It’s been a long time coming but makes no mistake it’s finally hit home in Chicago. For quite some time now I have been delivering the sober news about Chicago’s violence. Some friends and yeah, foes alike have made comments about me delivering such devastating and sobering news. Some see the actual numbers but few can relate. I can easily attest to fighting the mental strain of policing violent neighborhoods and it certainly cannot be realized except for those who are assigned day after day hour after hour. What cops see in those neighborhoods is completely outside the minds and imaginations of most people.
What I was alluding to when I said finally hit home, I was referring to the awakening of the media and of course Chicago’s fickle, ignorant, cowardly and clueless, politicians. If you look at the headline above you can see what snapped most of the City out of its malaize. In the middle of the afternoon on 4 Oct, one of Chicago’s more formidable streets gangs the 4 CORNER HUSTLERS DECIDED TO SETTLE THE ISSUE OF WHO WAS GOING TO BE THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD AND close members HIS STAFF. While hundreds of shoppers and other folks were tending to daily chores, shopping, walking along, some with baby strollers, and even bicyclists, members of the 4 Corners Urban Terrorists Gang blatantly engaged in a rolling shoot out in what witnesses described as a firefight. More than 72 shell casings were expended, 3 people were shot one killed and scores of people were sent scurrying for their lives, while others just froze in place on the ground.
All in all five persons were arrested and taken into custody. What comes next may be difficult to believe but it finally got the attention of a City that was quite frankly existing in denial. A city that has had over 670 murders, and over 3,700 folks shot, hundreds and hundreds of teenagers victims of gun violence, along with babies, toddlers, and seniors, as a matter of fact, while I’m writing this another 2-year-old child was wounded. Add to the mix 59 mass shootings in which 4 or more folks are shot or killed at one time, 189 Expressway shootings, and over 1,250 armed carjackings. The most in more than 20 years.
NOW, are you ready! Cook County’s STUPENDIOUSLY INCOMPETENT STATES ATTORNEY KIM FOXX (remember the Jussie Smollet fiasco) ANNOUNCED THAT THE SUSPECTS WHO WERE ARRESTED ARE BEING RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGING—-HER REASON BEING THAT THEY WERE MUTUAL COMBATANTS AND THEREFORE SHE WAS LETTING THEM GO FREE- My first reaction was GEE! ARRON BURR MUST FEEL VINDICATED. DUELING HAS RETURNED TO AMERICA, THANKS TO KIM FOXX—-MUTUAL COMBATANTS- Anybody in Chicago who has the least bit of sense would have to look at Kim Foxx and either believe she is a total disaster or the enemy of decency-The Naval War College for Marines teaches from a book called “ON WAR” by Carl von Clausewitz in which he states that “you plan for your enemies capabilities, not his intentions” my guess is old Carl is doing a double roll trying to make sense of Kim Foxx who I believe, at least, is the enemy of common sense and decency.
Here again if one does seriously think about violence in Chicago all you would have to do is think about the 135 people charged with murder in Cook County who are on home confinement, along with thousands of others charged with serious felonies. If they are not on Home Confinement they are released on low bonds or no bonds at all, or a simple promise to appear in court. The below photo is the response that Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot had to the release of the 4 Corner COMBATANTS, notice the words “Could be sent into CHAOS.” It made me wonder if maybe she was the Mayor of Chicago but living in a land far away. She has had more PLANS to combat Chicago’s outrageous violence that it’s hard to remember any of them. The City is now being called the most dangerous place in America by even the bungling half-wits on the City Council. See the feature photo in this post.
A Little extra sidebar to all this is not so much the Mayor being shocked by the lack of charges being filed in the “combatants shoot out” it was the reaction of Chicago’s richest man Ken Griffin the billionaire philanthropist who weighed in saying he was thinking of pulling up stakes in Chicago and taking his business elsewhere. He stated that his office building’s windows downtown have had at least 75 bullet holes from wild gunfights and at least one of his drivers has been the victim of an attempted carjacking. See the Griffin outrage in the photo below. I believe prior to the 4 Corner Shoot out that headline would have never been. Ah! the awakening continues. Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle’s security detail at her home it has just been revealed, one of her security guards had been robbed and his weapon stolen. On another occasion last week another of her home security guards shot and wounded an attempted carjacker who fled the scene but was later apprehended.
My good friend and author Peter Bella calls Chicago “DEADWOOD’ AFTER THE LAWLESS TOWN OF THE OLD WEST- Ya Know! Peter just might be right-The City of big shoulders is under siege and it has no head on top of those shoulders at least when it comes to being compared to Afghanistan by Ken Griffin
Bob Angone is a Marine VETERAN and a retired Chicago Police Lieutenant. He worked his entire Career covering the streets of Chicago as a Tactical Officer, Tactical Sergeant, and Tactical Lieutenant. His last assignments were in special Functions, he was the C/O of the CPD Swat teams his last five years and was an HBT (Hostage Barricade Terrorist) Sergeant for 10 years.
Michael Kelly, superintendent and CEO of the Chicago Parks District, speaks at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the completion of the bridge replacement project at Irving Park Road in the North Center neighborhood on Sept. 10. | Mark Capapas/Sun-Times file
The mayor said she called for Michael Kelly’s firing at an emergency Chicago Park District Board meeting Friday, but the board took no action against the park district’s superintendent and CEO.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Saturday called for Chicago Park District Supt. Michael Kelly to be fired a day after the district’s board of commissioners took no action following an emergency meeting to discuss his handling of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse involving park district lifeguards.
