LEXINGTON — Former Gov. Wallace G. Wilkinson is receiving chemotherapy treatments for cancer at St. Joseph Hospital here.

        The treatments, which began Friday, “could continue for a period of months” before Mr. Wilkinson, 60, is well enough to undergo surgery to bypass blockages in arteries leading to his heart, attorney Jim Odell said.

        “I can tell you that Mrs. (Martha) Wilkinson is quite distraught at this point,” Mr. Odell told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge William S. Howard. “She is at the hospital on a daily basis and sometimes overnight.”

        The former governor had surgery June 5 to remove a mass from his chest.

        He is undergoing chemotherapy to prevent the spread of lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system that has troubled him since 1991, his last year as governor.

        Mr. Wilkinson entered St. Joseph on May 26, complaining of weakness, shortness of breath and chest pains, and was expected to have bypass surgery. That procedure was postponed indefinitely when the mass was discovered.

        The former governor's illness forced the postponement of depositions he and Mrs. Wilkinson were scheduled to give in connection with their bankruptcies.

        Mr. Wilkinson, with debts of $418.4 million, has been in bankruptcy since February 2001, said Elizabeth Thompson, attorney for the trustee charged with selling Mr. Wilkinson's assets.

        Mrs. Wilkinson has been in bankruptcy only a month, and her debts total $131.5 million.

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