WATCH ABOVE: Doug Ford thanks supporters and doctors
TORONTO – Rob Ford’s chief of staff says doctors have removed a cancerous tumour from the former Toronto mayor’s abdomen and consider the operation to be a success.
Dan Jacobs says Ford has regained consciousness after an intensive surgery that kept him under anesthesia for about 10 hours.
He says the ex-mayor is in “some pain,” and still has months of recovery to look forward to.
“We’re just praying that everything works out,” the ex-mayor’s brother, Doug Ford, said outside the hospital on Monday evening.
“We’ve just been praying that Rob makes it through … we’re 100 per cent confident that he will and then he has a big battle ahead of him,” he said.
Before the surgery, Ford said that his biggest fear was not waking up.
“I just want to wake up. That’s all I want to do is wake up,” he told local television station CP24 on the weekend. “Once I wake up from the surgery, then I can start dealing with it and fighting it and getting better.”
Ford, now a city councillor, had previously described the procedure as a “very serious operation,” and noted that it could put him out of commission for as long as four months.
WATCH: Rob Ford was diagnosed with liposarcoma last year. The 10 to 12 hour surgery to remove the tumour could save his life. Marianne Dimain reports.
In a photograph posted on Twitter before the surgery began, Ford was seen dressed in a blue hospital gown giving the camera two thumbs up.
“Just prior to 8 a.m., the scheduled start for his surgery, Coun. Ford took a picture in his hospital bed, with the message ‘Thank you Toronto, for all your love and support.”‘
“Coun. Ford then stood and walked with hospital staff to the operating room.”
WATCH: Rob Ford belts a tune for fight against cancer
Ford’s surgery comes after several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation which he said shrunk his tumour to an operable size.
Surgeons at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital are now expected to make two incisions of about 30 centimetres each in an effort to remove Ford’s tumour, which is approximately five centimetres in size, Jacobs said.
WATCH ABOVE: Rob Ford’s chief of staff Dan Jacobs provides an update on Ford’s surgery Monday afternoon.
Following the procedure, Ford is expected to be kept in a post-operative recovery area, before being transferred to a “surgical step down unit,” Jacobs added.
While Ford was anxious before the surgery, Jacobs said the famous politician was eager to have the procedure begin.
“He’s at the same time nervous but also happy that it’s finally here and he can finally get this over with and get on the road to recover,” Jacobs said.
Rob Ford, whose admitted drug and alcohol abuse and outrageous behaviour earned him international notoriety, was forced out of his mayoral re-election bid last September when doctors discovered his rare, aggressive malignant liposarcoma. He ran successfully for council instead.
The type of cancer Ford has – only about one per cent of cancers are similar – arises from fat cells and can attack a variety of soft tissue in the body.
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