Lightfoot said in a statement that she urged the board on Friday to remove Kelly from his position as head of the park district for cause.
“The culture of sexual abuse, harassment, and coercion that has become pervasive within the district’s Aquatics Department lifeguard program under his leadership, combined with the superintendent’s lack of urgency or accountability as new facts have come to light, is unacceptable, Lightfoot said in a statement issued Saturday evening.
“I look forward to the board’s swift and decisive action regarding this matter in order to ensure that the Chicago Park District remains a world-class parks system of which every Chicagoan can be proud.”
The emergency session was held so commissioners could hear evidence gathered by an outside law firm looking into the scandal and questions raised about Kelly’s potential role in covering it up, the Sun-Times reported.
When the board reconvened, it took no action and adjourned without further comment.
Lightfoot previously said she would wait for the outcome of the investigation before deciding Kelly’s fate, even after a growing number of City Council members called for him to removed.
Kelly, 50, has led the park district for a decade and has a contract through Dec. 31, 2022, at an annual salary of $230,000.
“We objected to the contract being characterized as a ‘golden parachute’ because it would fairly compensate Mike Kelly if he were terminated for political expediency but does not compensate him if he is fired for cause,” the board’s president told the Sun-Times.
Jonathan Toews has handled a grueling workload this preseason. | AP Photos
After playing his fourth preseason game Saturday, Toews looks and sounds poised to complete his long road back Wednesday against the Avalanche.
On the first day of training camp, Jonathan Toews admitted his “goal” was to play opening night — but he was careful to couch that statement with plenty of caution.
Toews’ goal has turned into a plan. On Saturday, two and a half weeks after Toews officially returned to Hawks practices, the 33-year-old captain said he will “absolutely” be ready for the start of the regular season Wednesday against the Avalanche.
“It’s not my decision [if I’ll play], but I don’t think that’s up in the air,” he clarified.
Toews’ outlook has been difficult to evaluate for almost a year now. Even once he returned to the public eye in June to disclose his chronic immune response syndrome diagnosis, it wasn’t clear if he’d actually be fit enough to play this season.
Even once he started daily workouts at Fifth Third Arena in July and August, it wasn’t clear when he’d fully rejoin the team. And even once he arrived for camp and played in the first preseason game, it wasn’t clear if he could handle the daily grind.
At every step in his recovery, however, Toews has exceeded expectations — even his own.
“To be honest with you, a week or two away from camp, I was a little worried, a little panicky,” Toews said. “But I just stayed with that attitude [of] just take it one day at a time and don’t look too closely at that big picture.
“I made some pretty good progress with how I’m feeling and how I’m playing out there and trying to be smart with the puck. [I’m hoping to] just rely on my instincts and my experience, and slowly everything else will come as long as I keep chipping away. I’m just having fun with the process.”
Even before Saturday, the Hawks had seemingly already anticipated Toews would travel for their opening-week road trip to Colorado, New Jersey and Pittsburgh, at least judging by Patrick Kane’s comments Wednesday.
“I’m obviously looking forward to having [Jonathan] in the lineup this year,” Kane said. “He’s going to help in a lot of ways: having a one-two punch and also on the power play with faceoffs [and] being down low.”
Toews played his fourth preseason game Saturday after averaging 19:16 ice time per game in the first three, a startlingly hefty workload.
He took a maintenance day off from practice Friday, his second such day of camp, but that’s to be expected — team veterans have universally talked about how especially grueling coach Jeremy Colliton’s camp schedule has been this year. Toews might also need some practices or games off during the regular season, but those will be handled on situational bases.
“You’ve got to jump into it at some point, so that’s what I’m doing,” Toews said. “The recovery and everything else will come along with it. If there’s days throughout the season where I need some maintenance, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Toews’ line with Dominik Kubalik and Philipp Kurashev looks virtually cemented, too.
Toews’ dominant faceoff skill — clearly unaffected by the year off, considering he entered the weekend 39-for-55 this preseason — and ability to win puck battles meshes well with Kurashev and Kubalik’s respective playmaking and shooting specialties.
“Toews is so good down low, and so is Kurashev at protecting the puck and escaping,” Colliton said. “Then you have a pretty good shooter in the slot. We think that could be a good combination.”
But no matter how they fare Wednesday, Toews will appreciate simply playing in a meaningful game again at last.
“I’m pretty happy, given what the last month has looked like,” Toews said. “Ultimately…I feel confident. My game is there. My energy is there. So I’ve just got to keep taking care of my body.”
Runners race down LaSalle Street near Wacker Drive during a past Bank of America Chicago Marathon. | Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times file
Here’s how you can watch in person or from your couch, track a runner, plus tips on how to successfully maneuver around the city during the marathon Sunday.
After COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the Chicago Marathon last year, the city’s biggest test for long-distance runners returns Sunday.
More than 35,000 people from 50 states and 100 countries are expected to compete in the 26.2-mile race.
The course winds through 29 neighborhoods. So, even if you’re not running, chances are the race might affect Chicagoans’ travel plans Sunday.
Here’s a rundown of all you need to know:
When is the race?
The race begins with the men’s wheelchair grouping at 7:20 a.m. Sunday in Grant Park. The starting line is at Columbus Drive and Monroe Street. Here are the scheduled start times:
The race begins in Grant Park and generally winds its way north to Sheridan Road in Uptown, then back south and west by the United Center through the West Loop, south to 35th Street in Bronzeville, finishing back in Grant Park.
