Nine months after Chantelle Chornoby died from cancer, her family appeared at the Youth Aboriginal Conference to ensure that Chantelle's Promise - the campaign to increase stem cell and bone marrow donations among aboriginals - would live on.
"As a family, we will work to keep Chantelle's promise," said Thelma Kirkness, Chornoby's aunt. "She said that cancer would not kill her - and cancer did not kill her, she just lost the battle, and she lives on through her promise to others. Even in her battle she thought about others."
The presentation was made by the family on Feb. 5, which would have been Chornoby's 22nd birthday.
Initially diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer, at age 10, Chornoby - originally from Ilford - was able to beat the disease and attend R.D. Parker Collegiate, where she herself spent a year as president of the school's Youth Aboriginal Council.
She was later diagnosed with another form of cancer, and underwent chemotherapy treatments. In need of a bone marrow transplant, but unable to find a suitable donor, Chornoby and her family approached the Burntwood Regional Health Authority (BRHA) in January 2008, the end result of which was the creation of Chantelle's Promise - a partnership between the BRHA and the Canadian Blood Service's OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network to increase awareness of the importance of bone marrow and stem cell donations in Northern Manitoba aboriginal communities.
In 2009, Chornoby's cancer returned in the form of acute myloidgenous leukemia - and even after that, and after doctors had told her she would never be able to have children, Chornoby's son Cheveyo was born May 12, 2009. Since Chornobdy's death nearly a year later, on May 9, 2010, Cheveyo - who Kirkness called "our miracle baby" - has been cared for by Chornoby's grandparents, Jim and Edna Chornoby, who also raised Chantelle.
"She loved live to the fullest," said Kirkness of Chornoby. "She never complained, I never heard her once complain. She was determined to beat this battle of cancer that she had, and battled it for 11 years."
"She wanted to work in her community in the future," continued Kirkness. "She set goals for herself, and she was determined to finish those goals so that she could go back to her community and make a difference. She saw, growing up, what the alcohol and drugs did to the young people - not only in her community, but in Thompson and wherever."
"We launched the campaign on Valentine's Day 2008, and in that first year, we were able to register 50 more people on the registry, which is quite a big feat," explained BRHA communications co-ordinator Blake Ellis, who has worked actively on the campaign since it began. In order to be eligible to be placed on the donor registry, prospective registrants must be between the ages of 17 and 50, in good health, and be willing to give to absolutely anyone.
"There's 268,000 people registered on the bone marrow registry in Canada - only 1 per cent is of aboriginal descent, and to find a match has a lot to do with ethnicity and blood type, among other things," said Ellis.
"This is quite emotional for the BRHA and for her family," he continued. "This is the first event that we've been able to come forward and re-launch Chantelle's Promise. We're here in her honour, and what we need is for people to stand forward if they want to register on the bone marrow list. We want to be able to keep her promise."
"When you step forward and want to be put on the registry, you're helping Chantelle keep her promise," said Ellis.
