Hawkins leukemia in remission
Former Okanagan-Mission MLA Sindi Hawkins says she is “on Cloud 9” after learning her latest bone marrow biopsy shows her leukemia has gone into remission.
“I’m pretty much over the moon,” said Hawkins, when contacted in Calgary, where she has been living with her family since leaving Kelowna earlier this year to undergo treatment in the southern Alberta city.
Over the last few months I have been feeling good,” a jubilant Hawkins told the Capital News Thursday. “I look great and I feel great,”
The 51-year-old former nurse and provincial health planning minister, has been receiving chemotherapy for the last five months in Calgary and said she has also been receiving a clinical trial drug to treat her cancer.
News of her latest biopsy result—her third—led to flood of responses from well-wishers to her Facebook page on the Internet, she said.
The biopsy results came from a consultant she has been seeing in Los Angeles.
But the real joy, said Hawkins, was seeing the look of relief on her parents faces when she told them the good news.
The former MLA was first diagnosed with the rare form of leukemia, a cancer of the blood, in 2004 and waged a high-profile public battle with the disease, twice receiving lifesaving bone marrow transplants from her sister. During her illness, she became a vocal proponent for blood and organ donation.
After 12 years as an MLA, she announced last November she would not seek a fourth term. Liberal Steve Thomson easily held the seat for the Liberals in last May’s provincial election.
When Hawkins announced she would not run for re-election, she said her decision was based on her doctor’s advice.
As for the future, Hawkins said she is not sure what the next step will be.
“Right now I view this as one more step closer to home,” she said.
But she said she knows she has an aggressive form of leukemia, one that has stumped her doctors in the past.
“It’s something so rare, my doctors have not seen it before,” she said.
But, after battling the disease for five years, the news that the biopsy failed to find any leukemia in her blood is the best news she could have hoped for.
awaters@kelownacapnews.com
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