Nov. 03--Cheryle Jackson didn't cry at the diagnosis.
She didn't cry when her husband of 18 years filed for a divorce in the middle of her battle.
She didn't even cry when she called her mother in Memphis to tell her.
"When the doctor tells you you have breast cancer, you tune out from that point on," said Jackson, a former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate and now a vice president of government affairs at AAR, an aerospace company. "And my first thought was like, I was 48 at the time, gosh, I haven't reached my full potential. And that seemed incredibly sad to me."
The 49-year-old moved to a 20th floor South Loop condo from a four-bedroom home near Jackson Park. Then she pulled together a few friends at a hotel two weeks before her mastectomy and decided to start a small for-profit company, Real Like Me, that would connect women with executive coaches.
"There are a lot of existing resources here," Jackson said. "But I want to connect women with coaches we know are providing a certain level of standard, because there is no standard for this industry. Because as a professional, it's daunting, who do you go to for coaching and can you afford it?"
Jackson, herself, works with Alicia Bassuk, an executive coach whose fees are paid by AAR.
Still, Jackson admits Real Like Me hasn't reached its full potential.
"One thing I didn't know about breast cancer is that there's a high rate of divorce for lots of reasons," Jackson said. The divorce or separation rate for seriously ill women is 21 percent, according to a 2009 study published in the journal "Cancer." "I'm still, it's still not finalized yet. ... So I had to put a pause on continuing forward with Real Like Me because it is a marital asset."
Instead, she scaled the concept back and last week began opening up her home for small Real Like Me events. She has four more planned for 2015.
"When you have breast cancer, you have little control over much," she said. "This is the one piece that I have some control over. I can decide to help women. I can decide to inspire women. I can do that. Yes, I was stymied in moving forward in a formal way with Real Like Me. But I was like that's just a name."
Jackson detected the lump herself in the summer of 2012, six months before she was diagnosed. Initially, after a mammogram and ultrasound, she was told it was benign and to monitor it.
"But I was pretty persistent, because it was bringing friends," Jackson said, laughing now at the thought of the additional lumps.
Jackson has a great, big laugh.
"You know, who wants to rush to have cancer?" she said, the laughing now becoming uncontrollable. "When the experts tell you you don't have cancer, you're like, 'phew.' But at an annual physical, thank God, my primary care physician (a different doctor) was like, 'C.J., you have to go see a specialist right away.'"
She arrived at the Lynn Sage Comprehensive Breast Center for tests, and the women there were clearly sick.
"The older, mother hen of the room loved to talk," Jackson said. "And she loved to talk about Syria, Rev. (Jesse) Jackson, Rev. (Al) Sharpton. She was an expert on everything. ... And I'm the only one left in the room, and she was very chatty. And I'm like, 'Oh, I'm not in here for that. I'm different from y'all. I'm just getting a test.'"
Jackson remembers the woman looking the tall, trim former political candidate up and down, in a slow scan, and saying very slowly yet bitterly, "Well... God bless... Then."
"She was going to let me have my denial," Jackson said.
It didn't hit her until she began planning for a radical mastectomy and went to see her plastic surgeon. She underwent her last of four surgeries in February, taking three, four- to six-week leaves from work for recovery in the span of a little more than a year.
"They open up a reality-check book," Jackson said, laughing at her nickname for it. "This is not a boob job! This is your reality. Images from single, double, radical mastectomies. It was so jarring."
And that's when she cried.
mmharris@tribune.com
Twitter @chiconfidential
