Way to go, Fitz!

From John Mullane's column in the BCCT.

Mike Fitzpatrick has always been a class act and his service to Bucks County is well documented. If ever there was someone who deserved a break, this is the guy.

A second chance

By JOHN MULLANE
Bucks County Courier Times

Mike Fitzpatrick was told he had colon cancer in June. It was stage three cancer, which means it had spread to his lymph nodes.

The former Bucks County congressman found himself facing his own mortality.

“You want to know how is it to be told you have cancer?” he asked, exiting a hospital elevator earlier this week on his way to a morning session of chemotherapy.

He is 45 and has a wife and six children.

“I ignored the symptoms from about, let's see, January,” he said, entering the treatment suite. He removed his suit coat and draped it over a chair.

Last May, he said, at his wife's insistence, he went for exams and tests. In early June, he was told about the cancer.

“The first hour was, well, basically disbelief. Then there was another hour of self-pity. After that it was like, OK, I have six kids. What do I have to do to beat this?”

Fitzpatrick settled into the chair. He unbuttoned his shirt. Blood was drawn. A thin plastic tube curled from an IV bag filled with clear liquid and was anchored to a port in his chest.

The two-hour chemo drip began. He is a veteran of this procedure, and he chatted amiably through it.

Because of his relative youth, his doctors recommended an aggressive treatment program of radiation and chemo to shrink the colon tumor. Afterward, whatever was left would be cut out — a major surgery that would leave him down and out for five to six weeks.

But in mid October, he got good news. His doctor, examining his CT scans, said the tumor appeared to have vanished.

“Melted away,” Fitzpatrick said.

The surgery was canceled.

“I left that doctor's office and I felt free,” he said.

Could the cancer return? Yes.

“I'm not counting on it, though,” he said.

A nurse checked the IV bag.

“The steroid they give me will keep me awake all night. That's OK. I'll be in court tomorrow. I can do paperwork overnight,” he said.

Since losing his congressional seat in 2006, Fitzpatrick has returned home to Levittown and is practicing law. He is legal counsel to the Morrisville School District. He drafts wills as a sideline.

His oldest child is in college. His youngest is 8. He told the older ones about the cancer, but the little ones he only gave bare details.

“Dad's got to take some medicine to get better, is what I told them. No need to burden them,” he said.

Ultimately, cancer is a lonely battle, he said. There is fear. There are nights when he is up alone worrying, questioning.

“You think about whether you have succeeded in fulfilling your talents, your dreams, and you refocus on what is really important,” he said.

“You know — there was this calming effect on me, too. I haven't set an alarm clock since June 3. Until then, my life was measured in six-minute intervals, for [attorney] billing purposes. As a public servant, I was always thinking how many events can I cram into one day? I realized I wasn't spending enough time with my kids.

“I told my wife, I'm not setting my alarm for 5:30 anymore. Let the birds wake me. For me, it took a crisis to make me realize what I should have been doing all along. I feel like, you know, I've been given a second chance.”

The treatment was complete. The chemo tube was removed.

“You want to get coffee?” he asked.

Downstairs, he took a seat in the hospital cafeteria next to large windows, which overlook an outdoor courtyard called the Healing Garden.

He talked about the cigars he can no longer smoke, and the doctors who saved his life.

He reminisced about his days as a county commissioner.

He talked about taking more time to help one of his sons with reading, and how he insists on driving his children to school each morning. It's not a hassle in his day, but a highlight.

He talked about Thanksgiving with family and how this Christmas will be, for him, “one like no other.”

He sipped his coffee and looked into the courtyard, filled with late morning sunshine.

“Looks like a good day,” he said.