Faith helps California Catholic rebuild life after disfiguring cancer

DANVILLE, Calif. (CNS) - Ask Terry Healey what his life was like before cancer and he will sum it up with three words: "pretty easy going."

He was an athlete, a homecoming prince and a good student. Then during his junior year at the University of California Berkeley, doctors discovered that he had a rare form of skin cancer that was attacking his face. Suddenly he was confronting his mortality and facial disfigurement that called his very identity into question. "It was difficult given that appearance matters so much at that age," he said. Now 42, Healey, a member at St. Isidore Parish in Danville, uses his experiences with cancer to help others meet the challenges they encounter in life and explains that his Catholic faith helped him rediscover his identity from "the inside out." He wrote a memoir, "At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer," which was released by Caveat Press/White Cloud Books last year, and he travels the country as a motivational speaker. The cancer was successfully removed in his initial surgery in 1984, but tests the following year revealed that it had recurred, was growing incredibly fast and threatened his life. Healey underwent more extensive surgery to stop the cancer and emerged from the procedure with a disfigured face. Surgeons removed half of his nose, the shelf (bones and tissues) of his right eye, part of his upper lip, part of his hard palate and six teeth. When he woke up after the operation, Healey discovered that his face was attached to his chest because the doctors needed that tissue to temporarily fill in the gap in his face. Over the next half dozen years, Healey underwent about 30 additional surgical procedures, some minor and some major. While the cancer treatment itself was contained to about two years, he continued his quest to "rebuild" his face. "I could have kept going - there was no end in sight," Healey said of the various surgeries. "I had to decide who I was." But the path he was taking - from one surgeon to another to "fix" his face -- became counterproductive. "Some of the procedures didn't improve things and they actually made things worse. There was a lot of risk in what I was doing," he said in an interview with The Catholic Voice, newspaper of the Oakland Diocese. So Healey began to consider a different kind of makeover. "My problems were really more about the insecurity that had developed inside as a result of the surgery," he said. "So I needed to rebuild from the inside out instead of the outside in." Healey found much of the foundation for his personal "rebuilding" in his Catholic faith. Born in Seattle, he spent part of his youth at St. Anne Parish in Walnut Creek in the Oakland Diocese. While in college, he attended Holy Spirit Parish/Newman Hall and found a lot of support from the parish after his cancer diagnosis. Healey remembers the night before his surgery for the cancer that had come back. Paulist Father George Fitzgerald, Holy Spirit's pastor, came to his family home and "did a blessing for me. That was kind of an intense thing. It really felt like I was being blessed from above ... it was something I will never forget." Healey also had the support and love of his family and friends, whom he called "very positive-minded" people. Over time he came to realize that real beauty originates from within and that "it's also how we perceive ourselves that really speaks to who we are." In 1991, although still insecure about the way he looked, Healey stopped having surgery. By leaning on his faith he slowly realized his own transformation and he learned to see himself and life in a new way. He learned to be more forgiving, more tolerant and more appreciative of his life. "To me, those are great gifts that I got." Eventually after much reflection he felt called to share his story as an author. The book then led to an unanticipated role for Healey: motivational speaker. As a result of the disfiguring surgeries he could not see himself getting up in front of a crowd and speaking in public. "That is the last thing I wanted to do," he said. But as he became more content with himself Healey saw it as a new challenge, one that he did not want to initially deal with but had to. Today Healey has found peace and satisfaction talking to health care organizations, medical associations, corporations and schools about his physical and spiritual journey. "As I said before, my life was on easy street. I was just kind of cruising through life. But now I feel like it has a lot more meaning and purpose," he said.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops