In his flowing, cream-colored chasuble, Msgr. Marc Trudeau ambled back and forth in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels' altar, at ease with himself and the 600-plus member congregation of the Oct. 18 "Pray for a Cure for Cancer" Mass and anointing.
The 52-year-old priest secretary to Cardinal Roger Mahony pointed out last year 1.5 million new cases were diagnosed in the United States and more than 500,000 men, women and children died from various kinds of malignancies. He reported how lung cancer headed the list with more than 200,000 new cases reported, followed by breast cancer and prostate cancer.
"Coming in about 10th to 15th was non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which had 66,000 cases," Msgr. Trudeau said, "and I am one of those cases. Statistics are rather boring until you're one of them. And we are all here because we are one of those statistics, or we have a loved one who is one of those statistics."
"So during this last year in dealing with cancer, I have been able to - and sort of been forced to - reflect on today's second reading from Hebrews: 'We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in all these things but without sin. And so we approach confidently the throne of grace to receive mercy and the grace for timely aid.'"
After a moment, he confided, "It's a very powerful reflection for me on what it is to suffer, why we suffer and how God enters into that."
Diagnosis confirmed
The amiable priest's overriding symptom, which began in early 2008, was pain - first in the lower back. Being a male, he says he decided it must be some kind of muscle strain or, at most, caused by kidney stones that both his brothers had endured. When the pain migrated to his upper abdomen one night, however, he made an appointment to see his doctor. A day later, he had another appointment with an oncologist, which led to rounds of medical consultations, exams, tests and scans.
Meanwhile, vicadin and other medications were having no effect, with the pain becoming so severe he couldn't sleep in a bed because it hurt too much to lie down. For weeks he tried to get rest sitting up in a chair at night, but eventually wound up in the hospital. After a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan and needle biopsy, the diagnosis was finally confirmed - non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of blood cancer that originates in the body's lymphatic system and can spread to lymph nodes.
"It felt like the doctor was talking at me or to somebody else," Msgr. Trudeau recalled in an interview a few days before the Oct. 18 liturgy. "Those words are, of course, a very difficult thing to hear. Well, you know it's you, but there's a certain amount of denial. What does that mean? My particular kind of cancer everyone says, 'If you have to get cancer, that's the kind to get.' Because it is extremely susceptible to treatment.
"Really, you just want them to give a diagnosis so you can figure out what to do. You can't just keep taking pain medications. So once they tell you what it is, you can move forward with it."
His doctors decided on a new, aggressive chemotherapy regimen of five drugs called R-CHOP. Instead of having chemo every three weeks, he would have it at two-week intervals for six weeks. Each session lasted from four to six hours. The whole idea was to hit the cancer cells as hard as possible so they couldn't survive and rebound.
"Pretty horrible" is how Msgr. Trudeau described the experience, shaking his head. Besides the waves of nausea, he was terribly tired. Going downstairs for dinner was a major feat. But nothing tasted good. He also wasn't able to concentrate enough to read, and even watching TV took too much energy. For some reason, he couldn't watch anything with a lot of action or violence without becoming physically ill.
"I think that's one of the really awful things about going through this," he observed. "You're so bored. You can't sleep all the time. There's nothing you feel like doing. Your brain gets so addled, even saying prayers is kind of hard.
"So in the chemo room, which is freezing cold, I always brought a quilt friends at St. Phillip's [the Apostle Church in Pasadena] made for me with little prayers and Scripture quotes on the patches. So I would just tell God to read the quilt."
After the chemo and radiation therapy, his hair fell out in clumps. Thin to begin with, he also lost 38 pounds. The side effect of therapy that "bugged" him the most was losing his nose hair, because after he couldn't stop it from dripping.
But tumors in his neck and chest were destroyed, while a large mass in his abdomen was mainly reduced to scar tissue. He jokes that it now works as a natural lap band because he can't eat a lot at any one sitting.
Today, Msgr. Trudeau says his energy has returned and he has no problem with any cancer-related pain or nausea. And he's back to his normal 170 pounds. The only lasting after-effect of the grueling toxic chemo is his feet have remained numb.
Not in control
But what about the deeper emotional, psychological and spiritual effects of the life-changing disease?
"Yeah, it changes the way you look at things at lot," reported the graduate of St. Finbar School in Burbank, whose own vocation blossomed during his final year in the School of Dentistry at the University of Southern California. "It changes the way you look at life. You think that you're in control; but the minute that they say those three words - 'you have cancer' - you're not in control of anything.
"Somebody else is calling the shots of what's going to happen to you. Every day, every moment you have absolutely no control going through chemotherapy, going through radiation. It's just one thing after another. So you realize how dependent you are. And I just became much more aware of God's grace. It's not dependent on me at all."
Msgr. Trudeau totally disagrees with people who talk about battling cancer and how some win (meaning: those folks are smarter, holier or just more courageous), while others lose the fight. He says that is "just baloney." He didn't win any battle with cancer. It was God and the prayers of others who got him this far. And if his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma comes back tomorrow, that's God's grace, too.
What's been difficult for the former pastor of St. Pius X Church in Santa Fe Springs is being in the bed and not the one standing beside it giving comfort. "Yeah, we visit the sick, we don't get sick," he said with a knowing half-grin. "When you're in the midst of all that illness, you're kind of the center of attention, which is not what I like at all. It's very, very foreign. I know most doctors say they make terrible patients, and I would say priests make terrible patients, too.
"So it was very difficult. But you come to understand a lot better what people are going through. Somebody tells you that their mother has cancer and she's going through treatment. You always would say, 'I'll pray for her.' Well, I know exactly what they're going through, and I know what kind of prayer that they need."
After a while, the survivor offered one last thought. "Cancer can do a lot of things to you," he said. "It can make us sicker than we ever thought possible. Cancer can disfigure us. Cancer can kill us --- but it does not have the final victory over us."
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