The last few years haven’t been easy for former Estevan resident William Sinclair, but he has been keeping a positive attitude and receiving a lot of support while he continues to battle cancer.
Sinclair was selected to be the beneficiary for the ninth annual Victor Elias Memorial Shoot for a Cure basketball tournament, which was held on March 1 and 2 at the Estevan Comprehensive School’s (ECS) gymnasium.
The tournament is hosted by the ECS Elecs senior girls basketball team each year, and is named for Elias, who was the father of Elecs head coach Jessie Smoliak. He died from cancer in 2017.
Sinclair, who was on-staff at ECS at one time, said the money will be very beneficial.
“I was pretty honoured. I was humbled,” Sinclair told Lifestyles. “It was definitely something that was much needed in my life right now, because I can’t work outside the home or anything … so financially it’s a blessing for me.”
The Moose Jaw Central Cyclones, who faced the Elecs on March 1, also presented a cheque to the Sinclair family.
The money from the tournament will be used to offset costs associated with his cancer fight. He has a medication that costs about US$350 per month, which has helped, and he also has a lot of travel costs associated with doctor appointments and CT scans.
His wife Edrina is currently the only one working.
“I appreciate every penny,” Sinclair said.
Smoliak pointed out that Sinclair’s daughter Nicole Rogalski is a teacher at ECS and was Smoliak’s intern at one time. Rogalski teaches and coaches a lot of the girls on the senior girls basketball team.
The team members selected Sinclair to benefit from Shoot for a Cure.
Sinclair and his family relocated from Estevan to Moose Jaw in 2012, and then moved to Kenosee Lake a couple of years later. But it’s clear that he still has a lot of friends in the Estevan area, as many people came up to hug him before the start of the tournament’s opening ceremonies.
Sinclair was first diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2015. He went through several chemotherapy and radiation treatments in Regina, which then led to him receiving life-saving surgery in Saskatoon, where his entire esophagus was removed.
In April 2018, the cancer returned, except this time it had spread to his colon. He went through a more aggressive treatment of chemotherapy for about four months, which did not work. Surgery was performed on Dec. 11 of last year as a precaution, with a large section of his colon being removed. It is a long recovery process.
A CT scan in February found something in his stomach, but it’s not known whether it is cancerous. Since he’s not suffering from nausea, another CT scan won’t be needed until May.
“I had a good checkup a few months ago,” said Sinclair. “I got good reports in general from my oncologist and surgeon, and they both basically said that the Stage 4 cancer that I had, or the tumour, was healed … and the tumour was gone. They had taken a big chunk of my colon out.”
Despite his health problems, he feels very positive and inspired as he continues to fight cancer.
And while he and his wife have been gone from the community for the better part of a decade, they know they have a lot of people pulling for them.
“I’m just amazed at how, when you build relationships, how long those relationships last even when you’re not in the community. We’re not too far away … and so with Facebook and everything, you still stay in touch.”
