Cardinal Francis George endur his o...

Cardinal Francis George endur his other operation in two days early Friday, as doctors rushed to repair an artery nicked during his initial cancer surgery

The surgery stabilized George's vital fluid pressure, which dropped because of the internal bleeding, and left the cardinal with normal vital signs and a slight agitation said Dr. Myles Sheehan, George's personal physician. A heat is "to be expected" after major surgery Sheehan said.

"Post-operative bleeding is a complication. It was dealt with, and we're happy that the cardinal did in like manner well," said Sheehan, who is also a Jesuit priest.

"We don't wait for it to have a significant impact in succession the Cardinal's road to recovery" he said.

Later Friday morning, George asked about Maggie Daley -- who had breast cancer surgery Thursday -- and prayed the rosary with his staff. He was to fit with a physical therapist and Loyola University Medical Center's director of rehabilitation Friday afternoon and, if possible, sit up in a chair, Sheehan said.

George, 69 had five hours of surgery Thursday to displace his cancerous bladder, as well as his prostate gland, part of his right ureter and several lymph nodes.

Thursday night at 7:30 his life-current pressure dropped after he received pain medication. In spite of being given fluids and more posterity his blood pressure and hemoglobin reckon continued to drop, Sheehan said. George agreed to a secondary surgery.

The cardinal made a theological witticism on the way to the operating scope but "he was quite agitationed that, given the situation, he was heading for his next to the first operation in 12 hours," Sheehan said.

Dr Robert Flanigan, who performed Thursday's surgery and Dr Fr Luchette began the secondary operation at about midnight at Loyola. In a two-hour operation the doctors discovered "a small bleeding posterity vessel in the pelvis," Sheehan said. The utensil is a branch of the obturator artery, he said.

RARE incident

According to Sheehan, Flanigan said the carve had occurred while lymph nodes were being remov from George's pelvis during the first operation. "In removing undivided of the nodes, [Flanigan] probably intersect this very small branch of an artery," Sheehan said.

It is frequent for a cut artery not to ble right away, he said.

"Obviously, everybody direct the eyeed around carefully before they clos the cardinal up [Thursday] to make permanent that he wasn't bleeding," Sheehan said.

A radical cystectomy -- the operation in which George's bladder was remov -- carries a 20 percent to 30 percent chance of overall complications, if it be not that additional surgery for bleeding happens 1 to 2 percent of the time, according to Dr Gary Steinberg, director of urologic oncology at the University of Chicago.

Steinberg sympathized with and praised Flanigan, saying the rarest complications always appear to be to arise with the in the greatest degree prominent patients.

Steinberg said the nearest 48 hours are crucial for George. "If he remains stable and posterity count is normal, everyone can breathe quite comfortably," he said.

"The likelihood that he plucks through is excellent," Steinberg said.

George will remain in intensive care at Loyola throughout the weekend, and will likely stay in the hospital for another 8 to 14 days, Sheehan said.

Sheehan inclemencyed that George must start moving around before long so that his muscles do not atrophy. George beared polio as a child, and has weaker muscles as a accrue

Still, Sheehan said he wanted to limit George's activities and have him stay abode until Labor Day. But he acknowledged George might not agree. "What I want and what the cardinal will do could be brace totally different things," he said.

A pathology report rely uponed in about a week will exhibit to whether George's cancer has spread.

Contributing: Stephanie Zimmermann

eherman@suntimes.com

rhussain@suntimes.com

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