Cardinal goes home from hospital 8/20/06

Cardinal goes home from hospital

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

Cardinal George left Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood Aug. 15, more than two weeks after undergoing surgery for bladder cancer.

The cardinal is expected to recuperate at home until Labor Day, when he will resume a limited schedule. He expects to take on more duties by Oct. 1, including a planned trip to Rome in mid-October, aides said.

The cardinal, dressed in a black clerical suit and using crutches, appeared at the door of the Stritch School of Medicine at the hospital shortly before 11 a.m. He was flanked by archdiocesan aides. He stopped to speak briefly to reporters gathered there.

“I’m extremely grateful to those who have remembered me in their prayers before the Lord,” said the 69-year-old cardinal. “In bringing me before the Lord, they had to bring themselves before the Lord and I hope that deepened their relationships.”

Colleen Dolan, director of archdiocesan communications, said the cardinal received prayers from people in at least 85 countries.

Encouraging those prayers was one reason the cardinal decided to allow his medical team to be so open about his condition, from when he entered the hospital, through complications, to his release.

Cardinal George’s personal physician, Jesuit Father Myles Sheehan, also said that to keep the cardinal’s condition private would raise suspicions that matters were worse than they were.

“He wanted to carry on and be mobile when he left,” Sheehan said, but added that the cardinal was glad to be going home.

“Maybe he’ll wear one of the ‘Free Francis’ T-shirts he had printed up,” Sheehan quipped.

But he reminded reporters that, much like in the “Wizard of Oz,” the cardinal is not out of the woods yet. The 5-year survival rate with bladder cancer at the stage it was in the cardinal is 70-80 percent.

“Just as all our fates are in the hands of God, so is Cardinal George’s,” Sheehan said.