As the North Bay branch of the Canadian Cancer Society launched their 7th Annual Relay for Life event for June 15th and 16th Tuesday, Baytoday.ca was learning that cancer had hit home, and former news editor Phil Novak was in the for the battle of his life.
Just over a year ago Novak felt the stress and strain of living and working apart from his wife and children, so he made the decision to resign his post and return home. Novak had barely settled back in to home life in the Niagara area, when he noticed something was off with him physically.
“I'd been home in Niagara-on-the-Lake for almost a year--after six years in North Bay--when I noticed that my urine was darker than normal. My family doctor thought I might have a stone in my bile duct, since a test of my urine showed high levels of bile. As well I was jaundiced and itching quite a bit,” he explains.
“I was admitted to the St. Catharines General Hospital January 16 of this year.”
Once in hospital Novak underwent tests including an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) procedure that enables physicians to diagnose problems in the liver, gallbladder, bile ducts, and pancreas. The ERCP procedure involves an endoscope (a long, flexible, lighted tube) to be inserted into the patient’s throat and down into the patient’s body, allowing the doctors to view the stomach and duodenum. Once the endoscope is in place, the doctors inject dye into the ducts in the biliary tree and pancreas so they can view the organs on x-rays.
With the test complete, doctors wasted no time revealing the news was not good, as they had uncovered a ‘cholangiocarcinoma’ tumour, an extremely rare type of cancer that strikes one in 100,000 people.
“The specialist told me just moments after I'd come out of the anaesthetic that a tumour had been detected in my bile duct.”
“This was the reason I had become jaundiced, because the tumour had impeded the flow of bile, causing it to back up into my system. A stent was inserted in my bile duct to allow the bile to return to its normal flow. In the interim, though, I had to endure endless itchiness, which kept me up all night for almost a month. That's subsided, thankfully,” he notes.
Novak said as he absorbed the news he had to laugh, because he'd always said that he never wanted to be just one of the crowd.
“But when it comes to diseases, I'm not so sure I wanted my body to take me so literally!”
The only course for treatment is an operation called a Pancreatic Duodectomy, an eight-hour operation where the surgical team removes the bile duct, part of the pancreas, part of the duodenum and part of the stomach.
“Then they reconnect you in a different way to compensate for the loss of the bile duct and other bits and pieces,” he notes.
With only a handful of surgeons in Ontario who perform the surgery, Novak was referred to Dr. Leyo Ruo at McMaster University Health Centre.
“She gave me the entire rundown about the operation, its inherent risks and two-month recovery period.”
Prior to the booking Novak for the surgery, Ruo had him go for a CT scan, which revealed cysts on his liver, a biopsy was then required to ensure the cysts weren't malignant. If the biopsy showed the cysts to be malignant the treatment surgery would no longer be an option, leaving chemo as the only mainstream option available in order to prevent the malignancies from spreading.
“I was sure, as Dr. John Kirby was snipping a piece of liver cyst, that the biopsy results would be negative,” he states.
“Although the Freudian slip I kept making--referring to the biopsy as an autopsy--may have been an indicator of things to come.”
Dr. Ruo called Novak the following week after the biopsy with more bad news, she informed him that the bile duct cancer had spread to the liver, and surgery was no longer an option.
“I was stunned, but felt quite liberated at the same time hearing I wouldn't have to go under the knife. If I'm going to fight this thing, better to fight it as a whole person.”
Novak says he is not down for the count just yet, and is waiting to see an oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital, in Toronto, as well as exploring alternative cancer therapies.
“I have no intention of dying from this thing and will fight it to the end.”
Novak lost his father to liver cancer, but says the man battled for seven years before losing his valiant battle at age 79.
“I'm 20 years younger than he was when he was diagnosed with it, and I've got his dogged determination to live,” he states.
“I never take 'no' for an answer, and I never give up,” he states, “there are those who have already written me off, and I intend on having the last laugh on them.”
