Wendy Chioji made us aware of many things.
The meaning of fight. The quality of courage. The fullness of life.
And the reality of breast cancer.
Chioji announced her breast cancer diagnosis on the air in 2001 when she was a popular news anchor for WESH-Channel 2.
Viewers were stunned. Like some on-air personalities, she seemed like part of the family. She was vibrant, and she was young, just 39.
She survived the breast cancer. But some 18 years after she announced that first diagnosis, Chioji died on Monday from a different type of cancer. She was 57.
Chioji made us confront cancer through the force of her personality and determination.
Even when she wasn’t talking about it, Chioji’s presence on TV was a low-volume but daily reminder that someone you knew — or at least, knew of — was fighting the disease.
– Original Credit: Courtesy Growing Bolder
– Original Source: Courtesy Growing Bolder
Chioji remained on the air until 2008, when she left Central Florida and moved to Utah.
From her home base in Park City, she skied mountains, hiked through slot canyons and ran triathlons.
She rode bikes with Lance Armstrong to raise money for cancer research. She climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, carrying with her a banner that said “Fight like hell.”
She beat her breast cancer, but a new one was discovered in 2013 — thymic carcinoma. She had surgery but it returned in 2014, sending Chioji into another battle for her life.
This past August, some five years later, Chioji wrote in her “Live Fearlessly” blog — with trademark humor, candor and detail — of her declining health.
“Disease is eroding my ribs, and that’s why they’re cracking when I cough.”
Her doctor mentioned hospice care.
“I remain unafraid to die, but not now. I’m not ready,” she wrote. “I haven’t finished fighting with all the weapons available to me, and I have too many things to do and places to go.”
She was ready to try more treatments, more clinical trials. Just about anything. Chioji wrote that she had figured out how to get around on her Vespa scooter with supplemental oxygen.
In a Sept. 25 blog post, about two weeks before she died, Chioji wrote of her continuing efforts to fight back the cancer, and concluded with, “I am grateful I have lived well on my borrowed time for five years this Labor Day.
“I am hopeful I’ll borrow five more.”
This month, organizations throughout Central Florida will hold events designed to remind us that one in eight women will have breast cancer during their lives, that some 41,000 women are expected to die from it this year, that screenings can help women detect it early, and that research might one day cure it.
Wendy Chioji managed to beat breast cancer, but she finally succumbed to a different type.
Her life, however, should remind us — during Breast Cancer Awareness Month and throughout the year — of how important it is to really live.