Can I watch from the starting line?
No. Only registered runners can watch at the start or finish line. Spectators can access Grant Park beginning at 9:30 a.m.
How can I watch or listen from home?
NBC-5, Telemundo Chicago and TeleXitos will have live TV coverage and live streaming from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m.
WSCR (670-AM) will broadcast the race from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m.
How can I track a particular runner?
The Chicago Marathon app will provide live race-day runner tracking, along with elite athlete profiles, live broadcast streaming, weather, and an interactive course map. Download it here from the Apple App Store, or here via Google Play.
Where and when does the race end?
The finish line is at the south end of Grant Park. The elite runners are expected to cross first at about 9:30 a.m. All runners must finish within six and a half hours, which is about a 15-minute mile pace.
Are there any COVID-19 restrictions?
All participants must be fully vaccinated or provide a negative coronavirus test result from within the previous 72 hours.
What’s the weather forecast Sunday?
Partly sunny and warm, about 78 degrees Sunday morning. There is a 25% chance of rain as of Saturday, according to Accuweather.
How can I find a runner after the race?
Alphabetical signs can be found in the “Runner Reunite” area on Columbus Drive next to Butler Field. The post-race festival — with live music, food and drinks — will be from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
What’s the best way for spectators to avoid the course?
Public transit is the easiest way to get around and avoid road closings. Various L trains and buses can get you near Grant Park and around the course. The CTA will be providing extra race-day L and bus service.
Metra plans to add inbound trains during the early morning and outbound trains during the early afternoon Sunday on the BNSF, Metra Electric, Milwaukee District North and Union Pacific Northwest and West lines.
What are the best spectator strategies to watch?
If you’re following a specific runner, the best way to keep up is to track him or her via the Chicago Marathon app.
There are numerous viewing locations. For example, in the fourth mile, you can see the field headed north on LaSalle Street at Division Street. Then, you could two blocks west and see runners going south on Wells Street around mile marker 12. And there’s a Red Line stop at Clark and Division, so you can head south and see other locations.
When do I have to move my parked car from the course?
Any cars parked along the course will be towed starting at 1 a.m. Sunday.
When will streets along the course close?
Streets along the course will be closed starting at 7 a.m. Sunday.
When will streets reopen?
As runners pass through the mile markers, the streets will reopen in a staggered manner from 10 a.m. (near mile markers 1 and 2) to 6 p.m. For a complete guide of reopenings, click here.
What are the best shortcuts — by car and walking — to avoid the race?
If you’re driving, the best way to avoid runners while heading north or south is by taking Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
To head east or west, Lower Wacker Drive is extremely useful at getting to Lake Michigan, the Magnificent Mile, Streeterville or Lake Shore Drive.
On foot, the Riverwalk is an easy way to get past closed Loop streets. Read More
Akiem Hicks injured his groin last week. | Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
Hicks was downgraded shortly before the team departed for Las Vegas.
Akiem Hicks will miss Sunday’s game against the Raiders.
The Bears ruled out their defensive tackle, who hurt his groin last week on the Lions’ first offensive play. He did not fly with the team to Las Vegas on Saturday.
Hicks did not practice Wednesday or Thursday but was limited Friday, when coach Matt Nagy characterized him as doubtful to play.
“We have to do our job, but at the same time, if Akiem doesn’t play, somebody has to fill that role,” nose tackle Eddie Goldman said Friday. “Because he’s a presence. …
“You always want to be yourself. You don’t want to try to be anybody else. Definitely, somebody needs to bring the fire.”
Hicks had 0.5 sacks over the first four games. While he’s one of the most disruptive players on the team, the Bears believe their defensive line depth is a strength. Mario Edwards Jr. figures to start in his place.
ChicagoBears inside linebacker Danny Trevathan reacts as he is introduced before an NFL football game against the New Orleans Saints in Chicago, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) ORG XMIT: ILMC10 | Charles Rex Arbogast, AP Photos
Trevathan began the season on injured reserve because of a knee injury and has been practicing for two weeks.
Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan is set to make his season debut after being activated from injured reserve Saturday.
That moved him to the active roster in time to play Sunday at the Raiders.
Whether he’ll start or how much he’ll play is unclear. Veteran linebacker Alec Ogletree has been starting in his place and playing well, and defensive coordinator Sean Desai avoided questions about how he’d handle Trevathan’s potential return.
“Those decisions are made on a game-to-game basis on performance and where we think our defense best fits,” Desai said. “You guys see we’ve got a lot of players playing on defense, so what does starting mean? You play the first snap and you’re out the second? Those kind of things will be decided on a game-to-game basis.”
As for Ogletree, Desai said, “He’s done outstanding. He shows why he’s been a successful player in this league. He’s a leader. He’s got a lot of veteran savvy-ness. He understands the defense. He’s a starting-caliber player.”
He went on IR before the season opener because of a knee issue, but started the preseason finale. General manager Ryan Pace said the Bears’ intention was to “let him kind of take his time [and] make sure he’s 100% before we put him out there… It’s what is best for him. It’s what is best for us.”
Trevathan, 31, has been vital to the Bears’ defense and one of the most prominent voices in the locker room since joining them in 2016. He played all 16 games for the Bears last season and finished with 113 tackles, five pass breakups and a forced fumble.
Here we are with the best plastic surgeon at Mayo Clinic Rochester!! My twin sister and I “graduated” from regular checkups with her until 2024 because we’re doing so great after our double mastectomies with direct-to-implant reconstruction!
