'Enormously lucky': Dominic LeBlanc talks about his return to Parliament after fighting rare cancer
'The doctors in New Brunswick had never seen one case,' says the Liberal MP
For 56 days, Dominic LeBlanc was isolated in a 10-by-10 hospital room in Montreal. Those 56 days just happened to coincide with the election campaign — meaning LeBlanc couldn't fight for a job he really wanted to keep.
He had been elected by the people of Beausejour, New Brunswick six times already. This time, he'd have to depend on friends and campaign volunteers to carry him.
LeBlanc was diagnosed last April with a form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma — his second cancer diagnosis in two years. The form of cancer he was diagnosed with almost a year ago is so rare that doctors weren't sure at first what was wrong with him.
"The particular kind I had, there have been around 500 people in the world who've been diagnosed with it since the 1980s," LeBlanc told the CBC's chief political correspondent, Rosemary Barton, in a recent interview in his ministerial office on Parliament Hill.
"The doctors in New Brunswick had never seen one case. The doctors at the large oncology centre in Montreal, where I had further treatments, had seen maybe 10 cases in the last 20 years."
Along with intense chemotherapy, LeBlanc underwent a stem cell transplant. Luckily, his doctors found him a rare genetic match to supply him with stem cells.
"I got 570 million stem cells from an unrelated donor who doesn't live in Canada, who was a 10-out-of-10 perfect genetic match with me and the same blood type and a younger male," he said.
"So I had a perfect donor. I don't know who he is and he doesn't know who I am. Apparently, after a year, they'll tell you.
"I felt enormously lucky."
LeBlanc beat the cancer, won re-election and was re-appointed to cabinet this past November. To protect his vulnerable immune system, LeBlanc wore a surgical mask during the cabinet swearing-in ceremony in November, removing it only to take the oath.
Watch the full interview with the CBC's chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton on why LeBlanc never thought about leaving politics and how he's doing now:
