ABC's Amy Robach discovers cancer after on-air mammogram

ABC News reporter Amy Robach didn't want to get a mammogram, but it ended up saving her life.

Robach has revealed that after submitting to the procedure live on the air for "Good Morning America's" Pink Day, she was found to have breast cancer and will now undergo a bilateral mastectomy.

"The doctors told me bluntly: 'That mammogram just saved your life,' she wrote in an essay on ABCNews.com.

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Robach said she had never before had a mammogram and had actually put off having the procedure before a producer asked her to do it for the show. "You're 40, the age women should start getting mammograms," Robach said the producer told her. "Would you even consider it?"

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The reporter said "GMA" colleague Robin Roberts urged her to do it, telling her, "You know, Amy, if one life is saved, it's worth it." After having the testing done on air October 1, Robach said she was informed by doctors that she had the disease. Now she is grateful for being encouraged to do it and hopes her story helps other women.

"I was also told this, for every person who has cancer, at least 15 lives are saved because people around them become vigilant," Robach wrote. "They go to their doctors, they get checked."

"I can only hope my story will do the same and inspire every woman who hears it to get a mammogram, to take a self exam. No excuses. It is the difference between life and death."