Charlie Desantia has always been most comfortable behind a microphone, but this year the local radio personality found herself way outside of her comfort zone.
Best known as one half of the Kool Mornings with Dale and Charlie, she recently stripped away all of her usual persona — both literally and figuratively — to help support Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka’s Raw & Reflective 2025 fundraising calendar.
The local charitable organization is an affiliate of the Cancer Support Community, and has long been dedicated to providing support, education and hope to all people impacted by cancer.
The calendar, one of the organization’s largest fundraisers, was launched six years ago by Sharon Smith and features photos and personal stories of local cancer survivors.
Charlie told BarrieToday she has supported the charitable initiative for many years through her role as a public figure for the Barrie-based radio station, KOOL FM, but never really thought she’d find herself as one of the models, sharing her own cancer story.
Then, in May 2023, she found a lump in her breast while she was in the shower.
After having a biopsy done, she got a call from her doctor while she was in Ottawa with her son, and was told the bad news.
“I wasn’t devastated. I wasn’t really anything … I was more annoyed. As a mother, I was like, I don’t have time for this! I don’t have time to do whatever this is going to require,” she shared.
Two days after returning from Ottawa, Charlie found herself at the Barrie hospital and underwent genetic testing. Two weeks later, she learned she’d tested positive for the BRCA gene (BReast CAncer gene) — which, according to the Canadian Cancer Society, is a tumour suppressor gene and women with this gene mutations have a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancers.
Waiting for that result was the worst, Charlie said, adding she knew what the outcome was going to be if it was positive — and resulted in her undergoing a double mastectomy in October 2023 and a hysterectomy in January 2024.
“Having to now explain to the family that it was a little worse than we’d initially thought ... it was more how was this going to affect everybody else,” she admitted. “Fortunately, it just required surgeries and it could have been worse.”
Charlie admits her natural reaction to any not so positive situation is simply to find a way to make a joke, and this was no different.
“I tried to laugh … and I tried to joke through the whole thing because if I didn’t ... it could have gone worse for me mentally. I chose what I am good at, which is to make inappropriate jokes and self-deprecation.
"That’s the best way I have always approached life.”
The day she told her colleagues at the station, she semi-jokingly said she would find herself in the following year’s calendar.
“Literally, when I made the announcement on air, Sharon was already texting me,” Charlie said.
Although she’d been supporting the calendar for years, Charlie admitted she didn’t realize exactly what she was getting herself into. But she’s proud of how her month — she represents February — turned out.
“I knew Raw and Reflective and what they always did was … everybody was naked. You don’t really appreciate how difficult that is until you’re in that position, because it’s not like just taking a regular photo. You are very, very vulnerable and very aware … in my case that I was topless,” said the Innisfil resident.
During her shoot with photographer AnnaLena Seeman, Charlie said they did take several photos of her breast with no nipple. However, ultimately she decided to use a photo that showed her behind her mic at the radio station — where people knew her best.
“There were a lot of jokes flying around about me being naked in the radio station,” she said.
Charlie said deciding to be one of the 13 models in the calendar wasn’t a hard choice to make for her, but it didn’t come without a little bit of stress.
“I consider myself very awkward in taking photos … that whole face-for-radio thing, that is one of the reasons I was in radio. I just think I am awkward … I don’t think I could feel more awkward than I did in that moment taking those pictures,” she said. “I was happy to do it, but it was just an experience.
"I tried to take a boudoir photo once, but it didn’t work out!”
With the funds expected from the 2025 calendar, the initiative is hoping to raise its total contribution to more than $160,000, said volunteer and cancer survivor Patricia Dent.
“The calendar has helped to convey the different experiences of ordinary people who have contracted this disease, through their stories each year," she said. "Those reading the calendar have a better understanding of the models’ experiences and encourage others with this diagnosis to reach out to Gilda’s.
"Their stories help start conversations,” Dent added.
The incidence of cancer is growing, she said, pointing to recent figures that show that 43 per cent of men and 47 per cent of women will experience cancer in their lifetime.
“While advances in care are being made, this is a difficult disease to navigate – and not everyone survives it," Dent said. "We have been inspired by the courage and tenacity of those who have experienced cancer and yet battled through. Seven of our models have lost that battle, including our first editor and poet, Stacey LePage, who helped bring our models’ stories to life in past issues.”
Charlie says Gilda’s Club is an “incredible” organization that not only helps cancer patients or those recovering, but also their loved ones.
“There is no government funding for Gilda’s and we have one of the few locations," she said. "Anything that I can do to help promote it, and if that requires me being topless in the radio station, well I am going to do it!”
Having cancer, she admitted, is an experience that is nearly impossible to describe to anyone who has not been through it themselves, which is why having access to places like Gilda’s Club is so important.
“It gives you that opportunity to be with people kind of like you,” Charlie said.
While she says she’s far from “happy” about what she’s been through, what she's happy about is how her own cancer journey has helped open up a conversation about the devastating disease.
“So many women have come to me and thanked me for being so vulnerable, and many have actually gone (and gotten tested)," she said. "If I hadn’t had this, then maybe there would be other women that didn’t catch theirs and maybe it would have been too late for them.
“My mother always says everything happens for a reason, so for whatever reason this was supposed to happen. Whatever follows, I will just go with it.”
Calendars are available for purchase online as well as available in person for $25 at Connect Hair Studio and Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka.
