River Forest’s Varon keeps up fight against cancer

Surviving breast cancer is a bond, a sisterhood, but it’s something Roz Varon doesn’t want to belong to. 

“But since [I] do, [I] make the best of it. It doesn’t define me. It’s part of me,” the 58-year-old River Forest resident said.

Whether it is speaking before a survivor’s group during October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, or chatting with people come up to her and ask how she’s doing, Varon candidly and patiently works to erase the stigma of cancer. 

“People don’t really know [about cancer] unless it affects them or someone in their immediate family,” Varon said. “It is my responsibility to do this. I have a high-profile job, and I have a platform that reaches many, many people, and I can help.”

Raised in the northwest Chicago suburbs, Varon is the Emmy Award-winning traffic/transportation anchor for ABC7 News This Morning. She was the first TV traffic anchor in the country to bring rush-hour traffic reporting to the morning news. Next spring, she’ll have been at ABC7 for 28 years.

For years, Varon had received annual mammograms and was keenly aware of their importance. Her sister is a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed at age 31. There was no other history of breast cancer in her family. 

In 2006, one month away from her annual mammogram, Varon found a lump under her arm on the second day of a two-week dream vacation she, her husband and 9-year-old daughter, Sara Janz, had taken to Greece. 

“I was scared. I knew it couldn’t be good,” she said.

She continued her trip after consulting with her physician. Her thought was “what could happen in two weeks?”

She came home, went to work and, with her sister, saw her doctor. Events moved very quickly. At the end of that week, tests showed she had Stage 4 metastatic breast; it had spread to her lymph nodes and liver. 

“It’s something you can’t prepare for emotionally or mentally,” Varon said. “When it happens, you’re in such an emotional flux you’re not thinking straight.” 

She told her small, close-knit family. Her daughter, Sara, was too young to understand at the time, Varon said. 

Varon went into attack mode; it took away some of the fear because she now was preparing a plan, taking control of her destiny, taking control of her health, she said. 

What also may have gotten Varon into fight mode was her fear over who would raise Sara. 

“I got into fight mode because I’ll be damned if I was going to die and not be able to raise my daughter,” she said.

Varon did two rounds of chemotherapy and took three months’ short-term disability to deal with the nausea, headaches and fatigue associated with the treatment and regain her strength. A camera crew filmed a segment of her at home. Both Varon and her daughter whipped off wigs. Varon had lost her hair; Sara, of course, had not. 

“I wanted viewers to know I was okay, I was fighting this and I was in good spirits. And that I had every intention of coming back to work,” she said.

She didn’t do a third round of chemo. Medical beat reporter Sylvia Perez and Perez’ producer Christine Tressel, pestered her to get a second opinion. They asked Varon what she would do if it Sara were in the same situation. Varon went to see Melody Cobleigh, an oncologist at Rush University Medical Center and an expert in HER2+ breast cancer, a particularly aggressive form of the disease that Varon had. 

Cobleigh put her on Herceptin. After a couple of treatments, the tumors shrunk significantly; by January 2007, the tumors were gone. 

Then in 2013 a mammogram detected tiny calcifications in the same breast. They were malignant. Varon was diagnosed with DCIS, a non-invasive cancer, at Stage 0. Once again, she went on the air to inform viewers she was fighting breast cancer and that she would be back on the air soon. 

Varon had a lumpectomy and took a few days off work. After the surgical site healed, she started radiation, five days a week for seven weeks, all the while working. 

Support of her family and friends kept her going. 

“Not all breast cancer or cancer survivors have that kind of support. I am fortunate and blessed that I did and I do,” she said. 

Work also was therapeutic. It took her mind off her illness. Varon retained her positive attitude and tried to maintain as low stress level as possible in an extreme high-stress-level job with unbelievable hours: up at 2 a.m., at the station by 3, on the air at 4:30 a.m. 

Almost from the time of her initial diagnosis, Varon has talked publicly about her experience. People ask; she usually says yes. 

Most in attendance at her talks are survivors or are relatives and friends of survivors. 

“It’s nice to hear somebody else’s story to hear you’re not alone,” Varon said.

According to Varon, the scariest part of the process is the diagnosis. Once a plan is in place, they will start to feel better. She urges them to get a second, sometimes a third, opinion, and not to worry about hurting doctors’ feelings; they’re there to work for you, she said. 

Bring someone along who can be a second set of ears at the doctor’s office. Tape the appointment, as something that important has to be recorded, she said. Listen to the tape and jot down questions to ask at the next appointment.

“It’s called taking charge, being own advocate for your health. You have to be a smart consumer when it comes to your health,” Varon said. “And ask for help. Women tend to be caregivers, and it’s difficult for to let somebody take care to them when they’re sick. People want to help, let them.”

In addition to her talks, every year since 2006 Varon and colleague Judy Hsu co-host Making Strides against Breast Cancer Chicago, an awareness walk sponsored by the American Cancer Society. The walk, of which ABC7 is the media sponsor, is Oct. 22. 

Varon said she having a life threatening illness hasn’t changed who she is. But it changed her outlook and helped her rethink her priorities. She has started thinking about saving for retirement. 

“I didn’t think I was going to live so long,” she said. 

In October, 2006, she made the commitment to fulfill a longtime dream: to make bat mitzvah. She asked her daughter if the two of them could do the ceremony together. 

“I didn’t want to steal her thunder. She said that’d be cool, that if I got nervous on the bimah, you’d be there to help me,” Varon said.

Berit Engen, a fellow congregant at Oak Park Temple, worked with Varon every week for two years. On Oct. 11, 2008, she and Sara did their b’nai mitzvahs. 

“I cried through the whole ceremony,” Varon said. “To look out on the sanctuary and see family and friends and work friends – to see everybody there – supporting my decision to do this and being able to do that, it was very emotional. Rabbi [Gary] Gerson joked that I’d used up all the Kleenex, and asked if anyone had any.” 

She also traveled, an activity Varon loves. Among her journeys was her first trip to Israel.  

“I truly believe having a life-threatening illness prompted me to do all these things. Going to Israel was very special. Again, it was life-affirming. To leave a prayer at the Western Wall, that was intense,” she said. 

Varon is in remission. She continues to get yearly mammograms, a sonogram every six months to monitor the liver and Herceptin treatments every four weeks. She will never be cured. Once it’s in the system, it’s there.

“It’s just not reared its ugly head,” Varon said. “Hopefully it won’t [but] it could at any time.”

And Varon will continue to be her own best advocate.  

“I’m doing as much as I can, the rest is out of my control,” she said. “I don’t treat cancer as a life-threatening illness; it’s something I can control. We have to take care of ourselves and believe in our doctor.”