Denise Knox

Maybe you know Denise Knox.  She has been very active in the Northlake/Melrose Park community over the past 25 years.  She started off on the Whittier PTA with her daughter Deanna and son Robbie and moved over to Northlake Middle School volunteering as President, Vice-President, and Secretary over the years.  She taught CCD at Mt. Caramel Church and was part of the Holy Rosary Society.  She was active with Leyden Bears Football and Cheer as team mom for Deanna and Robbie's teams.  In 2003, she was elected to the Veteran's Park District and served on their board till this past year.  All of this was on a volunteer basis, out of the goodness of her heart.  All out of charity because she is always trying to give back to others. 

As some of you know, Denise has had her share of grief over the years with the loss of her husband Danny in 2004 and son Robbie in 2015.  Denise finally sold her house in Northlake this past year and moved to Bartlett to be closer to her daughter Deanna and son in law Marcin.  Denise was doing well.  She had the joy of witnessing the birth of her grandson Daniel Robert Markiewicz on May 15th.  It just doesn't get any better than that, right?

Unfortunately, that joy was short lived.  On July 22nd, she was experiencing severe abdominal and back pain.  Deanna took her to the emergency room where she was told she had a mass in her left breast with bone metastasis.  Denise has proceeded with X-Rays, CT scans, MRIs, PET scans and biopsies.  She has been told by her oncologist that she has Triple Negative Invasive Ductal Carcinoma of the breast.  On August 22nd, she went back to the ER due to worsening back pain.  She was admitted and had kyphoplasty, which is an injection of bone cement into the L1 vertebrae in her lumbar (lower back) spine.  This has helped immensely along with oral Morphine.  The scans revealed that he cancer has spread to her cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine along with her pelvis.  As you can imagine, this is all very serious.  She will be starting Chemotherapy September 19th with the hopes to shrink the tumors and alleviate some of her pain.  She will receive Paxol 1 time/week for 3 weeks with 1 week off.  She will do this for 6 cycles/months.  The doctors have explained that this will not cure her, but the goal is to make her more comfortable and extend her life.  They do not give a prognosis of how long, but on average, women like Denise can live 5 more years.  Some less, some more.  Denise is unable to work at this point and with mounting medical bills, any little bit you can donate will help her to be able to worry less and spend more quality time with her family and in particular, Deanna and her new grandson Danny.

Now lets give back to Denise.  God Bless you, Denise.  We love you.