This blog post is the 40th in a series about my (and twin sister’s) breast cancer journey that began when we were 30 years old in July 2019. In 2019, I also started documenting our younger sister’s breast cancer previvorship journey. Here is a list of all of the posts written about our journey at Mayo Clinic’s Breast Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to date. To keep tabs on new posts, sign up for the “A Daily Miracle” email list at this link. You can also follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Before getting into the thick of this post, I wanted to celebrate the fact it’s BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH!!! First: In honor of this month, here’s a video of a speech that my twin sister and I gave at the American Cancer Society Minnesota’s 2nd Annual ResearcHERS Luncheon last week explaining our journey through breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship! We start talking at the 36 minute mark:
It was awesome to be able to share about our experience with a room full of award-winning researchers and donors and to meet some incredible researchers dedicating their lives to discovering new cancer diagnosis and treatment protocols and doctors treating cancer patients on a daily basis. God is good!!!
Second!: Our dad (pictured above) is the co-chair of the American Cancer Society Minnesota’s “Real Men Wear Pink” 2021 campaign, and you can donate to his campaign at this link (he’s already raised over $3,000 of his $10,500 goal)! Thank you to those who have already donated to the cause!!
Here’s the whole family after the Chris Steinke Breast Cancer Awareness Facebook and Instagram Live Fireside Friday Concert on October 8th! ICYMI, watch us play and sing at this link! 🙂
Third!: My husband and I co-hosted a live music evening celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness and my dad’s “Real Men Wear Pink” campaign over on the Chris Steinke Facebook page last night (pictured above!). In case you missed it, here’s a link to the “show!”
Now, onto our latest updates from our latest trip to Mayo Clinic in Rochester!:
Praise!: I’m 9 months pregnant (due with a baby boy due October 25th!), and, 2 years after my DCIS diagnosis and 5 months after a cancer recurrence scare and biopsy, have no signs of cancer recurrence! Also, my youngest sister is 21 weeks pregnant with a girl and, as a 27-year-old breast cancer previvor, has no signs of cancer, either!! God is good!! Praise!: Two years after our double mastectomies with direct-to-implant reconstruction, my twin sister and I have “graduated” from regular plastic surgery checkups at Mayo Clinic! We’ll go back if we have any trouble with our implants at all and, if we don’t have any problems, we’ll go back in 2024, 5 years after our original surgeries, for MRIs to make sure our implants are still healthy. If they’ve ruptured or are leaking, it will be time to exchange them (which, statistically, happens to women approximately every 7-10 years). Praise / Prayer Request!: My twin sister is in her 6th month of remission from breast cancer treatment(s) with no recurrence!! Last month, she was experiencing some dizziness, vertigo, blurred/double vision, and occasional panic attacks, but after a Brain MRI and remission checkup with her oncologist, she has discovered those symptoms are NOT CANCER!!! Instead of being a cancer recurrence, the dizziness, vertigo, blurred/double vision, and occasional panic attacks my twin sister was experiencing turned out to be a result of generalized anxiety/panic largely due to a combination of life circumstances. While we are praising the Lord for no more cancer, we are praying for my twin sister’s fears and anxieties to be calmed and for her continued health and healing as she kicks off “Breast Cancer Survivor Boot Camp” at the Mayo Clinic via Zoom next week!!!Praise!: In addition to her 4-month remission checkup, my twin sister also had an ovarian ultrasound and saw her gynecological oncology team for an exam. All was clear there, too, praise the Lord!Praise / Prayer Request!: My twin sister and her husband got the green light from her oncologist to take a timed break from her daily dose of Tamoxifen in 2022 to conceive using IVF. Prayers are appreciated for their health and discernment as they move forward with family planning later this year!!
Ultimately, we have several praise reports to share from our most recent exams at Mayo’s Plastic Surgery Department and Breast Clinic and from and my twin sister’s 4-month remission checkup, brain MRI, and checkup with her gynecological oncology team! But, all of these praises don’t come without recognition that cancer survivorship comes with plenty of mountains and valleys. Our “all clear” appointments plus my twin sister’s recent experiences through panic, anxiety, and fear of recurrence–in addition to glimpses of hope provided by God-given medical practitioners and the faithful love of the Lord!–are described in detail throughout this post.
Here we are ready to hit the road for a day full of appointments at Mayo Clinic Rochester: With Plastic Surgery and the Breast Clinic!
Celebrating Plastic Surgery Graduation!
Two years after our double mastectomies with direct-to-implant reconstruction, my twin sister and I have “graduated” from regular plastic surgery checkups at Mayo Clinic! We are convinced our plastic surgeon is the best plastic surgeon at Mayo Clinic for a number of reasons including the fact she wore a bright pink suit for our appointments this week and agreed to take a photo with us in our Mayo superfan tshirts as a “graduation photo” (pictured above at the top of this post and also below–we got posted on the Mayo Clinic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Instagram page! :)).
Here is a photo our plastic surgeon shared on the Mayo Clinic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery social media pages!!
We discussed the biopsy I had in April 2021 that ended up being benign fat necrosis. When I let my plastic surgeon and her resident know the biopsy site still hurts quite a bit and that I still experience some shooting/stinging aches and pains across my chest about once a week, she let me know that’s totally normal with fat necrosis / scar tissue and I just need to make sure to keep doing self-exams and clinical checkups with our breast clinic doctor to make sure there are no areas of tissue growing because “cancer grows. Scar tissue doesn’t.”
