‘I’m back’: Quebec mother with brain tumour gets life-saving surgery in U.S. | 24CA News
A mother with a uncommon mind tumour has efficiently undergone surgical procedure that wasn’t obtainable in Quebec, regardless of the province’s medical insurance board (RAMQ) denying her protection.
Celyn Harding-Jones is proudly donning her hard-earned mark of a warrior: an roughly three-inch scar subsequent to her hairline that was obtained after a thousand-mile-long journey.
“I keep knocking on wood because I don’t even believe it myself but I’m back,” Harding-Jones mentioned with a large smile.
The mom of two is again to with the ability to get pleasure from life with out fixed and excruciating ache, mind fog and excessive fatigue that she suffered for the final seven years, touchdown her within the emergency room a number of occasions.
The concern of sudden dying due to the cyst is now remodeled into incomparable pleasure.
“I don’t have to think about that and I can focus about the things that matter in life,” Harding-Jones mentioned.
Harding-Jones lived with an especially uncommon mind tumour referred to as a colloid cyst, one which neurosurgeons in Quebec admittedly don’t have the experience to function on, affected person information present.
We first met Harding-Jones in May final yr, when she was making an attempt to acquire protection for an ultra-specialized mind operation to take away the tumour that’s solely obtainable in New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine Brain and Spine Centre.
Documents offered by Harding-Jones present the province’s insurance coverage board first agreed to cowl the specialist charges however not the hospital invoice.
Then, when she appealed the choice, it supplied no protection in any respect.
“I would absolutely say that the Quebec government failed me,” Harding-Jones mentioned.
So she turned to her group, elevating funds to cowl the charges via a GoFundMe adopted by an internet public sale with items donated by buddies.
“We bit the bullet, we took out a little loan, my parents refinanced their house at a time when it’s not good for loans … and I just got on a plane and I went,” Harding-Jones mentioned.
On Nov. 21, she underwent a profitable surgical procedure in New York within the arms of the world’s main specialist in colloid cysts, Dr. Mark Souweidane, vice-chair of the division of neurological surgical procedure and director of pediatric neurological surgical procedure on the Weill Cornell Medical Center.
“She should be good for the remainder of her life,” Souweidane instructed Global News, whereas admitting Harding-Jones’ case was difficult.
“Her case was very complex, even for someone with three decades of experience like myself,” Souweidane mentioned. “She represents something that even in my hands probably wasn’t doable 10, 15 years ago.”
While the combat for her well being is over, Harding-Jones desires to proceed preventing for others who want an advocate within the health-care system.
“I don’t believe in miracles but this was one. And I’m hoping to make another miracle happen for someone else,” Harding-Jones mentioned.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
