Shumaker's adult son Karl said doctors at UNC Hospitals have found cancer in his father's brain, shoulder blade, lungs, and femur, and are trying to determine from a biopsy whether his liver is cancerous as well.
"He is receiving radiation treatment on his brain lesions," Karl Shumaker said. "But we won't know anything about how to combat the other cancers until late Monday or Tuesday.
"This time, he has a really good medical team working on it."
Karl Shumaker said his father will be in the hospital for at least two more weeks, until the current sequence of radiation treatments is completed. The elder Shumaker has battled numerous health problems in recent years.
Richard Cole, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said plans are in place to fill the three journalism classes Shumaker teaches while he is hospitalized.
Mac Secrest, a former newspaper editor and former UNC faculty member, will be teaching Shumaker's editorial writing class, while journalism Professor Cindy Stiff will be teaching newswriting, and Jay Eubank, director of career services for the journalism school, will be overseeing Shumaker's practicum class.
But Cole said the intangible role that Shumaker plays at UNC will be harder to fill. Shumaker is perhaps best known for his cartoon counterpart, P. Martin Shoemaker, in the comic strip "Shoe" drawn by the late Jeff MacNelly, Shumaker's former colleague.
MacNelly, a UNC alumnus who died in June, worked with Shumaker on The Chapel Hill Weekly from 1968 to 1970.
But besides lending some of his personality to a cigar-chomping cartoon duck, Shumaker has distinguished himself in the journalism school as well.
