By Alan Fein
(AXcess News) New York - Robin Roberts, ABC's Good Morning America co-host, underwent breast cancer surgery in New York Friday and is recovering at home according to her Mississippi hometown newspaper, the Sun Herald.
In an interview Roberts gave to the Sun Herald earlier this week, the popular daytime network news broadcaster said she was fortunate to have the medical care she was receiving and said her looming surgery made her think of the people who weren't as fortunate as she was, saying "It shouldn't be a privilege I have; it should be everyone's right."
Roberts comments about her health care echoed sentiments that controversial documentary film maker Michael Moore has tried to portray in his latest film "Sicko", in which Moore presented cases of people who didn't get proper care, even when they had insurance. Moore's point was that out of all the Western nations, the United States was the only one that didn't offer universal medical coverage and this last week it was ABC's well-paid newscaster who humbled herself to say "It should be everyone's right".
Roberts only found out she had breast cancer weeks ago. Before that, she had committed to be keynote speaker at an Aug. 29 Pink Heart fundraiser at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi in mid-July and now that she has found herself surviving breast cancer she said "I can't very well cancel now, can I?"
JoAn Niceley, a Long Beach hair stylist and cancer survivor herself formed the nonprofit Pink Heart Fund to help women who survived breast cancer after losing everything in hurricane Katrina get wigs and breast prosthesis. The Sun Herald said that tickets to the fund raiser had already sold out before Roberts own breast cancer news broke. After that people began calling from all over the country to try and get tickets.
What prompted Roberts to get checked for cancer was the death of her ABC colleague Joel Siegel who died of colon cancer. Roberts did a special on the importance of cancer screening following Siegel's death and when she got home that day and checked her own breasts she found a lump.
Roberts immediately went in for tests, had a mammogram and an ultrasound. The ultrasound test detected something solid and a subsequent biopsy identified the cancer. She was operated on Friday morning.
Roberts owes her life to Joel Siegel in a way after his death prompted her to convince the producers of Good Morning America to allow her to do a special in his honor. Siegel had been the film critic with ABC for many years prior to his death and network decided that it would be a proper tribute to him as well as a fitting support of the importance of regular medical checkups and cancer screening for both men and women.
While Roberts was on the air, she said that hearing the words and saying it and seeing she had it herself was surreal, after she later discovered in her own screening that she too had breast cancer and didn't know it. Roberts added that she is very blessed and thankful she found it early.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer for women, after skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. This year over 170,000 American women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.
About one in every nine women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime.
In the USA there were 100,000 new cases in 1985. In 1994 the number rose to 180,000. The main reason for the increase is better awareness leading to more diagnostic tests.
