AMY ROBACH

When I give my time to a worthy cause, it's time well spent. Lending a voice to help raise money - or perhaps just awareness - is the least I can do to give back. When I spend time with people who are fighting for children, it puts everything into perspective.

When I first sat down with my oncologist the day before Thanksgiving, and she told me I would need 8 rounds of chemo, one of my first questions admittedly was: 'Will I lose my hair?' It sounds shallow, I know, but it was a very scary image to me.

Telling my children was the toughest part. But that's when you get strong, because you have to be strong for other people.

You don't have to live on a farm to have chickens; in some places, you just need a little bit of green space and a tidy chicken coop. To me, they're nearly ideal pets. They feed us more often than we feed them! We have 2 chickens, Goldie and Paprika, and they each produce 1 egg a day, sometimes more.

After two rounds of chemo, I've started to notice, slowly, but surely, my hair has started to appear more regularly in my shower drain, sink drain, pillowcase and comb.

I have two cousins with juvenile diabetes. They both contracted the disease before the age of 5, and it was so heartbreaking watching them go through daily blood tests and injections. It is such a difficult disease to live with and requires constant attention; a tough thing to explain to a child.

Having cancer is one thing; looking like you have cancer is another thing. It's a disease that already takes so much.

The broader question if Sarah Palin becomes vice president, will she be shortchanging her kids or will she be shortchanging the country?

I plan on ... encouraging so many women who are out there, who are still in the thick of it, who have yet to fight this fight, that you can do it, you can get through this one step at a time.

I am going to cut my hair very short; I've never done this before... I want to say I had something to do with how I look, not the cancer.

I have two cousins with juvenile diabetes. They both contracted the disease before the age of 5, and it was so heartbreaking watching them go through daily blood tests and injections. It is such a difficult disease to live with and requires constant attention; a tough thing to explain to a child.

When I first sat down with my oncologist the day before Thanksgiving, and she told me I would need 8 rounds of chemo, one of my first questions admittedly was: 'Will I lose my hair?' It sounds shallow, I know, but it was a very scary image to me.

I am going to cut my hair very short; I've never done this before... I want to say I had something to do with how I look, not the cancer.

When I give my time to a worthy cause, it's time well spent. Lending a voice to help raise money - or perhaps just awareness - is the least I can do to give back. When I spend time with people who are fighting for children, it puts everything into perspective.

'You have chickens?' That's what nearly everyone asks next, after they find out about our family pets. They just need to make sure they heard me correctly. Perhaps it's because I don't come across to most as a rural-loving farm girl.

My husband, Andrew Shue, is the co-founder of Do Something, and we both speak and present at awards ceremonies. It's absolutely amazing and humbling to see all the work so many young people are contributing to better their communities on both a local and global front.

Having cancer is one thing; looking like you have cancer is another thing. It's a disease that already takes so much.

After two rounds of chemo, I've started to notice, slowly, but surely, my hair has started to appear more regularly in my shower drain, sink drain, pillowcase and comb.

You don't have to live on a farm to have chickens; in some places, you just need a little bit of green space and a tidy chicken coop. To me, they're nearly ideal pets. They feed us more often than we feed them! We have 2 chickens, Goldie and Paprika, and they each produce 1 egg a day, sometimes more.

I made the choice to have the double mastectomy, and for me it felt like the right choice, and it turned out to be the right choice.

The broader question if Sarah Palin becomes vice president, will she be shortchanging her kids or will she be shortchanging the country?

Telling my children was the toughest part. But that's when you get strong, because you have to be strong for other people.

I plan on ... encouraging so many women who are out there, who are still in the thick of it, who have yet to fight this fight, that you can do it, you can get through this one step at a time.