Mother and daughter in Timmins share inspiring cancer story in new podcast

A mother and daughter in Timmins are recovering from their battles with cancer over the pandemic.

Yuniarti and her daughter Ney, 16, were diagnosed within weeks of each other and are now cancer free — and their journey is the subject of a podcast produced by the Sick Kids Foundation.

It started when Ney came down with a fever on a family trip to their home country of Indonesia — and a visit to hospital when they returned.

“They call me back again, you need to come again to emergency and then they (are) telling us that she got leukemia,” Yuniarti said.

After two years of treatment, Ney went into remission and they thought that was the end of it.

Then Yuniarti found a lump in her breast. She got a mastectomy and began chemotherapy. Two months later, Ney came down with a fever again.

Her leukemia had returned.

Yuniarti was able to transfer to the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto so she could visit Ney as she underwent T-cell treatment while continuing her chemotherapy.

“We take turns with my sister … and then we stay at Ronald McDonald House, when we had both of us, treatment,” she said.

Sick Kids’s resource navigation program helped them figure out travel, other accommodations and paperwork, so they could focus on their treatment.

“How overwhelmed they were, how stressed they were and then how they were able to really show resiliency and navigate through this journey with strength,” said Lisa Berardo of Sick Kids Hospital.

“And then to see them at the end, is just, obviously, very heartwarming.”

Yuniarti said she is grateful to the health care staff in Timmins, Toronto and Sudbury, along with the organizations, family and friends who supported them in their battle against cancer and still do, as they figure out their next steps.

“I was so lucky,” she said.

“We were bless(ed) that everybody support us.”

She said she’s proud of how strong her daughter has been throughout, adding they want to put cancer worries behind them for good.

“We just try to, ‘OK, let’s move on.’ We try to be normal, but it’s just there, the feeling.”

After battling cancer in the middle of a global pandemic, Yuniarti said they can handle anything.

They’ll be featured in the fourth season of the Sick Kids Versus podcast, which highlights struggles and triumphs in child health.

They’ll be in the first episode, premiering Thursday.