Cardinal Joseph Bernardin awoke from seven hours of surgery Monday “in a great deal of discomfort,” but by Tuesday he was lucid and resting more comfortably at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, an archdiocesan spokesman said.
“The doctors said he was progressing quite quickly,” said Rev. Michael Place, the cardinal’s theological adviser.
Place said the 67-year-old cardinal received communion, shaved and sat upright in a chair Tuesday in an intensive-care unit, a day after surgeons removed all or parts of several organs to find if he has pancreatic cancer.
Pathologists at Loyola could know by Wednesday whether a golf ball-sized growth removed from the prelate’s pancreas during the surgery is malignant, Place said.
It was announced Friday that Bernardin, spiritual leader of the Chicago Roman Catholic Archdiocese’s 2.3 million members, had a growth on his kidney and a bile duct obstruction doctors believed to be caused by cancer of the pancreas.
If the growth proves to be malignant and the cancer has spread to other organs, Bernardin’s chances for survival are grim-about 3 percent over five years, according to Dr. Harmon Eyre, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer.
If pathologists determine the cancer is confined to the growth, the chances for survival are brighter-about 25 percent over five years, Eyre said.
Dr. Gerard V. Aranha, the lead surgeon in Monday’s operation, said he doubts that cancer found in Bernardin’s right kidney, which was removed, is related to the pancreatic growth but won’t know for certain until pathologists thoroughly analyze tissue samples.
To make sure any cancer had not spread, the team led by Aranha performed the Whipple procedure, removing parts of the stomach, small intestine, bile duct, the gallbladder and lymph nodes nearby.
“We got over three out of four hurdles, and that’s good news,” Place said, referring to the removal of the kidney, the operation without complications and the initial determination that cancer had not spread within the cardinal’s abdominal cavity. “But we have one major hurdle to go.”
Place said Bernardin spent a restful night after the surgery and was breathing on his own. He said the cardinal was doing so well that by Tuesday morning he was sitting in a chair to ward off pneumonia.
