Cancer ‘seems to be everywhere in the fire hall’ making awareness even more important

“He made light of everything, he was a strong family guy, took care of our four kids, laughed with them and was silly and crazy,” Alison said. “His smile just lit up the room.”

The soulmates were married in November of 2018 but just a few months later, Cam was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

“It was caused by the job and if I’m correct, it’s in the top five of cancers for firefighters,” Alison said.

After six months of chemotherapy, Cam was in remission.

The following year in 2020, he relapsed in May and passed away on June 4, leaving behind Alison, their children and his firefighting family.

“It’s tough, these are guys that are our friends, we go to work with them every day, they are our family,” Curtis Noble, one of Cam’s colleagues, said. “It leaves an impact, it’s hard.”

Noble is also the vice president of the Alberta Fire Fighters Association. He says this January being Fire Fighter Cancer Awareness Month, it’s important to bring attention to the disease and the work that needs to continue to protect those on the job.

“When firefighters go into a fire, it’s a literal toxic soup of carcinogens,” Noble said. “Hundreds of different types of chemicals that are carcinogenic.”

Provincially, Noble says they are working with decision-makers to ensure fire fighters have coverage if they contract cancer while on the job and making sure their families are taken care of if they were to pass from cancer.

It was initially thought cancers were caused through inhalation, but a lot is caused through absorption. There’s now a big focus on decontamination.

“We are actually treating structure fires more like hazmat emergencies,” Noble said. “As the firefighters are coming out, we are gross decontamination right when we get out of the building or structure that’s been on fire. Then when we get back to the hall we are doing more decontamination.”

Firefighter and vice president of the union Terry Chaffer said the union is always working on better preventative maintenance. The city also has a health and wellness program that’s been in place for over a decade that includes early screening for fire fighters.

“In the last two years, we’ve had many members caught,” Chaffer said. “It seems to be everywhere in the firehall.”

That screening is what caught Gerald Bodnaruk’s prostate cancer in 2019.

“In 2020, I had surgery in Calgary at Foothills which was a robotic radical prostatectomy which means my prostate was removed at that time,” Bodnaruk said. “Since then, I have been cancer-free.”

Prostate cancer is another common type among firefighters. Bodnaruk hopes bringing awareness to this month will help institute different protocols and prevent the disease in new recruits.

This is something Alison hopes for too so no one has to go through what she did.

“Cam would be celebrating his 50th birthday next Saturday and I just think sometimes we think 50 is so old until you don’t get to be 50,” Alison said. “I think we all just need to celebrate our life and where we are and take each day as a blessing.”

For now, she keeps Cam’s ring around her neck and close to her heart.

by Teagan Rasche

Cancer ‘seems to be everywhere in the fire hall’ making awareness even more important

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