Naperville’s longest serving Mayor was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of cancer that affects the body’s plasma cells, weakening the immune system.

But, he’s facing the disease head-on, in typical Mayor Emeritus fashion.

“He has to have chemo, they have to hit this aggressively. Now 10 years ago, there was no cure for this. They pretty much would give you like a year to live and that was it. Now they luckily enough have a cure and he has to have treatment every Tuesday and Fridays, he’ll take treatment, he’s already had three rounds of it,” said Carol Pradel, daughter of Mayor Emeritus A. George Pradel.

A routine all too familiar to the family, who have battled cancer before.

“The first time was with my mom 29 years ago, and she had the breast cancer, and then she got it again in 2001 and then unfortunately she got it again in 2014 and she just recently passed like nine months ago. And I’ve had cancer three times, so cancer is nothing new to us, but we’re a fighting family, and with the support of everybody, it’s you know, it is what it is and you just have to live everyday to your best,” said Carol.

And the Naperville community is already responding to help Mayor Emeritus Pradel in his fight.

The Downtown Naperville Alliance is setting up a special mailbox at the corner of Webster and Van Buren, where anyone can drop off a letter of encouragement, no postage required.

“Mayor Emeritus Pradel, as we all know, has done so much for the Naperville community and we just wanted to do just a little something to show our love and support back for him,” said Katie Wood, Executive Director of the Downtown Naperville Alliance.

While the family asks for no visitors at this time, they gladly receive everyone’s messages, thoughts and prayers.

“We just again appreciate everybody’s thoughts and the whole town of Naperville’s been behind us and I can’t, our whole family just thanks everybody,” added Carol.

The family asks that when you see Mayor Emeritus Pradel out in the community, you refrain from handshakes and hugs as he needs to avoid any germs.

Naperville News 17’s Evan Summers reports.