Episcopal Press and News
CALIFORNIA: Bishop Andrus to undergo surgery for prostate cancer
Episcopal News Service. September 16, 2009 [091609-04]
ENS Staff
Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the San Francisco-based Episcopal Diocese of California has announced he will undergo surgery for prostate cancer on September 28.
Andrus, 52, said he wrote about his biopsy and "low grade" diagnosis in his weekly blog, "both to try and be helpful to those for whom a little information might be comforting, and to provide my own small understanding of what this all means."
Andrus' reflection, "One Bread, One Body" described "the common pressures of our world, the shared adversity of a time and moment, having the shaping power of kneading, if we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit in our passage through the difficulty, or, indeed, if we ask the Holy Spirit to illumine our memories of that which we've experienced."
He noted that while his relatively young age, early diagnosis, excellent medical team and strong family and professional support constitute all the ingredients for a successful outcome, "still, cancer frightens me.
"Cancer killed both my father and his brother," he blogged. "I've had in my mind since I was a young adult that I wanted to live long enough that my daughters wouldn't lose their father as early in life as I did, and I didn't want to put (his wife) Sheila through grief and loss."
He described an outpouring of notes, calls and prayers from well-wishers, as all part of "the expanding circle of prayer that has been coming my way from that moment – all of this is my daily bread."
Andrus was invested as eighth bishop of the Diocese of California on July 22, 2006. Prior to his election as Bishop of California, Andrus had served as bishop suffragan in the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama since 2002.
A native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, he was a regional planner for Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission on Virginia's Delmarva Peninsula prior to seeking ordained ministry. After his ordination he served congregations in Pennsylvania and Virginia and as chaplain at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia.
Andrus is married to Sheila Andrus, Ph.D., former director of the Sparkman Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's School of Public Health. They have two daughters, Chloe and Pilar.