Guest Blogger: Cindy Gatziolis 2

Cindy has been the Director of PR/Marketing for Mayor's Office of Special Events for the past five years following nearly 21 years in radio at stations WMAQ, WLUP AM/FM, WMVP, WGN and WLS. (She's the one on the right in this picture from the Loop's 1993 Christmas party. The guy on the left is in desperate need of a haircut.)

Cindy is also a cancer survivor, and lost her sister to breast cancer a few years ago. Since this is Breast Cancer Awareness month, she wrote this as this week's guest blog.



The following posting is about women’s boobs!

By Cindy Gatziolis


Now that I have the attention of what I’m certain is a male-dominated readership, I’d love for you to stay reading, but I feel compelled to warn you that this will be neither funny nor lascivious (look it up). So if you must go, please give me your time for at least one paragraph.

Two years ago, my sister Georgianna was diagnosed with a neglected breast cancer that had metastasized to her spine. The day after hearing that piece of news, my other sister Fran and I flew to her in Connecticut and in our first meeting with her oncologist, heard the word incurable. Within a month, she died.

OK, I need you to stay with me for one more sentence. Guys (and Women) if there’s a wife, girlfriend, sister or mother in your life, if they’re in their late 30s or more, ask them if they’ve had their mammogram and keep asking them, year after year.

If you must stop reading, I get that. These are the icky parts of life. But, if you’re still with me, I would like to defend my sister (as I’m sure you’re all saying it was her fault.) She was intelligent, informed and beautiful. She certainly wasn’t naïve when it came to medical issues. Our own mother died from cancer at the age of 54. My sister Fran is a breast cancer survivor, thanks to early detection by a mammogram.

While I won’t divulge a whole family history or offer a long treatise on certain kinds of marriages, I can offer that my sister suffered from low self-esteem her whole life. At times I think I caused part of that just by being born and taking away her baby status in the family, which she held for nearly six years.

I bring up her self-esteem because I believe that is what contributed to her failure to go for an annual mammogram. I also believe that the onset of menopause, a child that was growing more self-reliant and less dependent on mom and a husband who had distanced himself (I did say this was about boobs) worked in concert to create “the perfect storm” in her emotional state. I think that’s why she failed to take care of herself.

Georgianna also felt that if anything was wrong with her health, that her husband wouldn’t rise to the occasion (again, boob) so it would be best to know nothing. What you don’t know, isn’t there.

Okay, enough of the inner workings of a very personal story.

People have said to me that she was an adult. You can’t make adults do things. If someone needs to diet or quit smoking, they must make that decision to do that on their own. Agreed.

But we all know we have the power to nag. To remind. To irritate. To eventually force an issue. Mammograms can save lives. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think if she’d been as diligent about this as I am, this cancer would have been caught early and she’d be here.

Ask your loved one. Find out if they’ve gone, when they’ve gone, why haven’t they gone.

If there is a family history, they should be discussing this with their gynecologist even earlier.

You don’t know how often I ask myself, why didn’t I make sure she was getting this done. But I also look to the man with whom she shared a home…the boob.

I had a journalism teaching fellow in college who told me that I always go for the jugular so why not do it here.

That self-reliant child, who was merely 11 when her mother died, really does need her. She feels the stress of keeping up straight A’s, while making sure her laundry is done, the tree is decorated (and taken down), and the cat gets her medicine. She prepares her own meals, writes her own notes to the teachers, books the reservations to visit us in Chicago and packs her own bag. She does so many things handled by active parents, things none of her girlfriends have to worry about.

She is lonely for her mother and at age 13, she still doesn’t know how to express that.

Be a nudge, be a pest, be involved. If you’re a woman, and you’re the age you should be getting a mammogram, get it done. They squish your boobs for all of ten seconds. I’ve felt more pain wearing bad shoes and putting on jeans after they’ve been in the dryer.

Mammogram. It’s even a fun word. It’s like you get to send a message to a woman’s boob – and what man hasn’t wanted to do that.