Arielle loses leg

CANCER patient Arielle Fahey-Cadiz, who left Trinidad for the United States in August last year for surgery on a cancerous tumour, has had her left leg amputated.

The 28-year-old mother of a ten-year-old boy, underwent three consecutive days of surgery last week at a hospital in New Jersey.

Fahey-Cadiz, of Vistabella, San Fernando, was diagnosed in late April last year with a rare, aggressive form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma. In August, doctors in Miami were scheduled to remove a malignant tumour close to her pelvis but decided to postpone surgery because of its size. Fahey-Cadiz underwent chemotherapy to try to reduce the tumour.

Her friend Nneka Roy, the administrator of her "Fit to Fight Cancer" Facebook page broke the news about the amputation on Saturday evening.

"Because of the aggressive nature of the cancer, the bone in the area of her left hip started to deteriorate, so they had to amputate the leg. We are still thankful she has life."

Her father Carlos Cadiz told Newsday he saw her briefly via WhatsApp on Sunday, but she is not yet able to talk. He said, prior to the surgery she slipped into a semi-comatose state.

“Her immune system was compromised, her liver and kidney had shut down, and she couldn’t breathe on her own.”

In spite of what his family is experiencing, Cadiz said they are encouraged by his daughter’s resilience.

“She is my first daughter, my heart and soul. We would fight tooth and nail because we are so much alike, but you can’t get between the love we have. Imagine while she was being wheeled into surgery last week Tuesday, she insisted on calling me to wish me a happy birthday.”

Newsday also spoke with Fahey-Cadiz’s mother, Lydia Fahey, who is in the US with her. She said her daughter is coming along well. “Doctors are pleased. She is conscious, but gets tired quickly. She is positive. She is having some pain, but that’s expected given the extent of the surgery.”

When Newsday first spoke with Fahey-Cadiz last year, she said she had been to the hospital on several occasions complaining about pain in her back and swelling of her foot.

“They told me it is sciatica – which is nerve damage– and when I started feeling a little bump, I went back to the hospital and they said, ‘You just have a muscle spasm’. When I came home I told my mother this thing is getting bigger, it could never be a muscle spasm.”

Frustrated with the public health sector, she went to a private medical clinic where she had a CT scan, a magnetic resonance imaging scan and some other tests done.

“All this time the bump was getting bigger and bigger. Then he (the doctor) did a biopsy to see if it was cancerous or not. I got that done in Mt Hope and that is where I got the diagnosis.”

She said she had to leave her job at a private nursing home because she could not stand or sit for longer than ten minutes at a time. Without a steady income and with growing medical bills, Fahey-Cadiz had to depend on her mother to provide for her son.

She was offered surgery at the San Fernando general hospital, but she felt if she accepted, the doctors doing the operation would have made her condition worse.

“They are the same ones who told me I have nerve damage and muscle spasms.”

She said in addition to the misdiagnosis, the doctors told her they would have only known how to remove the tumour when they cut her.

Her friends and relatives embarked on a fund-raising drive to help her get to the US. However, financial assistance is still needed for her continued upkeep. Donations can be made to her FCB account #2507323.