Winnipeg woman cut in half to treat cancer
Janis Ollson and family are in magazine ads for the esteemed Mayo Clinic for a good reason: She’s the first ever to be cut in half by surgeons to remove much of a cancerous midsection — and then put back together with a happy ending.
Three years ago, the 31-year-old Manitoba mother was pregnant with her second child and had been suffering years of intense back pain when Canadian doctors diagnosed her with bone cancer.
Sarcoma experts in Toronto said they would literally have to cut her in half to get at the untreatable cancer, remove her leg, lower spine and half her pelvis.
The problem was they didn’t know how to put her back together again. They consulted with the Mayo Clinic and the Rochester, Minn., doctors decided to attempt something that had only been tried on cadavers.
Ms. Ollson became the first person to receive a “pogo stick” rebuild, with her one good leg fused to her body with the reshaped bone from the amputated leg. Today, she’s cancer-free, although she lives with the knowledge it could return at any time. She uses a prosthetic pelvis and leg, a wheelchair, crutches or walker, depending on what she’s doing and where she’s going.
“I have no problem getting around. If I need to, I’ll crawl (up stairs) or scooch like a kid,” she said. “I don’t want people to think ‘we can’t invite the Ollsons because they can’t get in here with a wheelchair.’ I want to live life to its fullest.”
Yesterday, she was at her daughter’s school near their home in Balmoral to talk to students about the importance of tomorrow’s Terry Fox Run.
In 2007, her life nearly ended. “I had pain in my lower back with the first pregnancy. I just thought it was the pregnancy, as did my doctors.”
It was only after she travelled to Toronto for a biopsy that it was confirmed: a chondrosarcoma, the size of a Pizza Pop, one of the largest the experts had ever seen.
Chemotherapy and radiation couldn’t help. The cancer had spread through several bones, her pelvis, lower spine and into a lot of muscle tissue. Her only chance for survival was to remove it.
Then she got a life-saving phone call. Mayo Clinic doctors asked her to come to the clinic for the experimental surgery.
“The plan was to remove the tumour, splitting my pelvis in half and removing the left half and left leg and lower spine,” she recalled.
After much rehabilitation, she put her mobility to the test this May, walking down the aisle of their church on husband Daryl’s arm, on her way to the altar to renew their vows on their 10th anniversary.
Similar Posts:
- Pregnancy week 4: critical changes
- NHS bosses refuse teenager £10,000 operation to protect his brain
- Heart patients get stem cells boost: Angina attacks ¿cut by half¿
- Epilepsy Drug in Pregnancy Raises Spina Bifida Risk
- Facing Chronic Pain Without Drugs
