Everybody's Got Something by Robin Roberts, Veronica Chambers

taught me that, more than almost any other challenge I had faced to date. By the time I was cancer free, I was confident that I’d gotten the lessons and I’d done the work that had been my spiritual assignment. Cancer was nothing more than a chapter in my life’s story. It would never be my life’s story.
    At the same time, I made a very personal decision. I decided, and I let my closest friends know, that if I got cancer a second time, I would not seek treatment. I would roll the dice and live as long as I could, on my own terms.
    I’d just had a grueling chemo treatment, the type of chemo that was nicknamed “the Red Devil” because of its color. I wanted to crush the syringe with my bare hands. I felt the worst I had ever felt at that point. During that treatment, I was literally on my knees, looking up at the heavens and whispering, “Oh God, no more. No more. Not again. No mas. ”
    I honestly thought I wouldn’t put myself through this ever again. No more poison coursing through my veins. No more tubes. No more needles. I thought, “I’ll take the time I have left and I will travel the world.” Maybe I’d finally get my pilot’s license. But no more barbaric treatments that tortured my body with only a vague promise to prolong my life. What kind of life would that be?
    But this is the thing. Everything changed when I was diagnosed with MDS. The doctors said that a transplant would not be treatment, but a cure. I knew that there was a cure on the table. Even though it meant more chemo, even though I knew that my immune system would be destroyed and then rebuilt again, cell by cell, I had only one thought: “I want to live.”

 Chapter 8
Me & Diane
    W hen Charlie Gibson retired from GMA , there had never before been an all-female anchor team in morning television. From the beginning Diane and I dubbed ourselves Thelma and Louise. We didn’t particularly want to go over the edge together, but every morning was a wild ride. Now she always says to me, “Remind me, are you Thelma?” And I say, “No, honey, you’re Thelma; you always have top billing. I’m Louise, you’re Thelma.”
    We still send e-mails back and forth: Hey Thelma, hey Louise . Because when you think of Thelma and Louise, they were gutsy women and what we were doing was seen that way: making history as the first all-female national morning anchor team. Many questioned whether or not it would work to have two women as co-anchors of the show, never been done before. Our producers felt we were both good at our jobs, we’d already been working together, so why wouldn’t we continue that way even without Charlie?
    It’s a funny thing about Diane. We can walk into a room together and people come right up to me and treat me like a long-lost relative. 
    “Hey, Robin!”
    “Robin, what’s up?”
    “Yo, Robin, looking good.”
    By contrast, people talk around Diane, whispering about her in the third person:
    “That’s Diane Sawyer.”
    “Hey, isn’t that Diane Sawyer?”
    “Wow, it’s Diane Sawyer.”
    But the thing is that you could treat Diane like she’s your long-lost cousin. She may seem like this gorgeous, intimidating, smart-as-hell, cool glass of water, but at the heart of it, she’s a warm, Southern-born woman who is, above all, absolutely and categorically comfortable in her own skin.
    Only someone who is so comfortable in her own skin could be so giving and so kind. From the moment we started working together, to the moment that we bonded as sister friends, Diane has been the epitome of generosity. When the chips are down and life is at its worst, when you think you have no options, there’s Diane.
    Shortly after my MDS diagnosis, I ran into Diane at a luncheon honoring her husband and the cast of Death of a Salesman . We both needed to sneak out because we had to get back to work.
    We were leaving and I just stopped her and said, “I need to tell you something.”
    She said, “Okay.”
    I said, “I’m ill again.