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How Robin Roberts Supported Amy Robach During Her First Round of Chemo

Season 5 Episode 512
Aired on 10/03/2015 | CC tv-14
In October 2013, Good Morning America anchor Amy Robach had her first mammogram on live television as part of a breast cancer awareness segment. A few weeks later, Amy announced to the world that she had been diagnosed with the disease.

Doctors told Amy she had Stage 2 invasive breast cancer that had already spread to her lymph nodes and two malignant tumors. Amy, a mom and stepmother with no family history of breast cancer, opted to have a double mastectomy, which was followed by eight rounds of chemotherapy.

A few years earlier, Amy's GMA co-anchor, Robin Roberts, bravely battled breast cancer in the public eye. Then, in 2012, Robin was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder—myelodysplastic syndrome—that nearly took her life. After Amy received the news no woman wants to hear, she turned to Robin for guidance and support.

On the day Amy was scheduled to have her first round of chemo, she says she got a surprise when she arrived at the doctor's office. "Robin and I share the same oncologist, and she knew it was my first round of chemo. She had sent me off from the set and said, 'Good luck, you're going to do great,' and I thought that was it," Amy says. "When I opened the door to Dr. [Ruth] Oratz's office, Robin was sitting in the waiting room. ... She was there to walk me down the hall to the place where she sat seven years earlier."

Amy had once sat in Robin's chair at the GMA anchor desk, and now, Robin says she wanted Amy to sit in her chair in the chemo room. "When you hear the word chemotherapy, you're so frightened and you don't know what it's like," Robin says. "I just wanted her to see and say, 'It's going to be okay.'" "And it meant everything," Amy says. "It meant everything."

Watch as Amy shares more about her breast cancer battle.

Amy Robach's book, Better, is now available online and in stores.