Posted by Hal Dardick at 5:05 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley’s wife has a leg fracture, an anticipated side effect of her cancer treatment, but still plans to speak at tonight’s dedication of a cancer care center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, her doctor said.
The leg had been weakened by treatment for metastatic breast cancer, which Maggie Daley has been battling since 2002. In December, Mayor Richard Daley announced his wife would be using a wheelchair to get around as she was undergoing radiation treatment for a cancerous bone tumor in the leg.
The first lady felt pain in her right leg when she got up this morning, more than a month after she had a titanium rod placed in it just in case a fracture occurred, said Dr. Steven Rosen, director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
“That’s not to prevent the fracture,” Rosen said, explaining that it’s put there to maintain the bone’s stability in the case of a fracture, which sometimes occurs under such conditions. The fracture does not indicate a worsening of her condition, Rosen said.
She had been getting around more recently with a walker or on crutches until this morning, but will be in the wheelchair and on pain medication until the pain subsides, Rosen said.
But she still plans to make remarks at the unveiling tonight of the Maggie Daley Center for Women’s Cancer Care, he said. That’s in the Lurie facility, housed in Northwestern Memorial’s Prentice Women’s Hospital.
“She’s going to be there, but she’ll be in the wheelchair,” he said.