Our doctor also recommended that I potentially do physical therapy to help with those pains I’ve been experiencing due to scar tissue buildup. That’s something I’ll probably look into!
One final thing my plastic surgeon was pleased to find on physical exam was that my implants have maintained their integrity throughout pregnancy. Apparently, sometimes pregnancy can cause capsular contracture due to all the changing and shifting in body tissues, so she was thrilled everything is still looking good!
When it was time for my twin sister’s exam, we discussed a small bump that’s been protruding on the underside of her left breast implant since a week after her operation in 2020. It’s been causing her a bit of discomfort, and the plastic surgery team provided her with a thorough explanation of what it is: Likely a bit of Alloderm (cadaver skin that helps hold her implant in place) that is protruding from her implant on the lower left side of her chest. The team also gave a good explanation of what fixing that spot would entail: A trip to the OR under general anesthesia for a short operation to cut out the extra Alloderm and repair/remove the bump. Ultimately, it’s up to my twin sister and what she wants to do, but for now, it seems like she’s going to keep living with it because it’s not bothering her too much and she’d rather not have another operation right now!
Our doctor said that both of us are “looking great” and she was pleased to hear we are being tracked closely by our Mayo Breast Clinic doctors! We’ll go back to see her if we have any trouble with our implants at all. If we don’t have any problems, we’ll go back in 2024, 5 years after our original surgeries, for MRIs to make sure our implants are still healthy. When we go back to see her in 2024, if our implants have ruptured or are leaking, it will be time to exchange them (which, statistically, happens to women approximately every 7-10 years). While some people need new implants every few years, according to our doctor, some patients’ implants are totally fine after decades! We will see what the status is in 2024 and are hoping everything is great until then!
Here we are on the way to our plastic surgery and Breast Clinic appointments!
Pregnancy and Breast Cancer Previvorship
Our youngest sister is a 27-year-old breast cancer previvor (center in the above photo). She is currently 21 weeks pregnant with her first child (a girl due in February 2022!), and is going through preventative breast cancer screenings at Mayo Clinic’s Breast Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She started her journey of preventative MRIs, ultrasounds, and breast biopsies in 2019, and is still breast cancer free after her latest checkin with her Breast Clinic doctor in October 2021! Everything looked “normal and healthy” on physical exam and her breast biopsy site from December 2019 has even almost disappeared. 🙂
She’s been seeing our Breast Clinic doctor for 3-month clinical exams during her pregnancy to keep a close eye on things and is having targeted ultrasound checks every 6 months as well. Her next ultrasound and clinical exam will be in January 2022, right before her delivery in February 2022!, to make sure everything is looking good before she returns in summer 2022 to do another breast MRI (which, according to our doctors, is the “gold standard” for breast cancer detection).
Pregnancy and Survivorship
In April 2021 I had to have a biopsy on the left side of my chest for what appeared on physical exam and ultrasound imaging to be a potential cancer recurrence. It ended up being fat necrosis, or scar tissue, which we were so thankful for! On physical exam this time, there were no areas of concern, and no need for further imaging or biopsies right now! I was thrilled! I’ll go back for another clinical exam in March 2022.
One of the best parts of our checkups with our Breast Clinic doctor this week was that our Breast Clinic doctor changed into the tshirt we bought for her (and all of our Mayo doctors!!) for our appointment(s) We were SO excited to see her in her “superfan” shirt!!! 🙂
Here are my twin sister and her husband at Mayo in Rochester in September 2021, all ready for her brain MRI @ 6am!
Panic, Anxiety, Remission, and Brain MRIs
In early September, my twin sister went to Mayo Clinic for a remission checkup with her oncologist. To start off her day, she had a brain MRI to investigate some symptoms she’d been experiencing for a month including dizziness, vertigo, blurred/double vision, and occasional panic attacks. (Her husband brought her down for her scan, pictured above!)
It all started about two months ago, when my twin sister said she wasn’t “feeling right.” She said that, one day while she was driving home from work, she got to a stoplight and started to get hot. Goosebumps rose up on her neck and she felt like everything around her was moving or shifting but she wasn’t moving. She felt like there was a disconnect between her position and everything around her. As she continued driving, she was pretty light headed and dizzy.
She told me she felt like something inside of her “broke,” and that, ever since then, she felt cognitively off balance like she could pass out at any time. Since then, on an ongoing basis, she was experiencing those symptoms.
She also had some double vision while looking at computer at work that same week, and woke up a couple nights that week with panic attacks. “This is very unlike me,” she said. “I feel like I’m not firing on all cylinders and that’s frustrating because I feel slower at my job and with my family. I feel like something’s wrong. Like I had a stroke.”
So our entire family encouraged her to send her oncologist a message to explain all of this, which she did. My twin sister explained how she was worried these symptoms may signify a cancer recurrence in her brain or central nervous system, and asked him for guidance. He ordered her a brain MRI for the same day as her appointment with him so he could interpret the images before their in-person meeting.
Unfortunately, brain cancer and anxiety/panic disorders have a lot of the same symptoms, so we weren’t quite sure what to make of the situation besides trusting that God had a perfect plan. Our entire family was pretty nervous waiting the week until the brain MRI and her oncology appointment. One night that week I woke up crying, and realized there was a song playing in my head: “Battle Belongs” by Phil Wickham. The chorus goes like this:
When I fight I will fight on my knees with my hands lifted high
Oh God, the battle belongs to you
Every fear I lay at your feet
I’ll sing through the night
Oh God, the battle belongs to you
As I woke up, my cheeks were wet with tears, and I realized that, by playing that song in my head, God was telling me straight up that my sister’s battle was HIS, not mine. Just like the song says, “nothing can stand against the power of our God.” It wasn’t my job to worry about my sister–but instead to trust that God was fighting this battle for her and had this all under control.
