Waiting years for surgery may have cost Alberta man his life

Watch above: David Whenham just learned he will lose his fight with cancer. As Fletcher Kent explains, it may be due to surgical delays.

EDMONTON — An Alberta man who was forced to wait more than two years to have a hole in his face surgically reconstructed has been given a stage 4, terminal cancer diagnosis. Now, David Whenham and his family are making the most of the time they have left, but can’t help but think the surgical delays are to blame.

“It was a complete shock to me,” said Jasmine Whenham, David’s daughter. “We thought that we were looking at a long time ahead of us.”

The Pigeon Lake man has faced years of medical troubles, after his original diagnosis of sinus cancer – which he beat. After that, a hole in his face developed and started to grow.

Over the next two-and-a-half years, reconstructive surgery to fix the hole was postponed five times because of more urgent cases. But earlier this year, his cancer returned and David underwent surgery in June.

“During the surgery they determined that the cancer was not curable,” David said Friday. “They couldn’t remove it surgically, they couldn’t do chemo and radiation because I already had some here.”

“The surgeon just called and he can’t do anything more for dad,” Jasmine recalled, holding back tears. “It was nothing short of horrifying. It’s taken many months for all of us to come to any kind of terms with that.”

READ MORE: ‘It can’t be good to walk around with a hole in your head’: Alberta man waiting for surgery

David also lost his right eye in the surgery. He and his family believe they might be in a much different situation had he undergone surgery earlier.

“All the times that dad was pushed to the back burner we knew that there was somebody out there that was suffering more than him,” said Jasmine. “But at the same time there was this fear, this constant fear, for the last six years that if they don’t do the right thing, maybe he won’t make it.

“They didn’t do the right thing. And he’s not going to make it.”

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Alberta Health Services reviewed David’s case, and in a letter to his family says “it is difficult to say with absolute certainty whether the delays in surgery lead to recurrent infections or recurrent cancer with Mr. Whenham.”

“However, if the patient’s facial defect had been surgically closed sooner, his second palatal cancer may have been diagnosed earlier,” the letter reads.

AHS says it has directed more funding towards cancer surgery.

While the review of David’s case won’t change his outcome, he and his family hope it will help other families in the future.

“If you take on trying to cure somebody, you don’t stop halfway through,” said David. “If you can’t talk or eat or do the normal things, you aren’t cured.”

“This needs to change,” added Jasmine. “I think that reconstructive surgeries need to be included in ‘cancer treatment’ as a whole, so that a cancer patient is not cured until they have had all the surgeries necessary to resume some quality of life.”

But, David says he can’t dwell on the ‘what ifs?’ Instead, he’s spending his final moments enjoying life with his family.

“I don’t like thinking about it so I don’t,” he said. “You have to focus on what you have and what you can do and just keep trying to be yourself and live the way you have chosen to live.”

“I’m living everyday like it’s my last.”

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A musical tribute concert dedicated to David will be held on Saturday. He and his family – all musicians – will perform together.

“We just have to enjoy every minute that we have together while we have them,” said Jasmine. “It’s a way to celebrate dad, celebrate our family and celebrate the things that we’ve always done together.”

“I’m excited to play, always excited to play,” added David. “This is really gratifying and I think Marc Jordan said it best, ‘There’s a whole lot of grateful in me.’ And that’s how I feel about it.”

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With files from Fletcher Kent, Global News.