"Even today as I sit here, it feels like the entry bullet was here," said retired Judge James McGregor, pointing to his chest, "and the exit wound was back there," gesturing to his back.

The former Allegheny County Common Pleas judge was talking last week about his latest treatment for lung cancer, an intense beam of radiation called a CyberKnife.

It has left him with recurring pain and weakness.

And yet, he is grateful.

He is grateful that it seems to have wiped out the last of three tumors that doctors found in his left lung last year. He is grateful that a screening program he was part of at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute caught his cancer early.

And he is grateful that after 31 years as a judge, when he was ethically prohibited from advocating for any charity or political candidate, he can now raise money for lung cancer research.

In a recent letter to some of his closest friends, Mr. McGregor, who is 80, revealed that he was being treated for lung cancer, talked about his surprise at learning that lung malignancies are the leading cause of cancer death in men and women, and then asked people to consider donating to the Suzanne Hill Alfano Endowment for Lung Cancer Research at the cancer institute.

Ms. Alfano was the daughter of Dr. Jack and Peggy Hill of Churchill, and Mr. McGregor and Dr. Hill are childhood friends. As a result of his letter, the Alfano Endowment has already raised $1,100 for lung cancer research.

Mr. McGregor's odyssey began in 2000, when he underwent two extensive surgeries for bleeding ulcers. After the second operation, his doctor told him he needed to give up his three-pack-a-day cigarette habit.

"I thought that for me to really quit smoking, I ought to quit drinking also, and I also quit drinking coffee at the same time. That's the reason Coors and Marlboro went bankrupt," the Edgewood resident deadpanned.

Not long after that, he saw a flier from the cancer institute asking for reformed smokers to join a research study, and he signed up. As part of the study, his lungs were screened each year.

For eight years, his scans were clean. Then, last year, doctors found three suspicious spots on his left lung, and biopsies showed they were cancerous.

Surgery was not an option, he said, because the largest tumor was right next to his aorta, the main artery from the heart.

Instead, he went through seven weeks of radiation, took a new drug called Erbitux, and then had three intensive chemotherapy sessions in December and January.

"That's when I lost my hair," Mr. McGregor said. "My hair used to be white; now it's darker. I tell [my wife] Ruth I'm a trophy husband now."

After all of that, he still had one major tumor left, and that's when doctors decided to use the CyberKnife procedure.

While he never lost weight during treatment, he did become weaker, "and I figure the only way I'll ever get my strength back is to continue my daily exercise regimen," which includes lifting weights, riding a stationary bike and walking his dogs a mile each day in nearby Frick Park.

The cancer never affected his beloved golf game, said Mr. McGregor, who still has a single-digit handicap and who has twice been senior champion at Oakmont Country Club.

He looks at his cancer diagnosis and the arduous treatment matter-of-factly. Because he smoked for so long, he wasn't completely surprised by what happened. But because he was an athlete and had clean annual checkups, he didn't necessarily expect this outcome, either.

"I really didn't feel there was any stigma," about getting lung cancer. "To me, it was just a form of cancer. We've had cancer in my family, and my father died of cancer when he was just 52."

He began his work as a judge in the 1970s. But for most of the 1960s, he was a successful Republican political campaign manager, and he ran John Heinz's first two campaigns for Congress.

In the process, he became close friends with GOP power broker Elsie Hillman and her husband, industrialist Henry Hillman.

The Hillmans endowed the Pitt cancer center that is named for them, and after he began his treatments, Mr. McGregor said, "I called Elsie and Henry Hillman at their home in Canada and said, 'Thank you very much for bringing this cancer center to Pittsburgh,' because, but for that being there and but for them inviting me to join a reformed smokers' study, I would not have known about this early on.

"I'm in the hands of the best people imaginable and to the extent anyone can conquer this, I should be able to win this battle."

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