Team works wonders in footy veteran Mark Naley’s fight for life

Mark Naley was a gladiator on the footy field. Three decades on, he has been fighting the biggest battle of his life.

Team … surgeon Amal Abou-Hamden, left, Mark Naley, anaesthetist Michael Schurgott and oncologist Tony Michele. Picture: Morgan Sette

Mark Naley was a gladiator on the football field, a tenacious rover whose heroics in the 1987 grand final helped steer his adoptive side Carlton to the VFL premiership.

Three decades on, the South Australian football legend has been fighting the biggest battle of his life against recurring brain ­tumours that were diagnosed after he blacked out while driving in 2016.

By rights, the man known as “Nails” should no longer be with us. The tumours he has suffered would have killed anyone within months a few years ago, but thanks to the pioneering work of his Adelaide surgeon, Amal Abou-Hamden, and her team, Mark Naley is alive and still kicking goals.

“She’s a magician,” 58-year-old Naley said. “I wouldn’t be here today without the work of Amal and the rest of the team.”

Naley is a realist and none of the doctors working with him are offering false hope. Brain cancer remains incurable and will get him in the end. But the cutting-edge work being done in Adelaide has done two things that are changing the prognosis for tumour sufferers such as Naley — significantly extending his life while protecting his quality of life.

As with his footy, the fight against Naley’s cancer has been a team endeavour. Dr Abou-Hamden insisted on being joined by Naley’s oncologist, Tony Michele, and anaesthetist Michael Schurgott to explain the process they had used to attack his tumours, which are classified as the most ­aggressive and life-threatening.

Dr Abou-Hamden says that until a few years ago, patients such as Naley could usually just have one operation, and that the operations often came with terrible side effects because good parts of the brain could be inadvertently removed or damaged.

She is using a technique combining fluorescence through a new brain drug called Gliolan that lights up the tumorous parts of the brain, coupled with the use of neuro-monitoring and electrodes during surgery to enable the safe removal of the maximum amount of tumorous tissue.

“The fluorescence lets us better identify the tumour and we use electrodes to stimulate the brain fibres to work out which parts of the brain he needs,” Dr Abou-Hamden says.

“Ten years ago we would have given a patient such as Mark a six- to 12-month chance of survival, whereas with this approach we can prolong life, preserve brain function and provide quality of life.”

Mark Naley playing for Carlton in 1987. Picture: Supplied

As a result of this method, Naley has had four operations since 2016, the latest last week at Calvary Hospital. Aside from some numbness in his left hand and some barely perceptible slurring of his speech, he is doing well.

He has also had bouts of radiotherapy and chemotherapy ­between these operations, managed by Dr Michele, who describes himself as “the mop-up guy”.

“The good thing about this new approach is that the less Amal leaves for me to deal with, the better,” Dr Michele says. One of the biggest weapons in Naley’s survival arsenal is his ­remarkably upbeat outlook, a close family and a great circle of friends within the footy community.

He says he has been humbled by the fact that the cost of the Gliolan drug has been met by the AFL Players Association, saying it has given him the extra years he yearned for with his family, ­especially his grandson, Finn, who is almost two and whom Naley would never have met had it not been for the treatment.

He is throwing himself into rehab through the Lift Cancer Care Services organisation and has taken up singing lessons and guitar. He is setting himself goals. He intends to perform a musical set at this year’s legendary Two Mates wine lunch at Adelaide institution the Glenelg BBQ Inn, an old-school steakhouse that has long been a favourite haunt of South Australia’s footballers.

Regarded as one of the finest footballers of his generation, Naley played 236 games with SANFL club South Adelaide from 1980-86 before cracking the big time and heading to Victoria, winning the premiership in the first year of his 65-game career with Carlton. His goal in the final quarter of the 1987 grand final helped seal the Blues’ 33-point win over Hawthorn. He returned to South Adelaide in 1991 and won that year’s Mag­arey Medal as the best and fairest player in the SANFL. He is ­beloved by SA footy fans for his starring role in the now defunct arena of State of Origin football, representing SA in 16 matches against Victoria and WA in the 1980s.

Naley still loves footy and enjoys going to SANFL games with son Sam and grandson Finn.

“I’ve got a lot to look forward to,” he says. “And I’ve got to keep this in perspective.

“When I saw Amal the other day she had just operated on a six-year-old. I’m lucky.”