Posted by Hal Dardick at 9:48 a.m.; last updated at 4:13 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley’s wife, Maggie, underwent surgery today at Northwestern Memorial Hospital to strengthen a leg damaged by cancer and the resulting treatment, the mayor’s office said.
"It’s a procedure that will reinforce the bone so there is less likelihood of fracture,” said Jacquelyn Heard, the mayor’s press secretary.
The mayor and his daughters were visiting with Maggie Daley this afternoon at the hospital, where she was expected to stay “at least a couple days” for follow-up treatment to the surgery, Heard said.
The mayor declined to take questions at a lunch hour event to discuss federal money for a South Side rail crossing bottleneck where construction will begin this year to build a flyover bridge to separate freight and passenger traffic.
Maggie Daley, 66, was in surgery for nearly two hours until 11:30 a.m., Heard said. The surgery went as planned, she added.
She has been battling metastatic breast cancer since 2002. The mayor in December announced his wife would be using a wheelchair to get around while she was undergoing radiation treatment for a cancerous bone tumor on her right leg. She later was getting around on crutches, and it’s hoped that the surgery will help the city’s first lady make further progress, Heard said.
The surgery is being done by Orthopedic oncologist Dr. Alan Yasko, she said, adding that she did not know how long it would take. “The surgery is not done yet,” she said. “She’s in the midst of it as we speak.”