St. Joseph's plastic surgeon gives cancer patient hope
Ida Deslandes pictured in her home in St. Catherines
Two years ago, Ida Deslandes had life-saving surgery to remove part of her face because of skin cancer. Dr. Carolyn Levis, a plastic surgeon at St. Joseph’s and Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery and Reconstructive Hand Surgery at McMaster University, is part of a team of doctors who performed Ida’s original surgery.
Ida had been diagnosed with a common skin cancer but it became unusually aggressive extending to most of her facial tissue, including bone framework, and Dr. Levis was unable to reconstruct her face. Ida will eventually see a surgical specialist, who will create a custom prosthetic nose and eye for her. “It was such an extensive resection, and all of those structures are very intricate,” Dr. Levis says, “It’s the prosthesis that will restore her face to look like a typical human face.”
The day before Ida left the hospital for home, Dr. Levis visited her in the hospital room. They chatted about the front part of her scalp that needed to be shaved during her surgery. “This was just one more loss for her on top of everything else,” says Dr. Levis, who had just come from the operating room, and was still wearing a surgical cap. She joked with Ida that the cap provided a fix for many of her own bad hair days, and offered it to Ida.
The next day, before Ida was discharged, she gave her a few more to take home.
“It meant the world to me,” says Ida. “I wasn’t just a number. I was a human being.”
The plan is for Levis to remove fatty tissue from the transplanted skin on Ida’s face, to make it smoother and thinner. Then, Ida can start the process of having a prosthesis created. Ida also requires dental work as a consequence of radiation to her face and a fundraising account has been set up. Donations can be made at any Royal Bank. Transit No. 01752. Account No. 5079165.
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