Robin Roberts (2)

Those of you who watch Good Morning America (GMA), are familiar with Robin Roberts who sits prominently in the middle of the three key people who bring news, interesting health information, and a host of other tidbits that are fascinating.

Robin was at the 2012 Academy Awards where she hosted "Oscars Red Carpet Live, a pre Oscar show. she realized something was wrong, she simply did not feel well. After surviving breast cancer, Robin thought her body was through with cancer.

Sadly, tests showed she had a severe cancerous effect as a result of chemicals used during her fight with breast cancer. She now was in need of a marrow transplant. Needing a donor who would be willing to have healthy cells harvested and planted inside of Robin, after her cells had to be removed to make ready for the healthy ones.

The book primarily talks about her journey, and her faith, and the friends and family who got her through this gruesome procedure. Fortunately, her sister was a match and readily became the donor.

Robin's journey included the fact that her beloved mother died while Robin was getting prepared for the procedure.

This is a story of love, hope and spirit that shone through the very difficult illness.… (mer)

I am so not a fan of the celebrity memoir, I run screaming from the room when one appears. However, I recently learned that Robin Roberts had a bone marrow transplant (like my husband), and had written a memoir about it. So I knew I had to read it. I also generally like "medical memoirs," and that's what I kind of expected this to be. Unfortunately, this was 90% celebrity memoir stuff--"My dear friend so and so, and my dear friend such and such"--so many dear friends to keep track off. Not to mention the week long birthday celebration with "dear friends" in Tuscany, and vacations in the Turks and Caicos, and Maui, and her house in Key West, not to mention how much she "so appreciate{s} that Disney provided a private jet for me to fly home." To be fair, there's lots about her family--she is very close to her sisters and her mom--and she does seem to be a person of faith. But her writing is trite and cliched, and she never really made me "feel" it.

The transplant process does not begin until way more than half way through the book. She had her transplant in 2012, and was hospitalized more than a month. I don't know if the process is different at Sloan-Kettering than at the Hutch, or whether things have changed in 7 years, but my husband wasn't hospitalized for his transplant. At the Hutch they found that patients being careful at home and vigilant about the first sign of infection or other complication did better than patients isolated in the hospital. And I will say that the chemo she received pre-transplant was much more extensive than what my husband got, though I'm not sure whether that's a factor of improvements over time, or the type of underlying cancer she had. And I'll be just a little curmudgeonly (as if I haven't already been) but I was bit jealous over all the breaks and vacations her caregiver (her girlfriend) got, as a respite to the stresses of serving in that role which led to some conflicts.

There was one part that made me cry--when she had to send her dog to stay with friends during the process. As noted in >205 arubabookwoman:, we had to send Dante our dog away too, but I did so never expecting to see him again. Luckily I just got to pet him again after nearly 2 years.

I won't warn you off this book if you like celebrity memoirs. I don't think it had as much or as detailed medical information as I was looking for either. So overall, this was a book that did not work for me.

1 1/2 stars… (mer)