NDP Leader Todd Hardy will be home by the end of the week.

Hardy, 49, has been battling leukemia since August 2006 and has spent much of the last seven months in Vancouver hospitals.

The NDP leader was expected to be home around the 100-day mark after his Nov. 24, 2006 bone marrow transplant.

He ended up staying in Vancouver as doctors continued to monitor his conditions as he dealt with a virus, was weaned off prednisone and began to have to manage his own intake of food and fluids.

Hardy told the Star last week he had been negotiating with his chief doctor on when he could return to the Yukon and expected her to make a decision by yesterday. Hardy said at the time he was hopeful he would be back in Whitehorse within 10 or 11 days.

NDP caucus spokesperson Ken Bolton confirmed this morning Hardy's doctor has given him the green light and he will be flying back to the territory before the week's end.

To get the go-ahead, Hardy had to be taken off prednisone, and he received his last dosage almost two weeks ago.

'Coming off it has been really difficult,' said Hardy.

He said he expected it to be very challenging coming off the drug and beginning to function on his own depleted body strength but was surprised with how well he had been feeling.

Hardy said at his previous meeting with his doctor she had been 'ecstatic' at his process.

'The transplant is going very, very well,' he said. 'There's no sign of leukemia in my body at all.'

Hardy said his medical team wasn't overly confident he would survive the stem cell transplant, but his body and specifically his liver has dealt with everything that has been thrown at it.

'They're just as happy as can be,' he said of the medical team's view on his health.

But despite his doctors' excitement, Hardy said the only thing he and his wife, Louise, could think about and ask was when he would get to return home to his family.

'She's (the doctor's) ecstatic and we don't even care. It was like we were in two different meetings. It was just when can I go home?''

Hardy said the doctor wanted to keep him in Vancouver for an additional month to monitor an immune system virus that has appeared in his body as a result of taking the prednisone.

The virus, which exists in a normal human body but doesn't tend to surface in a properly functioning immune system, is considered to be highly dangerous to leukemia patients, said Hardy. Its flu-like symptoms can develop into pneumonia if not closely monitored, he added.

But a compromise managed to be reached that required Hardy to prove he could hold back his own food and had the ability to drink enough to keep hydrated and to control his blood pressure.

'I'm pumping water into me. I'm so sick and tired of drinking,' said Hardy of the almost four litres of fluids he was having to ingest a day.

As of Monday's meeting, Hardy would have been off the drug and off an IV for almost 12 days.

He said if he had managed well, his doctor would allow him to come home.

Hardy will be flying back to the territory while Louise will be returning by car with one of their daughters.

Hardy said he is still very weak from his treatment, which included chemotherapy, radiation, an array of testing and combating graft-versus-host disease, which occurred following his stem cell transplant.

'Really, it is the treatment you're trying to recover from,' he said. 'I'm just so tired of being tired.'

He said at this point, his medical team is still projecting his chances of survival are about 50-50.

He has now passed the 100-day mark since his stem cell treatment, which is considered to be the most difficult and questionable period.

His doctors are now looking at him reaching the one-year mark from the transplant, which can also be a touchy period.

Hardy said he will still have to go back down to Vancouver on a regular basis for testing and monitoring that can't be performed in the territory.

While the current virus is still observed to be in his system, he may have to be travelling down to British Columbia almost weekly.

'I'm just trying to get better,' he said.

Hardy still goes to a clinic twice a week and continues to have his blood counts monitored, but is currently only on one major cancer medication related to his transplant, and is expected to continue to have to take it for another six to eight months.

Hardy said he felt he could only afford to be away from home so long mentally, physically and financially.

He was home briefly at the end of the 2006 election campaign last October and said during that time he felt he improved 10-fold.

It allowed him to be engaged with other people, to eat better and to be around his support networks.

'The improvement will be a lot more dramatic then being down here,' he said of his return to Whitehorse.

The NDP leader said he intends to sit in his Whitehorse Centre seat in the legislature when the assembly begins its spring sitting.

Hardy said he hopes to be there for most of the daily question periods.

With some co-operation from the government side of the house, he added, he'd also like to ensure he can be on the floor when topics of debate are brought forward of his interest or pertaining to his critic responsibilities.

He added he'll strive to attend as many meetings of his caucus and briefings in the mornings that he can.

'I'll sit a schedule that allows me to do it,' he said. 'I think each day I'll get stronger but it will take a few months to really start to feel better.'

Hardy, however, said his first order of business on getting home is to 'give a very big hug' to his four-year-old granddaughter Ellazora, who has been calling him in Vancouver at the Jean C. Barber Lodge every day.

Hardy first ran for political office successfully in the October 1996 election. He was narrowly defeated by then-Liberal Mike McLarnon in the 2000 vote when the Liberals swept to power, taking every seat in Whitehorse.

Hardy regained the Whitehorse Centre seat with an 82-vote margin in 2002.

The riding's voters gave him the seal of approval yet again this past October when he took 47 per cent of the vote and 357 ballots.

He and his wife have four grown children Janelle, Tytus, Tess and Lymond.