Maggie Daley Back in Chicago

Chicago's First Lady spent four nights in Washington, D.C. hospital

Chicago's First Lady is back home after a health scare that led to a four night stay in Washington, D.C.

Maggie Daley returned to Chicago on Tuesday afternoon.

"She is feeling much better and I want to thank everybody for their prayers," Mayor Richard M. Daley said Tuesday at an unrelated event at Marshall Metro High School.

The mayor said his wife voewed to get back to work as soon as possible on after-school programs.

"She thinks teenagers deserve more after-school programs and that’s all she wanted to talk about. We were looking out [the window at the hospital] and watching the fields at different kids playing different sports and that’s all she talked about: after school programs, how important that is in the arts and sports for young people. We have to be able to do that for them.”

Maggie Daley was hospitalized in the Georgetown University Medical Center on Friday after complaining of pain in her lower legs. Her physician, Steve Rosen, said she was in good spirits and would return to Chicago after four nights in Washington, D.C.

"I spoke with Maggie this morning, she feels better," Rosen said by phone on Monday.  "There's nothing dramatically new with her condition."

Daley has been battling metastatic breast cancer since 2002. The pain might be from a micro-fracture of a bone, according to her doctors in Chicago, who added that tests indicate the cancer has not progressed any further.

"She's been on constant therapy of different sorts over the last nine years.  That's very difficult on an individual, but she keeps her spirits up and she's just heroic," said Rosen.

He said that it's his hope and his anticipation that Daley will continue to do very well and points out that even though the cancer has gotten in her bones, her vital organs are all in remission.

Daley's condition has greatly increased the level of interest people have in breast cancer, doctors at Northwestern said.

The Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern is sponsoring a town hall meeting the topic on Sunday, Oct. 24.  "The Promises and Myths of Breast Cancer Research" is free of charge and being held in the Thorne Auditorium of the Arther Rubloff Building, located at 375 East Chicago Ave., between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

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