CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) -
Cardinal Francis George, who battled bladder cancer and ureter cancer six years ago, learned this week that cancerous cells have been found in his liver and kidney.
In a statement posted on the archdiocese's website, it was revealed the 75-year-old cardinal underwent a procedure on Wednesday at Loyola University Medical Center.
"Today he met with his doctors who reviewed with him test results which showed there were cancerous cells in the kidney and in a nodule, which was removed from the liver," the statement read. "His doctors will work with the Cardinal to plan a course of treatment. The Cardinal will be resting at home this weekend and will be on retreat next week."
The Sun-Times reported that the Cardinal would be going to Mundelein on a retreat on Sunday.
The Chicago-born cardinal fought bladder cancer and ureter cancer in 2006, spending 19 days at Loyola University Medical Center following surgery.
George had radical surgery to remove his cancerous bladder, prostate and part of his right ureter in July of 2006.
During his nearly three-week-long hospitalization, George suffered what his doctors described as several "setbacks." A day after his July 27 surgery, the cardinal was rushed back into the operating room to repair a nicked artery that was bleeding internally. A week later, George was moved back to an intensive-care unit, and last week doctors treated him for a mild infection.
But he left the hospital cancer free.
George had survived serious health issues long before that. When he was a 13-year-old boy on the Northwest Side, George was diagnosed with polio.
It left him with a permanent limp and requires him to wear a leg brace and special shoes.
In a 2003 speech at a suburban luncheon, he confessed that he still occasionally battles feelings of resentment because of what he calls his disability. "But a life of resentment is a crippled life," he said.
In 1950, George, who had been suffering from symptoms that doctors at first mistook for rheumatic fever and the flu, was diagnosed with polio . He spent three months in St. Francis Hospital in Evanston.
"Your body becomes a burden to you because you can't control it," George said. "It's necessary, then, to try to do two things. One is to try to overcome the effects of the spasms. That is very painful. It is a stretching, a kind of contortion in a hot water pool."
George's predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, died in November 1996 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 68.
