A woman dying of cancer, and the struggle to get treatment to reduce her pain

globalnews.ca:

With a fatal cancer diagnosis, time is not something Elaine Foley, 67, has to spare.

With a medical system plagued with long wait times, the Wasaga Beach, Ont., woman is running out of what little time she has left.

Elaine is battling Stage 4 cancer that spread from her lungs to her brain, with doctors estimating she only has one to two years left to live.

She is also dealing with a back injury from 20 years ago when she worked as a corrections officer, which has gotten worse and left her in an immense amount of pain.

“I go from my bedroom to my La-Z-Boy, and when I go for doctor’s appointments or with chemo, it’s very painful to try and walk, but you have to get there. So other than going from my bedroom to my La-Z-Boy, I really haven’t been out of my house for six months,” Elaine says.

While her cancer can’t be cured, Elaine’s husband Mike says a significant amount of her pain could be relieved with surgery.

But the couple say time is running out to fix her back issues to allow her to spend the time she has left with her family.

“I was hoping to at least have some enjoyment with them. So that’s what my end goal is: to have time with my grandchildren. They live in Calgary, and getting there would be impossible, practically being crunched into a plane or crunched into a car, and then when I get there, I would only be able to go from the front door to the back door. But with the back surgery, I think I’ll be OK; at least I’m praying I’ll be OK,” Elaine says.

Mike says the two had been working on getting Elaine’s back injury finally treated when doctors discovered her cancer in August 2023.

He says doctors worked quickly to treat her cancer, but they are finding issues when it comes to treating her back injury, having