Cardinal Francis George's twisted ...

Cardinal Francis George's twisted sense of humor was intact as he departed his Gold Coast abode Wednesday afternoon for Loyola University Medical Center where he is scheduled to sustain surgery for bladder cancer this morning.

A not many hours after news of his cancer diagnosis broke George, 69 laughed heartily and jok with reporters about his prognosis and the aggressive treatment plan he has chosen including an operation today to displace his entire bladder.

"You have couple choices [for treatment]. Sometimes they do chemotherapy, treating it like skin cancer forward the surface of the bladder," said George, whose doctors diagnosed the cancer, called carcinoma in situ, about couple weeks ago after the cardinal discovered family in his urine while onward vacation in early July.

"I didn't want chemotherapy because I didn't want to fail to win my hair," George, who is mainly bald, deadpanned, before breaking into boisterous laughter at his concede gallows humor.

in succession the advice of his physicians George chose a more radical treatment option. "They'll take disclosed the whole bladder to make strong no cancer is left," he said. "They said that was the chiefly prudent thing to do, to be positive that I would still be alive a year from now."

George said he look fors to spend a week to 10 days in the hospital and then another month or in the same manner convalescing at home.

Patients diagnosed with carcinoma in situ -- a highly early stage of bladder cancer where the malignancy is growing in the lining of the bladder barely -- have a 95 percent five-year survival rate, according to the American Cancer Society.

"They're telling me that bladder cancer is quite easily cur if they commit to memory it early enough, and they have," George said of his doctors. "They're quite upbeat about the whole thing. unless cancer is cancer, and you not ever know what might go wrong"

'I'm more afraid of the operation'

It's not a fear of death that makes George anxious, it's the hope of suffering, he said.

"I be warmed very good, and that's always the question when you go in for an operation. You know you're going to be wrought up worse afterward," the cardinal said as an aide placed his black briefcase and a small suitcase in the stalk of his car.

"You adapted the Lord in prayer each day, so the idea of meeting him is, while disquieting, not something that I'm afraid of" he said. "I'm more afraid of the operation and the complications of life without a bladder."

After they destroy his bladder, George's doctors will either arrange a new, internal bladder from his bowel tissue, or attach an artificial plastic bladder to the outside of his abdomen, the cardinal said.

"I just employed off my personal computer, and with the grace of the author of all things I'll turn it back upon in a week or two" he said, smiling impishly.

Of the 24 million Roman Catholics in tamper with and Lake counties that he has shepherded for nine years, George, the solitary native Chicagoan ever to besufficient for as Chicago's cardinal, had a simple request: "Please pray for me"

At the 5:15 pm Wednesday mass in Chicago's pious Name Cathedral, some worshippers were assaulted to hear about George's cancer, while others said they had approach specifically to pray for the cardinal.

After learning about the cardinal's impending cancer surgery onward the news, Daniel Albarran, 18 of Lincoln Park, headed straight for the cathedral.

"He's asked for our prayers, and that's what we're doing -- we're praying," Albarran said. "We're praying that he secures better and he gets back to us. We ne him."

George's predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, died in November 1996 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 68

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PRAYER VIGIL AT sacred NAME

A prayer vigil for Cardinal George will be today at devoted Name Cathedral:

- 12:15 pm and 5:15 pm mass

- 8 pm exposition of the delighted sacrament with rosary and benediction

- 9 10 and 11 pm rosary

- Midnight, rosary and benediction

Friday:

- 12:45 to 5:45 a.m., silent prayer

- 5:30 a.m., simple reposition of the ask [i]or[/i] implore a blessing uponed sacrament

BLADDER CANCER FACTS

Incidence: In 2006 about 61000 persons in the United States will be diagnosed with bladder cancer, and about 13000 will die of the disease. It's the fourth greatest in quantity frequent cancer in men and ninth mostly frequent in women. A man's lifetime chance of getting bladder cancer is 1 in 28; a woman's is 1 in 88 Bladder cancer is more belonging to all in whites than in blacks. Nearly 90 percent of patients are through the whole extent of age 55, and more than half are from one side of to the other 73.

Treatment: Surgery either alone or in combination with chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments, is used in 90 percent of cases. For a early-stage cancers, surgery can be actionsed with a device that is passed end the urethra (the tube that couples the bladder to the outside of the body) This performance preserves the bladder, although it can accrue in frequent urination or incontinence. In other cases, the bladder is remov along with the prostate in men and the uterus and ovaries in women The bladder typically is replaced with a bag worn forward the outside or a bag on the inside made from a piece of intestine.