( 4UMF NEWS ) Robin Roberts Going On Medical Leave:
“Good Morning America” coanchor Robin Roberts will begin her medical leave Friday for a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant.
Roberts said Monday she will leave after Friday’s show and check into the hospital next Tuesday. She said she will then undergo “about 10 days” of medical preparation before the actual transplant, which she is getting from her sister Sally.
The show will mark Roberts’s temporary departure, which she had announced earlier this summer, with a series of features this week called “Robin’s Journey.”
That will include a story Tuesday on a family in which all three children have the same rare blood disorder from which she is suffering, MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome).
Roberts said she contracted the disease as an aftereffect of chemotherapy from treatments for an earlier bout with breast cancer.
In a short on-air discussion with her coanchors Monday morning, Robert said one of the hardest parts of starting the procedure was having to temporarily give up her dog, KJ.
Because recovering transplant patients can’t be exposed to any potential infections, KJ will be taking a late-season vacation in Maine with his younger but much larger adopted brother Rory.
Roberts also made a point of noting that medical leave policies remain an issue for millions of people.
“Forty percent of America can’t take a sick day,” she said. “I know I’ll have a job when I come back. I’m very blessed.”
