South Australian football legend Mark Naley battles brain tumours
Former South Adelaide and Carlton champion Mark Naley admits the prognosis is not good after having another tumour removed from his brain. But he’s not giving up yet.
South Australian football legend Mark Naley has opened up on his challenging fight with brain tumours and confessed he is living every day as if it is his last.
Naley, 58, had a golf ball-size tumour removed in March in his latest battle for life and he admits the prognosis is not good.
“I have got to be realistic, it will reappear,” the former superstar rover said.
“It is virtually like a tree with its root system — take the stump out, but the roots are still in my head and eventually it will grow back somewhere.
“So far I have been lucky and they have grown back in good places and they have been able to operate.”
Surgery was necessary in March after he had a seizure while descending a ladder two months earlier and needed to call out to a friend close by to catch him.
“I’m down to about 12, 13 tablets a day. It’s steroids and drugs which take you to the biggest highs you can possibly have and then there are terrible lows,” Naley said.
“It has taken a couple of years now to understand what the medication is doing to me and will continue to do to me. It’s just having that in the back of the head.
“Then again, I just enjoy life and the people around me more. I’ve got some great mates who help me out as much as possible. I’m enjoying spending time with them and family.”
Naley, inducted into the SANFL Hall of Fame in 2002, is long remembered for fighting battles for South Adelaide and Carlton in a highly decorated career. The onballer claimed a premiership with the Blues in 1987 with former South Australian champions Stephen Kernahan and Craig Bradley as team members in the grand final triumph over Hawthorn.
In 1991, he returned to the Panthers and earned the Magarey Medal that season. Twice he earned All-Australian selection, as well as represented SA in 16 State of Origin games.
His life changed dramatically in November, 2016, when he had a seizure and blacked out. Two tumours were discovered, with one being removed the following month and the other treated with steroids.
For the next 12 months, his life was consumed with radiation and chemotherapy. He has not worked since and lives off “a bit of income protection” and support from the AFL.
“I had a breather for two years and then another seizure in December, just 21 days after having scans,” he said.
“They found another aggressive tumour in the brain. When you have some adversities in your life, a bit like people have done for Mark Mickan, I’ve contacted him a few times to lend support, and Roger Delaney with his prostate cancer, you keep in contact with SANFL boys who have had a little bit of bad luck.
“You just deal with every day.”
Mickan was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three years ago, while Delaney had surgery in March. Last night, Naley was at Adelaide Oval for the game between APY Lands and Maralinga and the presentation of the Gordon Naley Medal, named in honour of Mark’s grandfather.
Gordon was an Aboriginal Australian who fought at Gallipoli in World War I and the medal is presented to the player who best demonstrates work ethic, courage and leadership.
Being at the football is an escape for Mark and he has fun taking his grandson Finn, 1, to SANFL games each week. He also calls himself a coffee snob.
But there is the constant medication, as well as an MRI every six weeks.
“The worst thing when you have a cancer is Google, or reading about what you have got or what is the potential of different sorts of treatments which are out there,” he said.
“Most of the time I have good days, it is just a matter of just getting up and going every day. That is all I do.”