Ed Keane writes, “I’m writing to ask you to pray for, Penny Craig, National President of Canada, who was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus on Monday. At this time its still unknown if the cancer has spread to other areas. This week she attended the Canadian National Meeting (AGA) at Halifax which just finished this evening.
She’ll be seeing her doctor thisTuesday to get further information.
She is asking for your prayers, so lets all say some special prayers for her, especially this Tuesday.
May God Bless her and all our Vincentians,
Ed Keane
Tags: Canada, President, SVDP
Update from Penny via Lynn L’Heureux
Hello to all
Power of prayer
I am doing ok thus far. Thanks to all of your prayers and good wishes. I will share a little about the power of prayer. Many of you have heard of my diagnosis of cancer of the esophagus and upper stomach. We also heard Lynn L’Heureux talk about her special prayer group that meets on Tuesdays. Let me share what happened on Tuesday June 12th.
I attended a meeting with my surgeon to discuss the treatment plan and upcoming surgery this summer. The newest treatment regime is to give chemo first to shrink the tumour so that the surgery will be easier to manage. This is major surgery, I worked in the operating room and know exactly what is entailed. Yuk!!! The plan was established to control the spread as best they can, then follow up with chemo to control any other cells.
This was a work day for me, so I went to my office at hospice not feeling really up about my prospects for the summer. About two hours later the surgeon called me at the office to advise me that they had just received pathology report that indicates that we are not dealing with the type of cancer cells they had thought they were. He was pleased to advise that the type of cancer I have is called Large B Cell Lymphoma. This type of cancer responds beautifully to chemo. Therefore the big surgery will not be necessary. So we devised another plan of care that will be a regime of 8 cycles of chemo only. Lynne this was about 11:40 our time….prognosis is 60% for a full recovery!!!
I will start my chemo June 27th 28 and 29. I get another in July etc. My physician at eh cancer centre is also involved with research in Lymphoma at the Karmonos Institute in Michigan in the United States. I have it all covered!!!
There will be periodic updates that I will provide to keep everyone up to speed on my progress. While I am tired most of the time, I am sleeping well, in fact I did not know one could sleep this much! The trajectory for the illness has its cross to bear, but lucky for me I have many Simon’s to assist me with the load. So you can see prayers are important…Lynn and her group, Micheal Thio and the Vincentian family around the world, my dear friends and family here closer to home…I cannot do better that all of that.
God bless each and everyone one of you for the time you are taking to help me on my journey!
“May the radiance of your charity always be a beaming light”