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Mayor Daley's wife prepares to fight cancer again. Hmmmm.

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My prayers for her.

More treatment for Daley's wive
Tumor found in right leg of Maggie Daley
By Hal Dardick and Deborah L. Shelton

Tribune reporters

December 3, 2009

Maggie Daley is undergoing radiation therapy for a bone tumor in her right leg, the latest development in her fight with metastatic breast cancer, Mayor Richard Daley's office said Wednesday night.

She will be using a wheelchair to minimize weight on the leg during treatment, and that development prompted the first official comments about her condition in months from the mayor's office, which has been tight-lipped about her treatment since she was first diagnosed in 2002.

"She's going to be seen around town at some point in a wheelchair, and we might as well explain it up front," said Jacquelyn Heard, the mayor's spokeswoman. "She will be seen publicly, and we didn't want it to be something that could cause a rush to judgment."

Heard said treatment on the leg began recently, but she declined to be more specific about any other treatments or elaborate about the 66-year-old Daley's condition since she underwent a biopsy of a spinal lesion in April.

"When she has been diagnosed as she has been, it's fair to assume she is consistently undergoing medical treatment," Heard said. "This is the newest significant change in her treatment."

Added Heard: "She's remained upbeat and optimistic the whole time, and quite frankly she's been an inspiration to many people."

The Daleys have remained consistently upbeat about the first lady's condition in the face of what doctors have said is an incurable disease.

Since the initial diagnosis, the Daleys have traveled the world extensively, including an October trip to Copenhagen as part of the city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

The mayor has successfully run for re-election in 2003 and 2007 as his wife has battled the disease. Her health has been considered a factor, along with the city's continued budget woes and the failure to land the Olympics, in whether the mayor will run again in 2011.

Metastatic breast cancer commonly infiltrates the bones, according to experts. When Maggie Daley had surgery in July 2006 to remove a tumor in her right breast, doctors said she had an advanced form of the disease.

In April, she underwent a biopsy after a routine test detected changes in a lesion, or tumor, on her spine. Her longtime doctor said the tumor was one of multiple tumors identified after her breast cancer was diagnosed.

He also said the tumors were normal for breast cancer that had metastasized and were being controlled by treatment.

"Mrs. Daley has been living with metastatic breast cancer for nearly a decade. It has been in remission as a result of modern therapy," her doctor, Steven Rosen, a cancer specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said in a statement issued Wednesday by the mayor's office. "She has been a remarkable person who continues to do wonderfully well as we continue to reassess what next steps would be best. Fortunately, the therapy has continued to evolve with new options."

When breast cancer spreads to the bone, it can weaken the tissue, even to the point of causing the bone to break, said Dr. Walter Virkus, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in bone oncology at Rush University Medical Center.

Radiation to the area of the bone damaged by the tumor typically kills cancer cells and allows the bone to repair itself and avoid breaking, said Virkus, who is not Maggie Daley's treating physician and so spoke only in general terms.

The administration released the news several hours after the City Council approved the mayor's budget. The mayor made no mention of his wife's condition when speaking to reporters after the vote.

The Daleys did not comment publicly Wednesday evening. The mayor has a full public schedule Thursday.

Maggie Daley wheelchair-bound while undergoing radiation treatment

December 2, 2009

SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE
Maggie Daley has begun radiation treatment to the bone for a cancerous lesion on her lower right leg that will require her to use a wheelchair, the mayor’s office announced Wednesday.

Daley was diagnosed with cancer in 2002. In July 2006, she had surgery to remove a tumor in her right breast. Earlier this year, she underwent a biopsy of a bone lesion that showed subtle changes detected in imaging procedures, according to a mayor’s office release.

“We want to minimize weight bearing on the leg until the therapy is complete,” Dr. Steve Rosen, leading cancer specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, who is overseeing her car, said."

“Mrs. Daley has been living with metastatic breast cancer for nearly a decade. It has been in remission as a result of modern therapy,” Rosen said in the release. “She has been a remarkable person who continues to do wonderfully well as we continue to reassess what next steps would be best. Fortunately, the therapy has continued to evolve with new options.”

I will say that I wish her well but Daley steals from the poor, and cries when he talks about his poor sons death. But he causes hell and mayhem in the poor black areas and moves the poor out of the schools to make room for the rich while the poor blacks get killed walking through the gang infested neighborhoods to get to school. I think his wife has had more of a fight with cancer than Daley has let on all these past years. It's just the election for mayor is coming and he is going to lose this time so he is playing all the cards he can. Patrick Daley is in Russia hiding from extradition and his mom is here sick. Patrick is not working in Russia, he is there pissing away stolen money from his sewer business. And why aint the fu(cking feds doing something!

City inspector took bribes, jury told
December 4, 2009

BY NATASHA KORECKI Staff Reporter
A City of Chicago supervisor pocketed cash bribes and was treated by developers to Bulls skybox tickets -- all in exchange for overlooking code violations and pushing through permits, prosecutors said Thursday.

In the opening day of the trial of onetime supervisory plumbing inspector Mario Olivella as well as husband-and-wife developers Dumitru and Lavinia Curescu, prosecutors said the three shared a goal as they allegedly skirted the law: to make money.

And Olivella had a motivation to pocket bribes: He was buried in $105,000 in credit card debt and owed $1 million to mortgage lenders, Assistant U.S. Attorney Juliet Sorensen told jurors.

Sorensen pointed to a series of taped conversations and video surveillance that she said show bribes changing hands. At one point, FBI agents watched Olivella at a Bulls game, she said.

The Curescus are accused of paying a bribe to Olivella to avoid code regulations at an apartment building being converted to condos at 1637 W. Granville.

But defense lawyers said the government's case hangs on the slippery word of informant Catherine Romasanta. She is an "expediter" hired by developers to shepherd applications through the permitting process more quickly. Defense lawyers said the developers expected Romasanta to do a legitimate job, but that she was the one paying bribes without their knowledge -- and is now cooperating with the feds to save her own hide.

Lavinia Curescu's lawyer, Ellen Domph, called Romasanta's cooperation "a performance of a lifetime" and called her words carefully scripted.

Romasanta testified Thursday that she met with Olivella to pass cash bribes on several occasions. Some of the bribes were so he would sign permits and "overlook" plumbing problems at one location, she said. In one case, Romasanta said she met with Olivella in the parking lot of East of Edens Restaurant in Chicago and handed him an envelope stuffed with $9,000 in cash on behalf of a developer seeking Olivella's expedited signature on a permit.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Hotaling asked Romasanta what Olivella did next.

"He gave it final approval," she said.

Daley has always hidden his private side from the press unless he is running for re-election. Then he looks for sympathy and starts crying all the time. He is running again. And this time I am the one crying too!

I AM SADDEN TO HEAR MAGGIE DALEY HAS MORE ISSUES WITH A MONSTER OF A SICKNESS THAT IS VERY HARD TO OVER COME.I WISH HER THE BEST.ON A DIFFERENT NOTE OUR NOT SO WONDERFUL MONEY MANAGER HIS ROYLE HINE-ASS MAYOR DALEY WILL NOT TOUCH THE TIF MONEY.WHY?IT SEEMS TO ME THAT EVERY TIME THE BUGDET COMES AROUND THE CITY IS ALWAYS 500 MILLION IN THE RED. I BELIEVE THAT AMOUNT WAS ENTERED INTO THE TIF FUND AGAIN THIS YEAR,PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG PAT.TO FINISH WE WOULD NOT BE TAKING DAYS OFF IF THE TIF FUND WAS USED TO HELP THIS CITY OUT OFF ITS WORST MONEY PROBLEM EVER.GOD BLESS MAGGIE.GOD HELP THIS CITY AND GOD DAMM RICHIE.

Schmich

December 6, 2009

Some days the big city feels like a big family and the powerful seem more like relatives than royalty.

Chicago had one of those days last week, when we learned that Mayor Daley's wife, Maggie, would be seen around town in a wheelchair for a while because she's getting radiation treatment on a bone tumor in her right leg.

If you live in Chicago, there's a good chance that no matter what you think of the mayor, the news of this latest manifestation of his wife's metastatic breast cancer touched you in a way that felt personal.

The mayor wasn't just the mayor the day he met the media with the news, and his wife wasn't just the first lady.

In that moment, they were Rich and Maggie, a couple growing old together, in front of us, and who now, like so many others, are working to keep their spirits high and their lives normal in the midst of a health crisis.

It's precisely because the news felt personal, like news of a neighbor, that it left me thinking how little we actually know about Maggie Daley.

For the generation that her husband has held power, she has managed to be a constant, vital presence in the city while keeping to herself.

She resists interviews. Remarkably little of depth has been written about her. The stories that have been written typically quote the same couple of friends and draw the same small portrait.

The portrait goes like this:

Born in Pittsburgh, she was the youngest of seven kids, the only girl. Her mother died when she was 16.

At a Christmas party in 1970, when she was working as an account executive at Xerox Learning Systems and living on the Gold Coast, she met a lawyer named Rich. They went on a date on New Year's Eve.

They married in 1972. They had four children. The third child, born in 1978, died 33 months later. His name was Kevin, and his death, from complications of spina bifida, helps explain how much time Maggie has dedicated to programs for Chicago's young people.

In the portrait, Maggie Daley is loyal, dryly funny, tough but kind, energetic, optimistic, independent, spiritual in a progressive Catholic way.

She enjoys the perks of marriage to Chicago's most powerful man -- worldwide travel, dinners with the famous and fascinating -- but she's also deeply protective of her privacy. She has strong female friendships and holds her own with men.

It's said she can be stubborn, occasionally a little high-handed. Her paid jobs have raised some eyebrows. So have her rides, with the mayor, on the luxury jet of a nonprofit associated with one of her former employers.

But mostly she's felt like a good influence on Chicago, a woman who could inspire both feminists and traditionalists, and her marriage has been something that even her husband's detractors can appreciate.

She and the mayor seem naturally matched, though different. She's elegant; he's not.

He glowers; she smiles. He erupts; she helps keep him steady. In the deepest sense, they're lifemates.

Now her life is threatened. Since her cancer was diagnosed in 2002 she's talked about it only rarely, though when she has, she sounded upbeat.

Nothing is more private than a fight for life, and Maggie Daley deserves her privacy. But there's no escaping that she's part of this big family called a city.

In any family, you feel each other's lives, sense the shadows on those lives and wish each other courage.

SCREW THE REPORTERS ON DALEYS PAYROLL.THEY WILL NOT PRINT THE TRUTH.DALEY IS A THIEF AND A MAN THAT DOSE NOT KEEP HIS WORD.I CAN NOT STAND LOOKING AT OR LISTENING TO HIS HINE=ASS ON THE NEWS OR READ HIS LIES IN OUR PRO DALEY PAPERS.SORRY KASS YOU DO RIP HIM. BUT FOR THE MOST PART HE IS LEFT ALONG BY THE PRESS.WHY?WITH ALL THE BULLSHIT THAT HAS GONE DOWN UNDER HIS WATCH,GIVE ME A BREAK.HAY FITZS WHEN ARE YOU COMING AFTER DALEY?

All the bullshit and he will get elected again.... Watch!, and the Feds wont do a thing to him or Patrick for that matter.