame him at all; the hustle and bustle in the hall can be distracting. A humongous elevator took me from the second-floor dressing rooms down to the set where the anchors sit when we open the show…aka “home base.”

Every morning, before I walk onto the set, I blow a kiss skyward and I say, “Morning, Daddy, watch over Momma.” Then I go to home base and begin my day. My father passed away in 2004, so the crew has seen me do this for almost a decade.

There have been a handful of times that the morning schedule has gotten disrupted because of breaking news or an unexpected guest, and I’m rushed out to the set and the crew starts yelling, “No, no! You’ve got to go back! You’ve got to go back!” And Angie, our stage manager, whispers to the control room, “Give Robin two seconds.”

I didn’t even notice at first that other people were observing me greet my father and blow him a kiss. But now they look for me to do it. So on the rare occasion when I forget, I rush backstage, look up to the heavens and say good morning to my father.

After greeting my dad, I walked onto the set with a big smile on my face. The usual controlled chaos, as we call it, was comforting. Stagehands who had already been hard at work for hours milled about. I did cut-ins for local morning shows in Detroit, Pittsburgh and New York. It was business as usual that morning. No time to contemplate the uncertainty of my upcoming doctor’s appointment. Or to reflect on all that scary stuff I read on the Internet. I was alive. I was doing what I loved. I had the privilege and honor of being welcomed into living rooms across the country. It was a good morning.

That morning, after we completed the 8:30 hellos at
GMA
, we were walking back into the studio and our senior executive producer, Tom Cibrowski, said in my earpiece, “I want to tell you first. We did it. It’s official. The numbers are in and we won.” I just started pumping my fist and saying, “Yes, yes, yes!” I didn’t know whether to yell it out loud or wait for Tom to whisper it into the others’ ears. I decided to wait and once we all knew, George, Lara, Sam, Josh and I started jumping up and down like little schoolkids.

Yes, even the reserved George Stephanopoulos.

We went back into the studio and we still had twenty minutes of the show to do. We finished the show, and then there was a big celebration in the studio. We were all hugged up. From there we headed to our main office to have a champagne toast. For one blissful moment, I wasn’t thinking about my doctor’s appointment later that morning. There, in that newsroom, looking at all of those faces. I felt so proud of our team. I told the entire ABC News division this was not just about the show, “If you’ve ever answered a phone for
GMA
or cut a piece of tape, I don’t care if it was yesterday or 852 weeks ago, you’re a part of this. This is just as much about you as it is about the five of us.” I wanted everyone to feel a part of the victory, because they were.

I remember Jeffrey Schneider, head of PR at ABC, wanted me to do some more press. I said, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited. But there’s something I’ve got to do.”

I left the champagne toast at the office near Lincoln Center and picked Amber up at her Hell’s Kitchen apartment.

Then we drove to my doctor’s office on the Upper East Side. We really didn’t say much in the car. We were both apprehensive about what the doctor might say. This was the first oncologist that I saw whose specialty was MDS.

It was such a pendulum swing of emotion. I had always imagined how I would feel once
GMA
became number one. I pictured being euphoric, literally dancing in the streets. But I was just numb. It took us about twenty-five minutes to get to the doctor’s office. The waiting room was full, so the receptionist kindly allowed us to wait in the doctor’s office. He was running late. We waited for him in his small, cluttered office for about thirty minutes. All of that waiting. Pure agony.

Finally, he came in and slumped in the chair behind his desk. He looked tired and he opened a bottle of Diet Coke for himself, commenting about the need for caffeine. I didn’t mention that I’d been up since 3:45 a.m.

BOOK: Everybody's Got Something
4.47Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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