Church member Woody Woodward prays for Carlin Dempsey during a round-the-clock vigil.

Kings Highway Baptist Church congregation members lay hands on their pastor, the Rev. W. Carlin Dempsey, on the September night before he went to Baltimore to undergo surgery and chemotherapy for advanced colon cancer.

Carlin Dempsey surprised many by returning to Kings Highway Baptist and delivering a sermon in early October after a 31-day absence. He was exhausted but glad to be back with his congregation.

Before his sermon, Dempsey gets support from the Revs. Wayne Carney, Matt Thompson and Willis Dempsey, his father.

'Touchdown,' Carlin Dempsey says after easing himself into bed in September at Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, Md., where he recovered from an aggressive treatment for colon cancer.

Linda Dempsey clears her husband's lunch tray while he tries to rest at the Baltimore Washington Medical Center in September.

Dempsey relishes getting back to the pulpit at Kings Highway Baptist Church in southern Stafford County. He resumed his pastoral duties this fall after advanced therapy.

The Rev. Carlin Dempsey has learned the truth of the adage "Once a cancer patient, always a cancer patient."

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Date published: 12/16/2007

BY JIM HALL

The Rev. Carlin Dempsey had been away from his church for a month, in Baltimore for more cancer treatment.

When he walked to the pulpit at Kings Highway Baptist Church on a Sunday in October, church members stood and applauded.

"All the cards, the notes, the gifts, the financial gifts, the phone calls, the food," he said. "You've just been so wonderful."

Dempsey's brown suit hung looser than it did before his operation. His color revealed the strain of surgery, and his voice betrayed him twice during his sermon.

But none of the surgeries or chemotherapy treatments seemed to matter when he was in the pulpit.

"Bring every thought into captivity," he told the Stafford County congregation. For as a man "thinketh in his heart," so he is.

Dempsey, 58, preached from 2 Corinthians and Proverbs, advising a spiritual single-mindedness.

But the lesson also described his approach to cancer. He's tried to bring his thoughts into captivity after being diagnosed with colon cancer in January 2005, to live normally in the face of so much change.

One of his nurses helped define the challenge. Soon after diagnosis, she was hooking him to a bag of medicine and saw that he was depressed.

"Look at me," she said.

Dempsey raised his head and looked her in the eyes.

"You are not dying with cancer," she told him. "You are living with cancer."

The words were familiar, even cliche, but they burned into him. Dempsey began to do exactly as she said.

He acknowledged the disease but refused to let it dominate his life.

Cancer became the boorish uncle who had unexpectedly showed up for dinner. Dempsey set a place for the man but was determined not to let him ruin the meal.

A chronic disease

Last year, nearly 1,270 people in the Fredericksburg area were diagnosed with cancer, according to Mary Washington Hospital figures. Nationwide, more than 1.4 million people will get cancer diagnoses this year, according to the American Cancer Society.

These patients undergo surgery, radiation and chemical treatments. And many, like Dempsey, think they are cancer-free. Then the disease returns.

In the nearly three years since diagnosis, Dempsey has twice been told he was cancer-free. The first time cancer returned after four months. The second time it returned after six months.

BORN: April 1, 1949, at Mary Washington Hospital. YOUTH: Grew up in Stafford, then moved to King George County. Graduated from King George High School in 1968. MINISTRY: Graduated from Washington Bible College in 1972. Served at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, then moved to a church in Anchorage, Alaska. Returned to Stafford in 1990 and joined Kings Highway Baptist Church, which is now on Cool Springs Road. FAMILY: Married the former Linda Dishman in 1971. She works in the Mary Washington Hospital emergency room. Has two sons and two grandchildren. Lives in Stafford. INTERESTS: Loves NASCAR racing and the Redskins. Coached J.D. Gibbs, Joe Gibbs' son, when the younger Gibbs was in high school in Northern Virginia. Has remained friends with Joe Gibbs, who phoned Dempsey to pray with him before the Baltimore surgery. W. Carlin Dempsey's latest cancer treatment took place in September in Baltimore at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Dr. Samuel C. Bieligk performed a procedure that was both surgery and chemotherapy, called hyperthermic interperitoneal chemotherapy, or HIPEC. The advanced procedure is done on patients with recurrent abdominal cancer. HIPEC involves surgery to remove cancer from the peritoneum, or lining that surrounds the abdominal cavity. The abdominal organs are then bathed for about 90 minutes in heated chemicals. Dempsey's operation took about 11 hours. He stayed at the hospital for about two weeks and then returned home to recover. He was back in the pulpit at Kings Highway about a month after the procedure. Bieligk said that Dempsey tolerated the procedure well. "Preliminarily, it looks like there was a low volume of disease in his abdomen," he said. "He has a very good prognosis based on that." Dr. Rod L. Flynn, a surgical oncologist at Mary Washington Hospital, worked with Bieligk in Baltimore before moving to Fredericksburg. Flynn said he would like to bring the HIPEC procedure to Fredericksburg. "It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when," Flynn said. Of the HIPEC operation, Dempsey said, "That kicked the rug from me. I've never gone through anything like that." He said he feels better now and is working regularly.

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Date published: 12/16/2007

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