by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 19/97) - Louisa Smith's 25-year-old daughter, Cindy, is dying of inoperable and untreatable cancer in her lungs, liver and hip.

Her 14-year-old daughter, Loretta, is in another room at Stanton Hospital where she is on a dialysis machine 12 hours a day, waiting for new kidneys. She has been on the waiting list for the last three years.

Smith's husband hasn't worked since his contract with the hamlet of Rae disappeared and she can't keep working at the senior's home because she has to be with her daughters. The family had to give up their telephone because of mounting bills -- collection agencies are hounding them and bills are piling up.

But she isn't worried about that, at least, not until Christmas is over. All she wants is for her elder daughter to be with her family for one last Christmas. All she wants is for the family to have a Christmas, and she is reluctantly seeking help.

"I don't like doing this but we really need it," she said this week on the third floor of Stanton Hospital, where Cindy lay a few metres away in a room with a small, polite sign taped to the door asking visitors to please knock before entering.

"I really want my kids to have a Christmas. With all that's happened, my kids don't have Christmas presents, decorations, anything."

She has eight children between the ages of 12 and 26, six girls and two boys, and five of them suffer from a genetic disorder that causes poor vision and other health problems.

Smith says she thinks the syndrome was partially responsible for her daughter's cancer because she is too young to have developed the disease otherwise.

With Cindy on ever-increasing doses of narcotics to control the pain, Smith took Cindy home to Rae earlier in the week, and hopes to bring Loretta back on Tuesday. As an expert in medical procedures as only the parent of a sick child can be, she says she will perform the little girl's dialysis (blood-cleaning) with a home machine.

Cindy, who has a two-year-old son of her own, is not expected to live long into the new year. She had been complaining of pain in her legs for more than a year, Smith said, and when the cancer was diagnosed and recognized as too aggressive for treatment, Cindy sought relief both in medical science and from a medicine woman in Alberta who told her to be strong for her son's sake.

The toll on the family from the ongoing illnesses has been enormous, she said, and they are looking for a respite.

"I just want to try and cheer them up."

Smith says the band council and citizens of Rae have helped the family out on several occasions with expenses, which included regular trips to Edmonton for specialized treatment, but for the rest of their expenses they rely on small payments from social assistance.

Smith recalls a recent medical trip to Edmonton with Loretta just after the girl received a cheque from the Dogrib band, money distributed by the Dene Nation to all band members in the North Slave. Her daughter carefully protected the cheque until she got to Edmonton.

"I felt so sorry when Loretta said 'Did you buy me any Christmas presents' and I couldn't tell her that we didn't have the money this year," Smith recalls with a tear in her eye.

"When we got down to Edmonton, she took her cheque and bought us all little presents with it."

The Roman Catholic parish in Yellowknife has agreed to accept gifts for the family prior to Christmas at the rectory at 5216 52nd St., or at the church at the corner of 52nd Avenue and 52nd Street, and transportation to Rae will be arranged.