You helped a retired police officer battle cancer

Sometimes good comes out of bad. That’s what retired Saskatoon police officer Aime Decae (pronounced amay decay) believes after his health care experiences.

Aime had a knee replaced at Saskatoon City Hospital in 2007. The other was replaced just before Christmas in 2021.

Three months after the second knee replacement, Aime was doing physical therapy at home when he had a mishap. “I slipped and fell going up the stairs.”

But he says, “It was the best thing that ever happened in my life!”

That’s because, while Aime bruised his knee in the fall, later that same day he also noticed blood in his urine. “I didn’t think too much of it. The next day, a Sunday, I noticed there was even more blood.”

He thought he’d pulled a groin muscle so he went to see his doctor. “He took all the samples, sent me for an ultrasound, and then referred me to a urologist for cystoscopy. The scoping discovered cancer in my bladder. Thank God I fell because two days later there was no bleeding. I could have gone on without even knowing that I had cancer.”

Aime underwent two operations to remove the tumours, which were determined to be high-grade and invasive. He’s since been coming to Saskatoon City Hospital for Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) treatments. BCG is a tuberculosis vaccine that’s injected into the bladder to kill any cancer that might remain after tumours are removed.

“I can’t speak well enough about the health care system,” he says, knowing there are current strains. “But it’s not the doctors, nurses or the hospital. I’ve found that, once you’re in the system, the care is simply outstanding.”