Cancer survivor makes full circle

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- We have a follow up story that's been 10 years in the making, catching up with a young woman who caught the hearts of so many.

It was fall of 2000 when we first did a story on then 12-year-old Shelby Robin. She was a cheerleader for the Branch Crossing Junior High football team. Robin's story was and is one of strength, courage and maturity. You see, her dream had always been to be a cheerleader. But in January 2000, that dream was threatened when she learned she had bone cancer in her leg. Four months later, the night before the cheerleading squad was announced, Robin learned she would lose that leg from the knee down. "I was just stunned. It just kinda hit me really hard," Robin said in 2000. "One tear, then I knew what I had to do and I told my parents from here on out, I'm going to be positive and I'm not going to look back." After shedding that one tear, Robin had the surgery in May. Three days later, she was released from the hospital, and that fall, she had her prosthesis, her wig, cap and smith and was living her dream despite it all. A year and a half later, Robin went on the trip with the Sunshine Kids to New Orleans Mardi Gras. She went as a senior Sunshine Kid to talk with the younger children suffering from cancer and try to help them get through it. "Sometimes, we would just kinda congregate in one room, kinda have a little party within the Sunshine Kids, and we would just get to talking about everybody's situation, what everybody's gone through and stuff like that, just share and I think that helped everybody," Robin said. Robin also took part in competitive cheerleading -- prosthesis and all. She's kept very busy and never looked back. Now, it is 11 years after we first met robin. She's 23 years old, and she's back at MD Anderson Hospital -- as a nurse to children with cancer. Robin graduated from the University of Texas as an oncology nurse and she knew there was only one place in the world she wanted to be. "This was the only option for me," Robin now says. "I'm so passionate about it. I feel like I'm doing what I was meant to do, and going into something like oncology, where else is a better place to do it but MD Anderson?" Robin is treating children on the very same floor she was on at age 12, and some of the children are even in the same room. "There are certain rooms that stick out in my mind, where I was told about my amputation, or the room that I was diagnosed in, and they look the exact same so that's a little weird going into those rooms and sort of getting those flashbacks," she said. Most of the children at MD Anderson are scared, but Robin brings them a unique and calming perspective. "I don't hesitate to let them know I've been in your shoes of if they're going through something especially hard," she said. "I think sometimes you can get to the point where you're so deep in it that you don't really don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, so that's where I take my opportunity to let them know, hey I've been there and when I say I understand -- I understand and know that it's going to get better and life will get normal again; life will go on." Life has gone on for Robin -- giving back, caring and healing. She was and is one very special young lady. (Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
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Survivor recalls BP well explosion in Gulf

 HOUSTON (KTRK) -- One year ago this week, the world watched helplessly as the disaster in the Gulf quickly went from very bad to even worse.

Since then, we've covered dozens of issues related to the explosion and spill, but there's one story we haven't hear yet. And that story is of those who were on the rig that day and survived. While they are all live today, their lives will never be the same. For Ryan Haire, the unforgettable pictures of the BP rig on fire are an unavoidable reality. "For some people they say, it's a year now. For me, it still feels like last week," he said. "Day in, day out that's the one thing I think about -- just all the time." Haire was a cementer for Haliburton. He worked right on the drilling floor of the Deepwater Horizon. He was onboard for days before the blast as the crew was getting troubling readings from a deep well about to explode. "The problems seemed excessive," he said. "I've heard it referred to as the well from hell." Haire was in his bedroom when the well blew. He felt a blast, and when he opened his eyes, he was in the kitchen next door to his bedroom. "I assume I went through that wall," he said. From there, in the dark and confusion, he made it to a lifeboat and onto a nearby work vessel where he and the other survivors sat for 12 hours, watching the rig burn -- and always coming up 11 short on their muster. "I think we realized it by the time we got on the boat and we were taking a final muster, and I think everybody was just concerned. 'Where's Dewey, where's Gordon, where's Roy?' Questions -- people we didn't see," he said. Haire still has back, shoulder and neck pain; it's manageable. Going back to work is not. "It's one of those things that I guess I'll just forever miss because I am not going out there again," he said. Haire tried for a week. The anxiety was crippling. Melatonin helps him sleep at night, but makes the dreams seem especially vivid. "Some days the rig is perfectly fine and I am just working out there with everybody. Other days, I am working and reliving the event. And some days, it's even worse," Haire said. Haire's been forced in testimony and deposition to relive the incident. He's not certain all the work to get answers to the Deepwater's questions answered all of his questions. "I hope those men lost their lives for a reason, that the industry is going to be much safer because of it," he said. And as we come up to the one-year anniversary Wednesday and spend time with tourists and fishermen who lost their summer and maybe more, Haire will remember all of it differently. "Sorry, choked up a little bit," he told us as he fought back tears. He's 26, a father of four-year-old twins, and he can't go back to work and can't escape the unforgettable disaster. "My mind started wandering a little bit. It's been a while since I've actually talked about it," he said. "You know, for me it will always be the disaster that took 11 friends -- not the gulf oil spill. When people say gulf oil spill, that's a different incident." (Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) 

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