Cancer patient's fight for life pays off, surgery a success

She thought she might end up on dialysis or even die, but Deby Nash has just been told she can resume a normal life.

Her only kidney, a 34 year-old transplant, is functioning again thanks to a Halifax surgeon. Nash calls it nothing short of a miracle. 

When it comes to my health care, I ask more questions. That's something I've learned.- Deby Nash

"Big exhale, yeah. That's the best way I can describe it. There are just too many emotions."

The cancer was sliced out in a challenging operation by Halifax surgeon Ricardo Rendon."The tumour was about half the size of the kidney," says Rendon,  

It's been a roller coaster ride for Nash since finding out in February that her monthly blood tests, something she does because of her transplant, had been showing anomalies for four months.

She says for the past decade, the Saint John Regional Hospital has notified her within 24 hours if there is a problem and she needs to be re-tested. But that didn't happen last year.  

Nash was furious at the hospital for not calling, and at herself, for not asking for her monthly levels to monitor them herself.

The Saint John Regional Hospital's chief of surgery, Dr. John Dornan, said in June that he trusted his team, and that problems are only flagged when blood tests suggest a problematic trend, exactly what was done.

When later tests revealed the tumour, Nash was in a race to save her life.

She went public with her frustration in June, after finally securing a surgeon willing to do the operation to try to save her kidney. She says all patients need to know they must be vigilant about their own care. She hopes to be able to take her experience to a national audience through the Kidney Cancer Canada.

"My crusade has not stopped. It's just got started," she says. "Now, I always make sure, when it comes to my health care, I ask more questions. Whatever the answer is, I ask a second question, and I do my homework. So that the questions that I ask are valid questions. That's something I've learned."

Dr. Rendon says patients do need to be their own advocate in a system that is easily overwhelmed.

"A lot of patients are lost to follow-up because there was a glitch in the system, or something happened, and they don't call again, because they didn't get called, and thought everything was fine."