Amy's Positive Attitude After Beating Cancer
- “Good Morning America” presenter Amy Robach, 48, posted about appreciating the sunshine, and noted an article “about the lessons of COVID 19 and the parallels with living in cancer remission.”
- Robach is a breast cancer survivor; she was diagnosed in 2013.
- Keeping a positive attitude through cancer and cancer remission is helpful, experts say.
Related: Drawing Closer During Quarantine ABC's Amy Robach Says She's Drawing Closer to Her Husband
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Amy’s Breast Cancer Journey
Robach was diagnosed with stage two invasive breast cancer in 2013. She discovered her cancer after getting a mammogram on live television for Good Morning America‘s breast cancer awareness segment. Robach was “shocked and devastated,” she tells SurvivorNet in a previous interview.
Related: When Should I Get a Mammogram?
"I don't know how other people handle that news, but I didn't handle it well," she says. "I became an absolute wreck, a total mess. I had my husband on speaker phone at the time of diagnosis because he was 3,000 miles away … I remember the radiologist because my husband said nothing … said into the phone, 'Mr. Shue, your wife is not taking the news very well,' trying to get him to say something."
"We were already struggling when I got the cancer diagnosis," she says. "So, this kind of threw everything into a further tailspin, until it didn't … until we realized that we were only stronger together and that we had to give each other a break."
Breast Cancer Screening
Mammograms, like the one Robach had, are used to look for lumps in the breast tissue and early signs of cancer. Current guidelines say women should start getting mammograms at age 40, or as young as 30 if there is a history of breast cancer in their family, or they have an elevated risk of breast cancer.
Related: What is a BRCA Mutation?
Dr. Connie Lehman of Massachusetts General Hospital says in an earlier interview, "If you haven't gone through menopause yet, I think it's very important that you have a mammogram every year." She tells us that cancers grow more rapidly in patients who are younger, so "having that annual mammogram can be lifesaving."
After menopause, you can reduce your mammogram frequency to every two years, says Dr. Lehamn. "What I'm most concerned about," she says, "[are] women who haven't been in for a mammogram for two, three, or four years, those women that have never had a mammogram. If you are between 50 and 74 and you have not had a mammogram in the last two years, you are overdue."
When Should I Get a Mammogram?
Staying Positive Through Cancer
We love Robach’s positive attitude, and her ability to focus on the good like beautiful sunshine even after surviving cancer and living through a pandemic. Experts tell SurvivorNet that keeping a positive attitude through cancer may improve prognosis.
Related: A Major Step in the Cancer Journey: Learning to Deal With Vulnerability
Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, says in a previous interview, "My patients who thrive, even with stage 4 cancer, from the time that they, about a month after they're diagnosed, I kind of am pretty good at seeing who is going to be OK.”
“Now doesn't that mean I'm good at saying that the cancer won't grow. But I'm pretty good at telling what kind of patient are going to still have this attitude and probably going to live the longest, even with bad, bad disease. And those are patients who, they have gratitude in life."
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
