Robin Roberts Returns to GMA
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When Robin Roberts left Good Morning America to have a bone marrow transplant, there were whispers that she might not ever come back.
No one wanted to say anything out loud, but the realities where, Roberts could not survive the transplant.
But, Robin Roberts is a fighter!
She underwent the transplant and just 6 months later is back on the air at GMA.
"Our Prayers Answered!!!!" said George Stephanopoulos in a Tweet at 7AM this morning.
“After 173 very long days, it’s beautiful to get back to business as usual with our full team and two more wonderful regulars,” said Ben Sherwood to the NY Times.
The Times writes her return on Wednesday defied the expectations of some television industry observers who predicted she’d be unwilling or unable to anchor ever again. It also gave ABC fresh optimism that “G.M.A.,” with Ms. Roberts back in her chair, can continue to beat NBC’s “Today” show, which last year was dislodged from the top spot in the morning ratings after 16 straight years.
Most of all, her return closed a chapter in a story that started almost exactly one year ago, when Ms. Roberts felt exhausted while covering the 2012 Academy Awards in Los Angeles for ABC. Subsequent tests by her doctors found that she had M.D.S., short for myelodysplastic syndromes, a rare and debilitating blood disorder, likely resulting from her treatment for breast cancer five years earlier.
Ms. Roberts was officially given the diagnosis on the same week in April that “G.M.A.” beat “Today” for the first time. She told “G.M.A.” viewers about the diagnosis two months later, in mid-June, and took a medical leave of absence at the end of August so she could undergo a bone marrow transplant.
Ms. Roberts told viewers she’d be back on “G.M.A.” as soon as she could. But no one knew for sure how long she would be away, if she survived at all. Nor could anyone at ABC think of any precedents for a lengthy leave of absence like hers.
