Widowed Mom Battling Breast Cancer Gets Strength From Family, Friends and Faith

There are some things you can never prepare yourself for. Tragedy can strike and in a moment one’s whole life can change. Mahwah High School graduate Desiree Polakowski knows first hand how true that is.

On Dec. 5, 2010 her life changed forever when her husband Mark died suddenly of a heart attack. He was only 38. Heartbroken, Desiree was now a young widow faced with raising their two young children without their daddy.

Knowing that the time they had was very special helped keep her going. The love they shared was a source of strength for her and helped her get out of bed every day and do what she needed to do. Be there for her children. “They deserve to have the best of me,” she says.

Through tremendous support of friends and family she started to pick up the pieces. Mark had been the sole provider of their household when he died. She had to focus on providing for them longterm so she enrolled in graduate school to pursue a career as a school psychologist, something she had always wanted to do. Desiree thought she was maybe starting to get a grip on life again.

Then everything changed once again. She was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer.

“I was terrified. It was the scariest day of my life,” she says while seated in her dining room next to one of her biggest supporters – her mother, Denise Check,i who lives at the house four to five days a week to help out and lend some moral support.

Looking at Desiree, one would not know she’s sick. As all her friends say she is one of the strongest people they know. They say her remarkable strength through all this is inspiring to so many.

One of her oldest friends Merisa DeMarco who she has been close with since they attended high school in Mahwah is spearheading a fundraiser for Desiree and her family on Wednesday, March 7 at the Venetian in Garfield.

“An evening of friendship and love” will bring supporters together for dinner, live music, raffles and more. Tickets cost $100 and can be obtained by emailing Dedicatedtodesiree@aol.com or mailing payment to Dedicated to Desiree, P.O. Box 83, Wyckoff, NJ 07481. Checks must be made out to The Chic Charity Club, a Heights-based organization. Tickets should be reserved by Monday, Feb. 20.

Desiree says those close to her know she is a doer and does not like to ask for help, but she’s gotten better at taking it. The more people in her corner rooting for her the better, she says. “I’m very lucky to have all my friends. The community support has been tremendous,” she says. If she were to take everyone up on their offers to babysit or drive her to chemo treatment, she says she’d be set for years.

The welfare of her two children is the most important thing in the world to her and she is determined to get through this and survive. Her faith, eating healthy, friends and support are getting her through this. “I believe God will heal me,” she says.

It was hard to not be angry upon first being diagnosed. Desiree says she had convinced herself it was nothing. But then tests showed it was indeed cancer. Doctors hoped they caught it early but further tests showed the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and they found a spot on her liver which qualified it stage four breast cancer. Since that first day of learning her diagnosis, she has found that through prayer she has found peace with it and believes she can be healed.

“I choose to focus on the positive and not the negative. It’s easy to say 'why me?' but I choose not to. I choose not to live in fear and I choose to be hopeful,” says Desiree.

“When I say ‘I’m blessed’ people look at me cross-eyed. But the truth is I am blessed,” she says proudly. “I’ve had my fair share of hardships but God has blessed me in so many ways with my family and the amount of friends I have. I have two of the most beautiful perfect kids in the world and there is not a day that goes by that I am not thankful for what God has given me.”

She doesn’t deny for one second that it’s been hard. “When it gets a little hard I think about Mark and I know he’d want me to fight. I think about my kids and I know they’ve already lost so much. They need their mom.”

After her husband died she worried for her children. She asked herself: Will they be okay? Will they be normal? Thankfully they are doing very well, she says.

They often talk about Mark, keeping his memory alive. She says the "amazing love" she and Mark shared helps her keep going. "They didn't ask for this," she says about staying strong for her children.

She also has taken advantage of a lot of resources that are great for children like Hearts and Crafts in Ramsey which provides art therapy for kids, and an organization called Good Grief in Morristown which provides group therapy for children who have lost an immediate family member.

Another factor in all this she calls a blessing is that the treatment she is receiving has very few side effects, which allows her to still do everything she can for her children, including taking them to and from school. “I feel great and I feel strong and the kids see that. I’m eating healthy, exercising and doing everything I can for the best chance of survival,” she says. She’s still going to school too.

“I believe my daughter is going to be fine, because if I didn’t, I couldn’t sit here with a smile on my face,” says Denise as she looks over at her daughter. “I get my strength through her and through prayer.”

Desiree says she gets so much support from her entire immediate family. Her father, Mark Checki, drives her mother out once or twice a week from their home near the Poconos so she can stay with Desiree and her children, who now live in Hasbrouck Heights. She also says she gets help from her sister Danielle Incognito and her younger brother Mark Checki, Jr.

She believes that her lifelong goal of pursuing a career as a school psychologist may be why she is going through all this - so she can reach out and help other families. Through that she truly believes that God will heal her and has a plan for her.

“I’ve been told there is no cure but I won’t accept that. I believe that God has the power to heal and he will heal me,” says Desiree.