Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford to undergo surgery to remove cancerous tumour

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford “ready to roll” for his surgery (Photo: Dan Jacobs / Twitter)

TORONTO — Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford will undergo intensive surgery today to remove a cancerous tumour from his abdomen.

The Toronto city councillor will undergo what he described last month as a “very serious operation,” which is expected to last up to 10 hours and could put him out of commission for as long as four months.

Surgeons at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital will make two incisions of about 30 centimetres each in an effort to remove the malignancy.

Following a meeting with his doctors last month, Ford said they had told him the growth had shrunk enough from several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation to operate.

Two days before the surgery, Ford told local television station CP24 that his biggest fear was not waking up.

“I just want to wake up. That’s all I want to do is wake up,” he said in the interview. “Once I wake up from the surgery, then I can start dealing with it and fighting it and getting better.”

A photography posted on Twitter on Monday morning by Ford’s chief of staff, Dan Jacobs, showed Ford dressed in a blue hospital gown giving the camera two thumbs up.

“Ready to roll,” Jacobs tweeted with the photo.

Update : @TorontoRobFord ready to roll pic.twitter.com/NQKTyyj17l

— Dan Jacobs (@danjacobs_) May 11, 2015

Ford, whose admitted drug and alcohol abuse and outrageous behaviour earned him international notoriety, was forced out of his mayoral re-election bid last September when doctors discovered his rare, aggressive malignant liposarcoma. He ran successfully for council instead.

The type of cancer Ford has — only about one per cent of cancers are similar — arises from fat cells and can attack a variety of soft tissue in the body.