Former Boston mayor and ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn is recovering from recent collapse due to long time battle with cancer. He will remain hospitalized at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center for precautionary measures and several tests, after the 69-year-old reportedly fainted while speaking to a group of young Catholic professionals at a Quincy restaurant Wednesday night when he fainted.

Flynn is being treated for melanoma, a form of skin cancer. But now he feels a bit better. Edward, Flynn’ son, told the Boston Globe his father fought the disease while he was mayor and that he's been suffering from symptoms again. Flynn underwent surgery in 1993 to remove a cancerous mole on his left hand, the papers reported at the time.

Aside from the cancer complications, the family claims that this is especially a harder time for the former mayor, as he is grieving the loss of his brother, Dennis, 61, who died last month of a heart attack.

In an interview for WBZ Radio His wife, Kathy, told Thursday she knew something was wrong right away. "He was into his speech, I think he was speaking 20 or 25 minutes," she said. I could feel his voice getting weaker and weaker, I could see him and he just said, 'Um I'm not feeling good, I'm getting weak' and he just leaned against the wall and slid right down and went unconscious."

Raymond Flynn was mayor of Boston from 1984 to 1993, when President Clinton appointed him ambassador to the Vatican, a post he held until 1997.