Mcclelland shares emotional message while supporting Worksafe Saskatchewan firefighter cancer prevention video series

Swift Current’s Nikkii Mcclelland has stepped forward as a passionate advocate in supporting awareness and initiatives helping prevent firefighter cancer.

Mclelland shared her family’s journey with cancer during a Worksafe Saskatchewan unveiling of a video training series sharing tips on how to work safer while taking precatuions against firefighter cancer.

Swift Current Fire Chief Darren Mcclelland passed away in January 2020 after an extended battle with cancer. He was one of five firefighters who lost their lives to cancer in 2020, and between 2010 and 2018 a full 23 per cent of work-related occupational disease fatalities in the province were firefighters cancers.

“I just want to honour Darren the best way I can and tell everybody my story. And honestly if it could help someone else out there, and we can get it before it gets us then we are one step ahead of the game,” she said while sharing the details of their cancer journey.

Darren was diagnosed with colon cancer in August 2016 and after recovering from that procedure he underwent chemotherapy and a second surgical procedure to treat a cancer which had metastasized to his liver. Months after receiving the all clear he underwent a third surgery to remove a potion of his liver when that cancer returned.

Unfortunately, even with three significant cancer surgeries and regimes of chemotherapy, in December 2019 doctors found a tumour on his spine which was pinching a nerve. He underwent a final surgery just before Christmas of 2019, but afterwards his cancer progressed quickly and he passed away on January 20, 2020 at the age of 48.

“I want to tell Darren’s story and honour him the best way I know how, and I don’t want to see this happen to anyone else and their family. I want to be an advocate for fire cancer prevention. When the fire fighters have to go for their yearly medical or after a fire, I want them to think of Darren and think ‘yeah, I do need to this.’ I need to have washed my gear. I need to take 20 minutes and sit in a sauna to release any toxins in my body.”

Nikkii recalled the initial cancer diagnosis in 2016, when Darren was serving as a Deputy Chief, was unexpected but the mass in his colon was detected before it became critical.

“He was almost completely blocked, and if he would have had it any later he would have gone septic,” she recalled.

“If Darren didn’t get a colonoscopy when he did we would have never got three and a half years with him,” she said. “It would have been too late to just get a little bit more time with him. And the girls got more time with him, his family and friends. He got to do some amazing things actually. He got to be the Chief for a little while and play a pretty big role, and do it with some style and grace and respect.”

When their focus turned towards his initial colon and liver cancer diagnosis, he began a series of efforts to continue his fight.

“For the next two years he had surgeries and chemotherapies. We had him on every health plan, alternative treatment, naturopaths, Chinese doctors, anything we could try or think of. We went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester to get a second opinion for treatments or try to get on any drug trials.”

They ultimately ended up at a treatment centre in Tijuana, Mexico when chemotherapy was no longer working. That alternative treatment was focussed on keeping his immune system as healthy as possible.

She says that firefighters should abandon the “it won’t happen to me mentality” and place a stronger focus on their own healthcare. She recommended that firefighters be proactive in searching for cancer, taking FIT tests to detect colon cancers, having PSA tests for prostate cancers, and having blood work to check for cancer markers which show up in the blood stream.

“What I suggest is, when you get your yearly medicals, these firefighters get the yearly medicals, these tumour markers aren’t maybe the best way but they’re a start, they’re a baseline.”

Nikkii is proud to share her story and was pleased to see Worksafe Saskatchewan work towards sharing the awareness video series with fire personnel across the province.

“I think what I’m pleased for this is that there’s awareness. That there’s need for this,” she said. “Safety is important for everyone on their job and I get that. But this is more internal. Everything we worry about OH&S and we worry about safety in your environment and your business.”

“This is a silent killer. It’s something that you don’t see it coming, you don’t really know it’s happening. And I like that there is awareness, and now how are we going to prevent this. What do we need to do to make this better and save lives if we can? And what steps do we have to take?

She additionally appreciates that Workers Compensation is working towards this because of their involvement when cancers develop as a result of workplace exposure.

“Firefighters are saying we are seeing way too much of this, and our friends and our coworkers are living in this. We need to make this better.”

“Hopefully I can help out with a little bit of the cancer side of it, what Darren had to go through. And the importance of not just medicals, a little bit more thorough medicals, a little bit more testing than what’s being done today.”

A Youtube video interview to share her full story can be viewed at https:// www.worksafesask.ca/prevention/ environmental-risks/firefighter-cancer-prevention/