“When I was ten years old, my mother was diagnosed with leukemia,” said Christine Ichim. “I vowed that I would not let my mother die.”

Ten years ago this month, 18-year-old Ichim decided to rollerblade across Canada, with the goal of raising $300,000 to help fund a clinical trial of a promising leukemia treatment she hoped could save her mother’s life.

The trek lasted 165 days, and Ichim didn’t reach her monetary goal. What she did raise went towards a research paper on leukemia out of London Health Sciences Centre.

And the Ichim family tried another drug.

“At the time, leukemia was a death sentence,” Ichim said. “So [my mother] entered into a clinical trial here at the Princess Margaret Hospital as a last resort.”

It was the revolutionary drug Interferon that gave her mother more time-19 years and counting, in fact. Florica Ichim is alive today despite a diagnosis of leukemia that gave her four or five years to live.

“A lot has changed in the 19 years since my mother was diagnosed,” said Ichim.

Not only have a slew of treatment options emerged, but Ichim has also joined the ranks of the researchers she once rollerbladed to fund.

“As I sat there with my mom in the waiting room at The Princess Margaret Hospital, I vowed that someday, I would walk those halls not as a patient, not with my mom, but as a scientist,” said Ichim. “And today, I live that dream.”

She and her brother, two years her elder, began to study leukemia as soon as their mother was diagnosed. As a teenager, Ichim won a national science fair for a cancer-related project. Now she is in her second year working toward a PhD in cancer research.

As a scientist, Ichim fears that her peers may see her as too emotionally invested in her work to approach it professionally. As a result, she has shelved her roller-blading story despite the impact it has made in her life.

“Science is supposed to be something cold-not emotional,” Ichim said. “I don’t tell people [my story] anymore. I go to the lab and I’m a scientist.”

However, Ichim wanted to use the anniversary of her cross-Canada odyssey to send a message to others battling cancer.

“On this 10th anniversary, I wanted to put together a day when we could say there is hope for leukemia,” said Ichim. “You can fight cancer and you can win.”

Ichim also used the anniversary to launch an English translation of a book her mother wrote in Romanian about living with cancer, entitled At the Gates of Despair, the Beginning of Hope.

The book is published online at a forum-based website for cancer patients to share their stories of survival, www.hopeforleukemia.com.