By PAUL LIKOUDIS
Many thank to readers who have inquired on how my cancer treatments are going, and my general state of health.
It has been a very difficult past eight or nine months since my July surgery and the beginning of the heavy-duty chemo treatments. The chemo left me basically bed-bound, and there were complications that lasted from Thanksgiving all the way through the Christmas season, culminating in more surgery in early March.
After a period of healing, I will face the choice of continuing with chemo treatments. If I refuse the chemo treatment, I may have a few months or even a year or two of relative strength without the chemo side-effects. If I continue treatment, I can only anticipate further physical and mental weakening. Please pray for me, and please send me your intentions so that I can pray for you.
Aside from the physical pain and discomfort, it is difficult to mentally adjust to my status as a permanent invalid, unable to read or even hold a thought for more than a few moments. I do, however, find a lot of enjoyment in thinking over my life, and the wonderful associations I made with Wanderer readers all over the country over a nearly 30-year career with The Wanderer.
In my pain and suffering, I think often of Pope St. John Paul II, and the enormous pain he suffered from his abdominal wounds and all the subsequent surgeries he had as a result the assassination attempt, and I pray to him for the strength to endure what God has mapped out for me.
My bond with John Paul the Great goes back to the night the news of his election broke in October 1978, when I was a hole digger for the MaineLine Fence Company in very northern Maine. After a hard day’s work, I was in a bar having a drink with my fellow hole diggers, and the news had an effect on me that remains largely indescribable to this day. All I knew was that something truly magnificent was happening.
Within a month, I was working for the National Catholic News Service as an artist-illustrator, and thus my career in Catholic journalism began. Always, always, in all my work, I kept the late holy Pontiff in the front of my mind, covering what was, in truth, a great war on so many fronts. It’s a story that still needs to be told for a younger generation so they appreciate what their parents and grandparents did to carry on the faith amidst so many attacks.
If any readers would like to write, please do so to: Paul Likoudis, P.O. Box 236, Hector, NY, 14841. If any readers would like to contribute to a medical fund set up for me at my parish, make checks out to St. James Church and send the checks to the parish at P.O. Box 709, Trumansburg, NY 14886.
Thank you in advance for any concerns that you show.
I hope to be in touch with all of you soon.
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