A Doctor’s Journey With Cancer

In just a week, it seems, Dr. Juan Villagomez has seen his entire life pass through this hospital room.

His family, his colleagues, his friends, the monsignor from his parish--even the archbishop of Los Angeles--have come to pay their respects. Hungry for air under his oxygen mask, he cannot always banter in the old way; he cannot always remember how long they stayed. Sometimes, he perks up and teases back--and the whole room laughs.

But when visitors rise to leave, he tears up, hiding his face in a towel. He does not know how much life there is left in his body. Villagomez is a 41-year-old physician whose illness--a rapidly moving stomach cancer--has defied healing. His “journey,” as he likes to call his three-year experience as a patient, has forced him to face the limits of science and the challenge of faith.

His struggle, documented earlier this year in a Times article, has touched people well beyond his immediate community of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Early this week, the pope conferred on him one of the highest medals a layperson can achieve, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, for his life service to humanity.

“I was stunned,” Villagomez said, speaking with difficulty through his mask. “Stunned and speechless.”

The award, which translates as “For the Church and the Pontiff,” is given to a handful of parishioners in the archdiocese every few years, said Monsignor Lloyd Torgerson, who handed the medal and a certificate to Villagomez on Sunday.

The medal, bearing the likenesses of Peter and Paul, has its origins in the 19th century, when Pope Leo XIII bestowed it on those who helped to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination. Although this round of awards was intended to be distributed around the new millennium, the pope granted Villagomez his medal early, in view of his failing health.

“When I first called and told him he was going to receive it, he wept on the phone,” said Torgerson, who recommended Villagomez to Cardinal Roger Mahony for the medal. “He accepted it with humility and great gratitude.”

Torgerson, who is Villagomez’s pastor, former patient and close friend, says that the family practitioner was honored for being “a wonderful husband and father, a disciple of Christ, a physician and a healer--an inspiration within the Catholic and broader community. He’s just a great living witness to God’s grace and hope in this world.”

Mahony has twice dropped in on Villagomez, giving him a book of prayers and a black-beaded rosary blessed by the pope.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Villagomez said of the rosary, which he wears around his neck, over his hospital gown. “I was very impressed by his presence. I kissed his ring.”

Villagomez closes his eyes. Just when it seems he has dropped off to sleep, he whispers, “He prayed with me. He gave me a blessed prayer.”

The doctor’s visitors do not want to exhaust him, but they do not want to stay away either. Although a sign outside his door at St. John’s Health Center implores visitors to check in at the nurse’s station, many do not bother, certain that Villagomez wants them there.

“Juan loves people,” said Rita Esquivel, a friend of the family whom Villagomez and his wife, Alicia, affectionately call comadre. Here at the hospital, she said, “you have a chance to see how he has affected everybody.”

Esquivel, who became close to Villagomez when he helped her through a struggle with breast cancer, pops in often and teases him relentlessly until he rewards her with a grin.

She believes he is disappointed that the miracle cure he has been hoping for, the subject of daily prayers to the Virgin Mary, has not materialized. Still, his faith is strong.

Esquivel said sadly: “God is testing my faith.”

Villagomez is forcing himself to be practical, taking calls from his lawyer to talk about trusts, telling Esquivel what he wants her to do for his children. He has talked to her about “after [he’s] gone.”

“I don’t know where he gets the strength to say those things,” Esquivel said.

Every night, Villagomez writes long letters to his two children for them to read when they are older. Bobby, 6, just entered kindergarten, and Gabby, 4, is in preschool. Every day after school, Villagomez’s wife brings the two of them to the hospital, where they sit beside their father and try not to squirm too much. Bobby enjoys running his toys through Villagomez’s hair.

In the background, the doctor’s mother and father--both immigrants from Mexico who taught him the value of hard work years ago during Northern California harvests--stand by, ready to get him some juice or even a quick, clandestine sip of cold beer when he asks for it. They, and Alicia, look as though they have not slept in days.

Yet there is pride in their faces as well--at all the people streaming in, at the importance so many visitors attach to Villagomez’s life. Whenever the pope’s gift is mentioned, Villagomez’s father’s weathered face cracks into a big smile.

“Esta bien, hijo,” he says tenderly to his son.