Emboldened by this promise that God had things under control :), I started texting our prayer warriors: “I wanted to ask if you guys could pray today / tomorrow for Steph’s 4-month breast cancer check-up with her oncologist tomorrow morning at Mayo and because of some dizziness, vertigo and double vision she’s been experiencing for a few weeks now her oncologist ordered a brain MRI to make sure there’s nothing serious going on! She’s pretty freaked (we all are) and has been asking specifically for prayers for a “super boring MRI and checkup” and that just like her hip a few months ago that there would be “a clear and non-serious-and-non-cancer-related explanation for all this!!” Her appointments will be over by tomorrow afternoon so I will send an update tomorrow when we know what’s going on!! Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement… they mean the world!!”
The night before her test, my sister said she was nervous but had peace knowing that she would have the test over with soon and she’d know exactly what was going on. I reminded her that the army of gnomes in the MRI tube that I met the first time I had an MRI was waiting to say hi!! 🙂 So off she and her husband went to a 6am MRI followed by a day full of Mayo appointments like they’d done so many times before!!
Here goes my twin sister into her brain MRI bright and early at 6am!
What a Brain MRI is Like
For those who are curious, this is what my twin sister’s brain MRI was like. First of all, my twin sister has been through a breast MRI and a hip MRI in the past two years, and has now experienced a brain MRI, too. She didn’t know quite what to expect except that, after her scan, she’d know if she had brain cancer or had had a stroke at some point in the recent past that would have caused the anxiety and panic symptoms she was experiencing.
When she got back to the MRI tube, she had three nurses with her that got her prepped on her back on the table in a gown. She laid down on the MRI table as a plastic bracket covered by a sheet came up by her head and around her ears (for a look at what this looks like, check out this photo on Mayo’s website. #claustrophobia!!)
She put earplugs in, had a mask on because of #covid, had to put earmuffs over her earplugs and laid back on the table as a heavy, metal-looking “storm trooper” mask came down and locked into the plastic constraint.
Essentially, her head was locked into a box, she couldn’t hear, and could hardly breathe. Thankfully, her nurses were friendly!, and they gave her a comforting pat on her leg as she got shot back into the MRI tube–which she said felt kind of like the Mission:Space ride at Disney World (haha).
My sister told me she made the mistake of opening her eyes and looking up at one point. She saw the mask and the plastic cage and the lid of the MRI only a few inches above her face, and she was acutely aware she was in a small enclosed space and her head was locked in a box. It was then she said she realized why they sedate people or put blindfolds on people for tests like these. Ha!
When the first set of images was complete, they shot her out of the tube and got the Gadalinium IV contrast started. Then they shot her back in for a last round of imaging. She said she tasted a little metal when the contrast started but other than that everything was fine! Then it was over!
At one point she said she was considering pushing the panic button but realized all that would do was postpone the inevitable. She was going to have to finish this test and by golly if she hit that panic button she would just have to go right back in! So she mustered up all the courage she could and kept herself in that tube!
Thumbs up all around as we were SO EXCITED for her wonderful oncology appointment with no signs of cancer at 6 months post-chemo!!!
Receiving the “ALL CLEAR!”
Waiting for the oncology appointment to interpret my sister’s brain MRI felt like forever.
Even though we were all freaked out–and reminded of the times my sister had an ovarian cancer scare in fall 2020 and a hip metastases scare this past spring–her brain MRI ultimately ended up being the best thing that could have happened because it gave us a clear baseline image of everything going on in her brain–which turned out to be totally nothing out of the ordinary, praise God!!!
When we finally got called back into my sister’s oncology appointment, a doctor–but not her oncologist–walked into the room. That made me nervous because I didn’t know who he was.
He came in and sat down and said he was working with my sister’s oncologist–it turns out he was a resident who got to meet with my sister before her oncologist did.
He sat down and introduced himself and asked my sister to explain what was going on. I wanted to scream: “CAN YOU JUST TELL US WHAT THE MRI SAID??!!!!!”
She summarized her symptoms from the past month or so for a few minutes and then, mercifully!, the doctor said:
“I’ll give you the good news: The MRI showed no evidence of brain disease. It was negative for stroke and TIA. Now that we found out what it’s not, we’re going to try to figure out what it IS!”
“PRAISE GOD!!!!” I exclaimed. My dad started clapping in the corner of the exam room. My sister’s husband fist pumped the air. We were SO relieved it wasn’t a brain trauma or cancer related!!!!!
“I’m going to go discuss all of this with your oncologist and we’ll be right back!” the doctor said.
When they both came back in the room, the resident and her oncologist took another 20 minutes to ask her questions and conduct a physical exam.
At the end of everything, her oncologist and the resident agreed that, because of the recent stress she’d been under at work, in selling her house and buying a new one, and heading into her 4-month remission visit with her oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, her symptoms were likely the result of anxiety or panic.
“I hear this all the time–my patients go through such an intense period of chemotherapy treatments with no time to process things that only later does a lot of stuff come up, especially after infusions stop and there’s all that stuff left over to work through,” my sister’s oncologist told her.
