By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
Father James P. Murphy, pastor of Our Lady of the Lakes, Miami Lakes, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood, in June 2009. The hat, which reads "Father Murphy stronger than cancer" was a gift from the blood bank where he and his parishioners have contributed thousands of pints of blood over the years.
�I had felt back pain for about six months but I kept putting it off thinking it was just a pulled muscle,� said Father James Murphy, pastor of Our Lady of the Lakes Parish here.
By early June, however, when he celebrated the final Mass of the school year, the pain had become unbearable. He could not walk.
�That evening I ended up in the emergency room at Mercy (Hospital),� he recalled. �When they gave me morphine and the morphine didn�t work, I knew this was serious.�
The grim diagnosis: multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood plasma considered treatable but not curable. The tip-off was the three broken vertebrae in his spine and micro-fractures in his hip � a standard symptom of the disease.
Ironic, too: A cancer of the blood in a priest who has a reputation for asking his parishioners to donate not just money but blood. Our Lady of the Lakes hosts blood drives four times a year and has set records for the number of pints collected by the blood bank at a single location.
�I never asked the question �Why, why me?� That never crossed my mind. I keep wondering why it didn�t,� the priest told The Florida Catholic at the end of October, just before leaving for Little Rock, Ark., for a final round of treatment.
A life-saving treatment he might not have received had it not been for Lucia Dougherty, a partner in the Greenberg Traurig law firm who had been his parishioner at St. Patrick Church in Miami Beach. She found out through a friend that he was sick.
�She knew I was very fond of Father Murphy. She didn�t know I had the same disease,� Dougherty recalled. �As soon as I found out I made it my mission to find him. And I did.�
A CURE
He was spending his first weekend at Mercy Hospital when she called. She offered to fly him out to Arkansas to see the world-renown expert who had treated her, Dr. Bart Barlogie, director of the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
�I am a 10-year survivor,� Dougherty told her former pastor. �Would you want to go to an institution that does two or three myeloma patients a year or one that does 1,000 patients a year?�
Father Murphy told her he needed to think about it. Dougherty insisted. Sunday night, he got a call from Dr. Barlogie.
�We�re not speaking of treatment,� Father Murphy recalls the doctor telling him. �We�re speaking of a cure.�
Within days, the priest was in Little Rock. Dr. Barlogie and his staff first took care of his back and hip problems by injecting the broken bones with liquid cement.
Then they attacked the myeloma with chemotherapy � 36 hours straight, although Father Murphy never spent more than two hours at a time in the hospital. He took the chemo with him, administered through a port-o-catheter that had been implanted in his chest.
STEM CELLS
The chemotherapy is a standard treatment. The next step is becoming more so. At Dr. Barlogie�s institute it had been done 7,000 times as of October 2007: a transplant of the patient�s own stem cells.
From Father Murphy, they harvested 54 million stem cells in one-and-a-half hours, an astoundingly short period of time. Dougherty remembers �literally being on a machine for a week.�
The idea behind what is now known as the �Arkansas protocol� for treating multiple myeloma is to kill the cancer with chemo, remove the healthy stem cells, then kill all the rest of the bone marrow and rebuild it with the stem cells. Because they are the patient�s own, the body does not try to reject them.
The use of adult stem cells is in keeping with Catholic teaching. In fact, the Church has argued consistently that adult stem cells already are yielding cures, while embryonic stem cells have not. The Church opposes therapies with embryonic stem cells because the only way to obtain those is by killing human embryos.
�I didn�t even know it was possible to harvest your own stem cells,� Father Murphy said. �It�s very humbling when you hold up a small little bag of reddish material and say, �Gee, that�s my life right there.� Then you hook it up to yourself and it drips back in in 10 minutes.�
Even the nursing staff remains awed by the procedure, he recalled. �You can see almost the miracle of life in their eyes.�
According to Father Murphy, Dr. Barlogie�s protocol turns experimental when he brings patients back for a second round of �really heavy duty chemo�, kills the immune system again and administers a second infusion of stem cells.
Not all of the stem cells that are harvested are used. �I think I have something like 42 million in the bank� should the disease recur, Father Murphy said.
His treatment is also experimental in that the second and third rounds of chemo are done 20 minutes at a time over four days. At certain intervals, samples of his bone marrow and hip bone are extracted for study.
�They�re trying to minimize the effects on your body� while achieving the same results, Father Murphy explained.
�MONTHS OF HELL�
In all, Father Murphy has made three trips to Little Rock, the first being the longest, from early June to late August. He kept in touch with his parishioners by e-mail, with his updates read during the announcements at Sunday Masses.
He never told them the whole truth, however. �I literally went out there with the expectation of staying until Easter.�
Indeed, Dougherty had told him, �it�s nine months of hell but then you�ll be over it.�
He should finish in six. Although he does not expect his energy levels to return to normal until the end of January, by October he was able to celebrate two Masses on Sundays. He was hoping to return to his parish before Thanksgiving, when he traditionally hosts a meal for the elderly and those who would otherwise spend the holiday alone.
�I think Lucia saved my life with that telephone call,� Father Murphy said.
When he was originally diagnosed, he thought he would have to retire. Then he thought he might be able to continue as a priest but not a pastor. Now, �I�m feeling a lot more optimistic.�
Because his new immune system �is still taking root,� he refrains from distributing Communion or greeting people after Mass.
Prayer helped him get through the most trying moments of treatment although he admits it was �kind of difficult.� He remembers being able to say only the first half of the Hail Mary, not the second half. He also remembers praying the rosary to get him through multiple PET scans and MRIs.
�With each mystery I would take a virtual tour of that particular place in the Holy Land,� which he has visited a number of times.
He also found strength in the courage of children with cancer.
�I�ve dealt with so many cases and I�ve seen such incredible bravery,� he said, recalling in particular a little girl named Paulette Lebed who was battling leukemia while he was pastor at St. Patrick.
She received stem cells from the umbilical cord of her sister and is �perfectly healthy� today, Father Murphy said. �If that little girl has so much courage, how can I not?�
WELCOME HOME
Throughout his stay in Little Rock he received hundreds of cards and e-mails from current and former parishioners. His name was put on the parish sick list and became a part of the intercessory prayer at every Sunday Mass.
�I know my name was mentioned at countless Catholic churches. I know of at least three synagogues where they prayed for me,� he said.
In July, he received a card from a 12-year-old who said the only gift she wanted for her 13th birthday �was for my cancer to be in remission.�
When he made his first appearance at Sunday Masses at the end of August, after his first trip to Little Rock, parishioners stood and clapped for a very long time.
�I was really surprised at the number of people who were crying,� he said. �To be loved by so many people was quite extraordinary.�
Apparently, Dougherty�s appreciation for her former pastor is shared by others.
�He was so helpful to me in my life,� she said. �He�s one of the people that helped me in every crucial moment of my life. I figured this was my way of helping him.�
�I know I�ve touched a lot of people very deeply in my priesthood, which kind of has astounded me as well,� Father Murphy said. �I know that God has used me as an instrument to touch these people. With a whole new experience, I�m sure I�ll touch people differently.�
As for the future, �I keep wondering about the meaning of it all. I know God has something in store for me because of this. What the plan is, I don�t know yet. I�m sure he will reveal it in his own time.�
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