Father Dan not giving up
St. Susanna helps pastor fight Lou Gehrig's disease
BY SHEILA MCLAUGHLIN | SMCLAUGHLIN@ENQUIRER.COM



MASON - His quick gait has slowed. A hefty physique that hovered around 280 pounds and once pushed a sweatshirt to its limits has withered by about 100 pounds.

The strong voice that filled St. Susanna Church at daily Mass and on Sundays with sermons and prayers has softened a bit. And sometimes the words start to slur.

Little by little, just three months after he was diagnosed, ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - has started to take from the Rev. Dan Schuh.


People have told him what they would do if they were in his shoes: deliver a letter of resignation to the archbishop on the spot.

Not Father Dan.

He goes back to what he told his two grown children on April 30 when they stood crying outside the neurologist's office, the day they learned their father had ALS.

"I'm not quite dead yet," he said, interjecting some levity with a line from the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." "Every time somebody gets too serious about it, that's the line that comes out."

The 56-year-old Fort Thomas native - a widowed grandfather of six who went from being a Kroger manager in Dayton, Ohio, to a Roman Catholic priest four years ago - has told the archbishop he's not going anywhere for now.

There's too much to be done at St. Susanna, and he wants to stay on as long as he can.

He landed there as assistant pastor after he was ordained in May 2003.

Now he heads the Mason church, which, with 3,200 families, is among the five largest in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's 19 counties.

The diagnosis came in April. But the symptoms of ALS - a usually progressive muscle-robbing condition that's often called Lou Gehrig's disease - started to appear in November.

Father Dan noticed his arms - the same ones that at 54 could still swing a decent bat in the over-35 softball league - had become weaker. His legs felt heavy. He fell down on a walk. He remembers "plain as day" the Sunday Mass in January when he dropped a consecrated Host and could barely stand back up after he stooped to retrieve it from the floor.

He started using a stool at Mass because he became tired. He finds some meaning in having to keep his hands planted on the altar now, instead of raising them during Mass - a traditional gesture when priests offer prayers on behalf of their congregation.

"The altar is a sign of Christ. And there I am, leaning on Christ," Father Dan said.

Still, Father Dan can't help but wonder if he has let his parish down. A congregation counts on its pastor to be the mouthpiece when it comes time to drum up money for building projects. St. Susanna is in the middle of a drive to raise $7 million to add a small chapel and finish the undercroft of the new church, add eight classrooms to the school, build a second gym and make other improvements to parish buildings.

Only half of the money has been raised. "It's a frustration. I just have this sense, had I been more on my game, I could have helped them so much more. There is a sense of being unfinished. It kind of weighs heavy," Father Dan said.

But the congregation has rallied around Father Dan, trying to make life easier.

Jeannine Frank, the parish office manager, goes to every doctor's appointment, serving as Father Dan's "second set of ears." She fields all the offers of help. Parishioners have donated a chair lift, wheelchair, walker and cane and promised a hospital bed if it's needed.

A group of parishioners paid for Father Dan, his son Joe, daughter Becky Nevels and their families to go on vacation to Top Sail Island, N.C., last month. The trip was bittersweet. Everybody wondered if it was the last time he would be well enough to do something like that, Father Dan said.

Eldon Walker and the men in the church's Christ Renews His Parish program surprised Father Dan with a used golf cart in May to help him get back and forth from the sprawling church on U.S. 42 to the parish office and hall about two blocks away at Fourth Avenue.

Donations came in so quickly to pay for the $2,350 golf cart that Walker and the others stopped collecting money after a day and a half. The once-white cart, repainted fire-engine red, has been dubbed the Father Danmobile. It will come in handy at the church's festival Sept. 7 and 8.

Walker and his group kept the golf cart a secret from Father Dan until it was finished because they knew he wouldn't approve of the gift.

"We could have talked to him about it for weeks on end, and he would never agree to do it because that's not who and what he is about. He's about other people, not himself," Walker said.

That trait became even more apparent on June 20, when the congregation held a Healing Mass on Father Dan's behalf. Father Dan rose from his trusty stool and began anointing others who wanted a special blessing.

"He's got so many people praying for him," said parishioner Lynn Olmsted. "You think, if just this one time, let this miracle be right here in front of us."

Church members feel a special bond with Father Dan because he can relate to their lives, she said.

"He's done the husband thing. He's done the father thing. He's done the grandfather thing," Olmsted said.

Father Dan entered Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West in Mount Washington in 1997 - five years after his wife Gail died from complications of Hodgkin's disease, and after his kids went off on their own.

Now, Father Dan just wants to get on with his plan, his new vocation. He hopes his ALS burns itself out, like it does in about 5 percent of cases. Or, maybe it will plateau to a place where his symptoms don't get any worse.

Doctors can't say for sure what to expect. Each ALS case progresses differently.

Father Dan doesn't feel cheated.

"I'm realizing I need to be grateful for the things that I can do," he said. "And I can do a lot of stuff."

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About ALS
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in muscle weakness and atrophy.

It commonly strikes people between the ages of 40 and 70, and as many as 30,000 Americans have the disease.

Lou Gehrig first brought national and international attention to the disease in 1939 when he abruptly retired from baseball after being diagnosed with ALS.

There is no cure for the disease, although research into stem cell and gene therapy is showing some promise. Riluzole, the only FDA-approved drug to treat ALS, slightly increases survival time.

Treatment primarily is limited to dealing with symptoms such as diminished lung capacity and swallowing, mobility and speech problems.

Source: The ALS Association