Yukon NDP Leader Todd Hardy will return to Vancouver next month for a bone marrow transplant as part of his ongoing leukemia treatment.

'I get to feel like I'm almost dead all over again,' he told reporters at a press conference this morning.

Hardy was diagnosed with and treated for leukemia in late summer and fall, leaving him absent for much of the Oct. 10 territorial election.

Despite his absence, he was voted back into office and will be sworn in with his two NDP colleagues next Tuesday.

Though Hardy has been labelled as being in remission, with no signs of the leukemia, he noted it could come 'roaring back' at any time and the additional treatment is being done as a preventative measure.

The chemotherapy and radiation, he explained were able to keep the leukemia 'at bay', but it isn't a cure.

Complications with his liver started after his treatment and it was determined a bone marrow transplant would be the best course of action.

'My liver had been compromised quite severely,' he said.

That means he'll likely leave for Vancouver General Hospital in late November and return to the territory in February, though those dates have to be confirmed.

His treatment will include three days of chemotherapy, followed by three days of radiation and a day of rest before the transplant.

Essentially, he explained, doctors will remove his 'mutated chromosomes' and replace them with those of his older sister, who is his donor.

After that, he'll be under close monitoring for a month as his body begins producing new cells. For the first 12 to 21 days it takes the stem cells to graph, he'll have no resistance to infections, he said.

As his cell count goes up, he'll be able to move out of the hospital with monitoring visits spread out until he's finally able to come home. He expects that would be at the end of February or early March, provided everything goes right.

Hardy said he's fortunate that he has an older sister who will act as a donor. Her match has been deemed as good.

With a good match from a sibling, he said, the success rate of the treatment is at 50 to 75 per cent. It can be even higher for an identical twin, while for a non-sibling match, the success rate is between 20 to 50 per cent.

'It's a journey; quite a journey,' Hardy said.

His illness has also meant the NDP leader has seen first-hand the kind of impact that cuts to the health care system can have.

Reductions made in B.C. he said, meant cleaning services for the hospitals were contracted out and diminished the quality of cleanliness in his hospital room, where the garbage sometimes would not be emptied for two or three days.

Other times, his wife, Louise, would help clean the room, and still other times health care staff would be distracted from their tasks because of the cleaning.

While he praised hospital staff such as nurses and doctors in Vancouver, he noted that infections at hospitals there have gone up, likely due to the cleanliness problems.

Whitehorse General Hospital, where he's been having his blood monitored, is very clean because services are not contracted out, he said.

'That's the difference you see up here and down there,' he said, adding he doesn't want to see the Yukon government go in the same direction other provinces have taken the public health care system.

Staying in a hospital for leukemia treatment has also raised issues for him around the need for an open discussion on permitting people to die with dignity and grace as he watched other patients in pain ask that they just be permitted to move on from the treatment.

Hardy said that he was fortunate he wasn't in a lot of pain, like other patients. Rather, he found himself extremely weak and sick under the treatment.

As he sets his sights on his next term of office, the NDP Leader is hopeful the legislature will be called for a sitting in mid-November so he can be here for the opening.

He's expecting the fall sitting to be short and fairly basic in dealing primarily with financial issues.

While he's away, one of his two colleagues will be delegated as acting leader.

The spring sitting, he expects, will happen after the Canada Winter Games are finished, which would take it into March.

'In some ways, it's a good time for me to deal with my health,' he said.