The fearless Wendy Chioji, the former WESH-Channel 2 anchor who inspired Central Florida with her frank account of battling cancer, died Monday night. She was 57.
“My beautiful, strong, defiant, bad-ass sister, Wendy Chioji, lost her fight with cancer tonight,” Alan Chiogioji wrote late Monday on Facebook. “From climbing mountains, to participating in triathlons, to traveling the world, she lived every day to the fullest. She never let her disease stop her from doing the things that she wanted to do. She is my hero, and I miss her already.”
In 2001, on a newscast of the NBC affiliate, Chioji announced she had breast cancer — a moment that reverberates in Orlando TV history and would define her gutsy approach the rest of her life.
Chioji logged 20 years at WESH and left in 2008 to move to Park City, Utah. But she continued to be a TV presence in Orlando through specials and the “Growing Bolder” series.
“Wendy Chioji was one of a kind,” said Marc Middleton, founder of “Growing Bolder” and her former WESH colleague. “They say our legacy is simply the stories they tell about us when we’re gone. We will all be telling amazing, uplifting, inspiring, funny stories about Wendy for the rest of our lives.”
On the “Live Fearlessly” blog, Chioji wrote detailed updates on her life and health. In 2013, she revealed that she had thymic carcinoma, a cancer of the thymus gland. A year later, she announced the cancer had returned.
“She said she didn’t want to be the poster girl for cancer, but she saw how she inspired people, and she embraced the role,” said friend Andrea Batchelor, a former WESH colleague. “She was always in attack mode, and I’ve never seen anyone who’s researched cancer the way she did, looking for trials. She had a strong resolve. One thing that upset her was pity. She did not want pity from you.”
Batchelor recalled that in late December, she and Chioji went to hot yoga before Chioji had proton therapy.
Orlando attorney Mark NeJame, Chioji’s former husband, wrote that “over the last five years she lived life to the very fullest, never letting cancer, the fear of death or self-imposed limitations stop her.” He added: “She inhaled all that life offered. She lived life on her terms. Always did.”
In August 2019, Chioji said her doctor had suggested that “hospice is always a reasonable option.”
Her reaction: “I remain unafraid to die, but not now. I’m not ready. I haven’t finished fighting with all the weapons available to me, and I have too many things to do and places to go. Still, it took me a good twenty minutes to get my s— together enough to say, ‘No hospice. I’m not ready for that.’ “
In September, she shared a photo on Facebook and called it “The Day of My Return to the Chemo Room.” In the photo, she smiled broadly and said, “I think i look like a Blue Cat in the Hat.”
She set an example for Vanessa Echols of WFTV-Channel 9 and Jessica Sanchez, formerly of WKMG-Channel 6, when they announced their breast cancer diagnoses.
In 2008, Echols recalled how Chioji reached out. “Once she heard, she called me immediately, ” Echols said then. “I’ll never forget that. It speaks to what kind of person she is.”
In 2014, Chioji climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. That year, she said going public had made a difference in her battle. “The support from the Orlando community, people I knew and ones I never met, was empowering,” she said. “You get a boomerang of positives.”
Chioji also said she shared her story to maintain control of the information. “I knew people would theorize and speculate if they didn’t have information, so I gave it to them,” she said. “It dispelled fear in other women, took away some stigma, and started a cancer conversation. I’ve long maintained that knowledge is the cure for fear, and I saw that play out repeatedly.”
In her last post on Sept. 25, Chioji wrote: “I am grateful I have lived well on my borrowed time for five years this Labor Day. I am hopeful I’ll borrow five more. #defy #livefearlessly”
And that’s what she did, and that’s what her friends will always remember.