To address her (noncancerous!!!) symptoms, over the past few weeks, my twin sister has had appointments with doctors including: a) her oncologist, b) an integrative medical specialist, c) nutritionist, d) physical therapist, e) chiropractor, and f) counselor. She is seeing a local counselor on a regular basis and starts “Breast Cancer Boot Camp” with a psychologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in October 2021, so prayers are appreciated for those appointments as she goes through them.
Thanks to awesome appointments with all of these God-given medical practitioners, she’s discovered she’s been struggling with anxiety/panic rather than anything purely physical, and is on the road to healing!
My sisters and I are SO thankful for our care team at Mayo Clinic and we will go back and see Mayo in 2022!!!
Next steps!
Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement!! Breast cancer previvorship and survivorship definitely isn’t for sissies. We’re grateful for God’s faithfulness and the great cloud of witnesses encouraging us along the way. 🙂
Here are our next steps:
October 2021: My twin sister starts “Breast Cancer Boot Camp” with a Mayo Clinic psychologist for her cancer survivorship journey! Also, my baby is due October 25th!
January 2022: Our youngest sister has her next clinical exam and ultrasound with our Breast Clinic doctor; my twin sister will start her “timed break” from Tamoxifen; my twin sister will check in with her oncologist and gynecological oncology team before she starts IVF.
February 2022: Our youngest sister is due with her first baby (it’s a girl!)
March 2022: My twin sister starts the IVF process with a fertility clinic and I have my next follow-up appointment with our doctor at Mayo Clinic’s Breast Clinic!
Breast cancer screenings may not be fun but we are grateful we get to do them together 🙂
Sister Christian is a blogger, reporter, editor and follower of Jesus Christ seeking to find little miracles each and every day. She especially loves finding Jesus in art, music and culture. Learn more about her on Twitter @adailymiracle, and on Facebook as “A Daily Miracle.” Send an email to [email protected] with any comments, concerns or suggestions!
His ways with people and a need to prove himself have put him on the doorstep of the franchise’s first WNBA title.
Timing has played a key role in James Wade’s WNBA coaching career, going back to his start on Dan Hughes’ staff with the San Antonio Stars in 2012.
At that point in his life, after his 13-year playing career overseas had ended, Wade envisioned himself coaching at the junior high or high school level. He wanted a nice, quiet life as a teacher who coached on the side. Raising a family was important to him, too.
He certainly didn’t see himself coaching a team with one of the best players in the game to the WNBA Finals.
But Hughes did.
“James and I would go out to lunch periodically,” Hughes remembered. “Those conversations were like one coach talking to another. I said, ‘When you get done playing, I’ll give you a job.’ “
Wade had been introduced to Hughes through his wife, Edwige Lawson-Wade, an Olympic silver medalist and member of the Stars’ 2008 WNBA Finals team. When Hughes offered Wade a spot as a coaching intern, Wade thought he’d be cleaning toilets, handing out water and wiping down the floor when a player fell. Lawson-Wade told her husband to take the job, be the best intern he could be and maybe, one day in a few years, he’d be considered for an assistant role.
That happened the following year.
In 2018, Wade was tapped to replace Amber Stocks as the Sky’s coach/general manager. At the time, he said the team wasn’t far off from making the playoffs — and he was right. They had a 20-14 regular-season record in his first year as a head coach, earning their first playoff berth in two seasons as Wade won Coach of the Year honors.
His championship experience as an assistant with the Minnesota Lynx, overseas as an assistant with BLMA and UMMC Ekaterinburg and, perhaps most important, his life experience made him the right person for the job.
“I knew if there was one person that could get them to believe in themselves, it was me,” he said.
Basketball had been a big part of his childhood. He was close with all 27 of his first cousins, and all the boys played. Wade was the sixth-oldest; the five who are older than him are all 6-5 or taller.
The height difference made him work that much harder, with the chip on his shoulder eventually becoming a character trait. Wade said he’s still motivated today by a childhood desire to prove people wrong.
He saw that same desire — along with a lot of talent — when he took a look at the Sky’s gritty, hard-working roster going into the 2019 season.
Wade’s knack for seeing what was inside players wasn’t new. In fact, his player-development skills were what had stood out to Hughes first, years earlier. One of the first players Hughes assigned Wade to work with on the Stars was three-time WNBA All-Star forward Sophia Young, whom Hughes could see thriving under Wade’s direction.
His players now talk about him like family. Guard Diamond DeShields, drafted third by the Sky in 2018, said earlier this season that Wade sees his players for who they are and encourages them to be authentic.
“James makes it very clear this is what you have to do in order for us to win games,” DeShields said. “I appreciate that because it makes my job easier when there’s transparency like that.”
In his dual role as coach and GM, Wade has been able to build the kind of teams he wants to coach. With his first draft pick in 2019, he selected UConn forward Katie Lou Samuelson, who lasted one season with the Sky before being traded to the Dallas Wings, along with a 2021 first-round pick, for forward/center Azura Stevens. In 2020, Wade selected forward Ruthy Hebard eighth overall. This year, he selected guard Shyla Heal, also eighth overall.
The decisions to draft Samuelson and Heal have come under fire, but long-term, those choices have paid off. Stevens, now at 100% after injuring her knee last season while playing in the WNBA bubble in Florida, has been a critical piece of the Sky’s playoff success this year, averaging 10.8 points, 7.8 rebounds and one steal. Guard Dana Evans, for whom Wade traded Heal plus draft assets to the Wings in June, has been the backup point guard behind Courtney Vandersloot that the Sky have wanted for years. Vandersloot is averaging a minute less of playing time than she was last season.
