During the visit to New York for treatment of mesothelioma cancer, Julie Gundlach would often spit on the steps of WR grace skyscrapers. The act was a representation of how Julie felt and still feels, on the asbestos companies such as WR Grace that have chosen to use asbestos and knowingly poisoned workers and their families.
Julie was diagnosed with mesothelioma August 23, 06. Ten years later, Julie feels still shell shocked.
"I still feel like a big part of my life was stolen from me," she said. "07 might as well not exist for me. My memories are just scrambles back and forth to New York."
His daughter, Madeline, turned four this year. Julie has missed many moments with Madeline due time fog of chemotherapy and recovery. Side effects of the treatment plan were worse than the first symptoms of the disease.
Before his diagnosis, the symptoms were Julie digestive problems. It was not in his nature to go to the doctor unless something was seriously wrong, so when she went finally, the doctor ordered a CT scan. The results showed a mass in its pelvic region.
Always realistic, she asked the doctor: "It is ovarian cancer, not"
He would not say for sure, but his tone serious enough said?. in one week, she was wheeled into surgery. Then the doctor told him he does not have ovarian cancer.
There was worse.
" what can be worse than the silent killer? "she asked.
mesothelioma.
Among the cancers, mesothelioma has one of the highest mortality rates. prognosis average is 6 to 18 months. There is no cure and it is known that the cause is exposure to asbestos.
Julie was exposed to asbestos while growing up. mesothelioma has a latency period, so that decades may pass the time of exposure until symptoms appear.
"I'm a kid in the 1970s asbestos was everywhere ", she says.
Julie's father, Greg, worked as a commercial electrician for IBEW Local 1 in St. Louis for 40 years. He came home covered in dust work in commercial facilities and power plants, installation of electrical systems. Every night his dirty work clothes would go to the laundry room which also doubled as a dining Julie games.
In 04, Greg Gundlach was diagnosed with lung cancer linked to asbestos. He died in 05. The following year, Julie was diagnosed.
The companies knew the dangers of asbestos since the early 1930s, but decided against warning workers. Executives wrapped behind identity protection of a company too big to fail have done a cost-benefit analysis and the American workers and their families lost. Companies have chosen to use asbestos; at the mine, produce, manufacture, sell it and keep silent.
"If you have had a good life while working with asbestos products why not die?" Wrote an officer of Bendix, now Honeywell, in a 1966 memo his insurance company.
for companies that used asbestos, Julie and the thousands of others whose lives have been devastated by mesothelioma are nothing more than a number.
"I have made many friends in the meso community and I am sometimes surprised when I look into my Facebook friends list and account how many people are still there, but they are dead", they say it.
for the asbestos industry, it is more profitable to sell asbestos and build offices in the skyscrapers of New York as protect their employees and consumers. it is an industry that Julie might as well have been built with "flesh."
#JoinJulie in Alton Miles for Meso the race. Amplify the voices and others. Help her fight for awareness of the dangers of asbestos and coverage of incumbents of these dangers. All proceeds from the race will benefit Alton Awareness Organization Asbestos Illness and its mission to achieve a total ban on US asbestos.
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