Bishop Kevin Kenney recalled being on an episode of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show a few months ago. At the time, he had the hiccups and wondered where that came from. Since then, he has shared the difficult but unrelated news that he has lung cancer.
“I asked the doctors, ‘Did (the hiccups) have anything to do with my cancer diagnosis?’ They just looked at me and laughed,” Bishop Kenney told “Practicing Catholic” co-hosts Leah Heselton and Father Tom Margevicius for an episode that debuts Sept. 4 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
The hiccups didn’t have anything to do with the diagnosis, but a recurring cough did, Bishop Kenney explained. In November and December of last year, he developed a cough and it “hung on through the winter months.”
“I just thought it was dry air, winter cough, whatever,” Bishop Kenney said. “In April, I decided I had had enough of this cough, so went to urgent care and had a check.”
Bishop Kenney had an X-ray that didn’t reveal anything wrong with his lungs. He was put on antibiotics that didn’t work, so he returned to the doctor for a CT scan.
“Finally in June, I did a CT scan, and that CT scan showed a spot on my lung, as well as on the fifth lymph node of my chest wall, and so from there, then everything began to spiral with all these medical appointments and trying to figure out what was going on, and it turns out that I was hoping it was a bacteria, but it’s lung cancer,” Bishop Kenney said.
As a non-smoker, Bishop Kenney doesn’t exactly know what might’ve caused the diagnosis, but suspects radon might be a contributor. While living in one rectory, the area had the worst air quality in the state of Minnesota at the time. The neighborhood was downwind from factories and industrial recycling plants.
Whatever caused the cancer, Bishop Kenney was ready to battle it and had options such as surgery or chemotherapy.
But before any treatment, Bishop Kenney made a pilgrimage that had been planned to Norway, the same country as his parish’s patron saint, St. Olaf. The pilgrimage included 72 miles of walking over the course of six days.
“So, 12 miles a day, more or less,” Bishop Kenney said. He explained that he knew he could do the pilgrimage physically but was concerned about delaying treatment. He got approval from his doctor to go on the pilgrimage and was assured delaying treatment wouldn’t make it worse. “It was a good time to just go and think about it all.”
To hear more from Bishop Kenney about his recent diagnosis and his pilgrimage to Norway, listen to this episode of “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. Sept. 5 and 2 p.m. July 6.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest episode also features Meg Forgette, associate director of educational quality and excellence in the Office for the Mission of Catholic Education, in an episode about the Archdiocesan Commission on Serving Students with Special Needs in Catholic Education.
Listen to interviews after they have aired at practicingcatholicshow.com or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
