SENS’ WIVES CHEER ON CHEO
Anderson, others take time for kids
After beginning her own medical odyssey in October, Nicholle Anderson was going to do everything in her power to make sure she didn’t miss Monday’s visit to CHEO by the Ottawa Senators’ wives and girlfriends.
“I made it my point to find enough energy to come here today,” the wife of Senators goalie Craig Anderson said during the visit, “because to go to the oncology floor and just know exactly what they’re going through, their daily struggles, what their parents go through, between the caregivers, to the patients struggling every day, I felt it was necessary to come here to lift some spirit if I can.”
Anderson has been battling a rare form of head and neck cancer known as nasopharyngeal cancer for about four months. The nasopharynx is located behind the nose, in the upper part of the throat.
As part of Anderson’s aggressive treatment plan at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, she was to receive 33 sessions of radiation therapy alongside chemotherapy. That was to be followed by three more rounds of chemotherapy over 12 weeks.
Craig Anderson spent most of two months in New York by his wife’s side, but when radiation treatments ended a few weeks ago, it allowed the couple to return to Ottawa.
The Senators got their No. 1 goalie back in the net for the first time since Dec. 5 on Saturday afternoon at the Canadian Tire Centre, and he responded as if he’d never been away, making 33 saves in a 3-0 win over the New York Islanders.
“It doesn’t matter what day it is babe, you will always be my first star! I love you!” Nicholle tweeted to her husband after the game.
Nicholle is preparing for another round of chemotherapy, but on Monday she was glad for the opportunity to provide some comfort to children facing similar battles at CHEO.
“Just to even do a craft to make them smile,” Nicholle said. “Just to have that one minute away from needles, away from doctors, away from that dark-side feeling, it’s going to make my day.”