Joy Smith has lived this year with prayer and patience. Next year will begin with some long-awaited news that will change her life.
For Kirsty Duncan, life this year has been frustrating, though at times heart-warming.
Ms. Duncan, the Liberal MP for Etobicoke North, and Ms. Smith, the Conservative MP for the Winnipeg-area riding of Kildonan-St. Paul, are both backbenchers, positions that do not carry a lot of influence on Parliament Hill. But that has not stopped them from trying to change public attitudes - and public policy. As the year comes to a close, the two women reflect on their causes and their commitment.
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Joy Smith
Personal circumstances pushed Ms. Smith into action this year. The 63-year-old MP poured her energy into an initiative to launch a national awareness campaign encouraging Canadians to be tested as stem-cell donors.
Her 60-year-old husband, Bart, provided the inspiration. He is very sick, suffering from two forms of aggressive lymphoma. Last June, as hope was running out, Bart received a bone-marrow transplant from an anonymous donor.
Next month, the couple will find out if that donor saved Bart's life. He is to undergo a scan that will determine if his cancer is in remission.
"We're hoping," Ms. Smith said this week. "It's not cured and it's not in remission, but by virtue of the fact that he's starting to get stronger … it just makes you feel like you're getting ahead of it."
She feels, too, that she is getting the message out.
This fall, she and her colleague, Conservative MP Terence Young, organized a day-long "swab" event on Parliament Hill for stem-cell awareness. Having the cheek swab and signing on to the registry "launches the ability to save a life," said Ms. Smith.
That event spurred other MPs to set up donor clinics in their ridings, she says. In addition, she has heard from ordinary Canadians who had not before been aware of the potential of registering on the list.
But she is pressing harder. Using her position as chair of the Commons health committee, Ms. Smith held two hearings last month on stem-cell donations. She even had her husband's doctor make a presentation.
Now she wants to work on establishing a baby cord-blood registry - Canada, she says, is one of the only developed countries without such a registry. She will be devoting more attention to that project in 2012.
For now, however, she is concentrating on her husband. Christmas will be quiet as Bart's immune system is still compromised. Visiting the kids and grandkids will be limited. But she has seen so much improvement in his strength - and so she finishes this year more hopeful than she began it.
"You know what, I am feeling happier," she said. "In fact I feel like there's a load off my shoulders. I don't want to sound like Pollyanna, I'm a realist too … I pray a lot."
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Kirsty Duncan
Ms. Duncan says she doesn't want to "hope-monger," but what she hears from Canadians across the country gives her hope, and the impetus to keep pushing her issue.
The 44-year-old rookie MP, whose cousin has multiple sclerosis, has been battling for federal funding for clinical trials - and more research and science - around the contentious liberation procedure. With her own network of 1,000 MS sufferers, of whom 225 have been "liberated," Ms. Duncan is clearly invested in her cause.
"I have people who write to me four hours after the procedure, saying, 'I can stand on one foot again.' … 'Today, I jumped with my child.'… There are people who are leaving wheelchairs," she said.
The liberation procedure has attracted much controversy as it disputes the view that MS is an autoimmune disease. Rather, Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni believes MS patients have damaged blood vessels in their necks caused by too much iron. Dr. Zamboni has developed a procedure to clear the blockages - one not sanctioned in Canada.
The government continues to refuse funding for clinical studies - which frustrates and scares Ms. Duncan, especially given the recent death of an Ontario man who travelled to Costa Rica for the liberation therapy.
"Many people simply don't have the time to wait and many feel forced overseas because they can't afford to wait," she said. "The people need to be imaged here, they need to be treated here and they need to be followed up here and there needs to be protocols established for this."
She has not given up.