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Updated: Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam NDP candidate Gower in hospital

Christina Gower awaits surgery at Royal Columbian Hospital for a burst cyst, she's watching the election from her hospital bed.
Gower
NDP candidate for Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam spent election night in hospital awaiting surgery.

As Canadians across the country follow the 43rd federal election, one Tri-City candidate is keeping an eye on things from a hospital bed.

Christina Gower, NDP candidate for Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam, is at Royal Columbian Hospital (RCH) tonight waiting for surgery for the removal of a cyst that burst, causing a great deal of pain and cancelling her final 24 hours of campaigning.

Still, Gower was optimistic the election would go well for the NDP and was expressing gratitude to her volunteers and family.

“The campaign was truly grassroots," Gower told The Tri-City News via text from her a bed in the RCH emergency room. "We have formed an amazing team that plans to stick together and build this riding. We all felt like we could win tonight but if we don’t, we definitely will next time.

"It’s been especially great for me to spend time with so many caring people, both young and old. My sisters have just arrived to visit the hospital after volunteering all day for us.”

She said she expected to have her surgery sometime around midnight or in the early morning hours of Tuesday but she had no intention of ignoring the election.

“We are going to follow the result along with the rest of Canada. I am due for surgery sometime in the next four to six hours,” she said, noting, “I am doubly grateful for our health care system being on this side of it and truly hope we have chosen as Canadians to elect progressive politicians across this country.”

Gower is a psychiatric nurse at Royal Columbian, has been a member of Greenpeace since 1991and protested the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline on Burnaby Mountain. Mental health was among her issues in the election.

She faced off against Liberal and incumbent MP Ron McKinnon, Conservative Nicholas Insley and Brad Nickason of the Green Party, as well as the People's Party of Canada's Ronald Spornicu and Dan Iova of the Veterans Coalition Party.

By Tuesday afternoon, Gower had a successful surgery and was leaving the hospital.

She told the Tri-City News via text: "We did great considering all the challenges."

She promised to keep making voter contact and building the NDP team, and praised her "amazing new friends.

"I am so proud of all of them."