After signing a four-year contract extension in January, Wade also, of course, helped the Sky land one of the biggest free agents in WNBA history, point-forward Candace Parker. Bringing in a player of her caliber comes with unique challenges that are nothing like those that come with bringing in a role player, Wade said. His task was to marry her established identity and experience with the identity he’d been building with the Sky for two years.
It started out tough. Parker was out for nearly a month with an ankle injury to start the season. During that time, the Sky dropped seven straight and were unable to start building the on-court chemistry Wade had envisioned. He had a moment during that slump, he said, when he questioned if he was capable of getting the most out of the team.
It was Parker who told him, “We’re OK.”
The Sky are more than OK. After finishing the regular season 16-16 and entering the playoffs as the No. 6 seed, they’re playing for their first WNBA title starting Sunday.
“This year was hard,” Parker said after Game 4 of the semifinals. “To come into the locker room and see people get back up, that’s the biggest thing. We have a bunch of people that get up.”
The ChicagoBears are 2-2. However, they are about as good of a football team as an 0-4 squad. They have a lot of talent on the roster but they are as poorly coached as any team in the league. Matt Nagy finally agreed to name Justin Fields as the permanent starting quarterback regardless of […]
Chicago Bears: Allen Robinson is the perfect trade chip – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More
Chicago White Sox’s Jose Abreu, left, and Tim Anderson celebrate after Anderson scored on a sacrifice fly by Abreu during the first inning of the team’s baseball game against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, Friday, Sept. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) ORG XMIT: TXTG105 | Tony Gutierrez/AP
How did sox measure up in regular season by comparison to their postseason highs?
One of my goals in these weekly quizzes is to impart information about Chicago baseball in an interesting way. I could list nine facts, but I don’t think that’s as much fun.
Today, I’m giving you the chance to learn some 2021 Sox stats and some postseason history by asking you nine fact-filled questions (and giving you the answers). So enjoy the postseason and root for Chicago, whether you are a Sox fan or a Cubs fan.
Good luck on the Chicago Nine!
1. Historically, ”Shoeless” Joe Jackson leads the White Sox with seven multihit games in the postseason. During the 2021 regular season, who led the Sox in multihit games?
a. Jose Abreu c. Tim Anderson
b. Yasmani Grandal d. Leury Garcia
2. For those of you who enjoy playing scrabble with the names in my quizzes, you’ll be happy to hear that A. J. Pierzynski (in 2005) and Ted Kluszewski (in 1959) share the White Sox record with one multihomer game each in the postseason, who led the Sox in multihomer games in 2021?
a. Jose Abreu c. Eloy Jimenez
b. Yasmani Grandal d. Leury Garcia
3. The record by a Sox batter for strikeouts in a postseason game is three, done by 14 players, most recently by James McCann last season. Four times in 2021, a Sox player had a ”golden sombrero,” four strikeouts in a game. In one game, however, a player had a ”platinum sombrero,” a five-whiff game. Who was he?
a. Yoan Moncada c. Tim Anderson
b. Brian Goodwin d. Eloy Jimenez
4. Carlos Rodon had the Sox’ season high May 21 when he struck out 13 Yankees. Ed Walsh holds the Sox’ postseason record for strikeouts in a game when he shut out the Cubs on Oct. 11, 1906. Compared with Rodon, Walsh’s number of whiffs in that game were . . .
a. The same b. More c. Less
5. Bobby Jenks holds the Sox’ record with five career postseason saves. True or false: That is more than each of the following in the postseason?
a. Adam Wainwright c. Trevor Hoffman
b. John Smoltz d. Sergio Romo
6. The Sox clinched the AL Central on Sept. 23 by beating the Indians (now the Guardians). Who was the winning pitcher for the Sox?
a. Reynaldo Lopez c. Aaron Bummer
b. Garrett Crochet d. Craig Kimbrel
7. No Sox pinch hitter has had an extra-base hit in the postseason. This regular season, the Sox got pinch home runs from three batters. Which one of the following did not have one?
a. Gavin Sheets c. Andrew Vaughn
b. Adam Eaton d. Yasmani Grandal
8. Tim Anderson led the Sox with 18 stolen bases this season. In the three World Series championship seasons for the Sox (1906, 1917, 2005), who had the most regular-
season steals for them?
a. Eddie Collins c. Frank Isbell
b. Scott Podsednik d. Aaron Rowand
9. Out of fairness, I really felt I needed a Cubs question, so here we go: Each of the following has played in the postseason, but which one has not played in a postseason game for the Cubs?
a. Kyle Hendricks c. David Bote
b. Ian Happ d. Matt Duffy
QUIZ ANSWERS
1. Tim Anderson had 46 multihit games. 2. Yasmani Grandal had three multihomer games. 3. On April 2, Yoan Moncada had five strikeouts in five at-bats. 4. It’s less. Ed Walsh struck out 12 that day at the West Side Grounds. 5. Oh, it’s true. The other four pitchers each have four saves. 6. Aaron produced the opposite of a Bummer and won the game. 7. Gavin Sheets went 2-for-9 with one RBI and no homers. 8. Scott Podsednik (59 in 2005). 9. Matt Duffy (2014 Giants and 2019 Rays).
Watch the bullpen velo coming from the Sox’ arms. It should be the highest of all the postseason teams. Vne of my goals in these weekly quizzes is to impart information about Chicago baseball in an interesting way. I could list nine facts, but I don’t think that’s as much fun.
