She was told she probably wouldn’t live to see Christmas, that her deadly brain tumour meant she had maybe two months.

But in the end, Kimm Fletcher, the Milton mother of two who fought the province tirelessly to cover the cost of a drug to prolong her life, got eight months.

She died peacefully in hospice in Oakville on Sunday night, said her sister, Hallie Fletcher. She was 41.

Even though she died just short of her goal of attending her daughter’s confirmation this June, Hallie said she savoured the extra time.

Fletcher spent Christmas with her family, took her little boy and girl to Great Wolf Lodge for the first — and second — time and, just days before she died, dipped her fingers into a jar of water straight from the Atlantic Ocean.

“It was always on her bucket list to dip her body, her head, everything into the ocean, just like Terry Fox, and she never got to go,” said Hallie, crying as she spoke. “So a friend of hers sent a jar of the ocean to her.”

Fletcher, who was diagnosed in 2010 with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive and deadly form of brain cancer, made a passionate plea to Health Minister Deb Matthews in October, trying unsuccessfully to get the province to cover the cost of the drug Avastin, which she continued to take at a cost of about $8,000 per month.

Matthews said she was saddened to hear of Fletcher’s death, but maintained that guidelines for drugs must be followed.

“It’s heartbreaking news. I’ve certainly been thinking about her and her family . . . it’s tragic when a young person with cancer passes away,” Matthews told reporters, noting the government has tripled funding for cancer drugs.

“We have a very rigorous process in place . . . we rely on evidence, we rely on experts to make these decisions.”

The drug is approved for brain cancer treatment by Health Canada and covered in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In Ontario, it’s only covered for colorectal cancer, a decision made by the province’s drug evaluation committee.

Even though the answer was no, Fletcher kept fighting.

Family and friends raised more than $111,000 to pay for the treatment the province would not provide.

Her final months were spent with her family, but Hallie said she never stopped advocating for other people’s access to drugs.

“She was the kind of person, even when she wasn’t sick, she just had to do everything for everybody else,” she said. “It was always about making someone else’s life as best as it could be . . . and when the fight came, she wanted everybody to have their meds.”

Hallie, who spent Sunday with the kids while Fletcher’s husband, Scott, said goodbye, said Fletcher was always honest with them about her cancer, involving them in fundraising and Runs for the Cure.

“She wanted them to know that a lot of the way to get through our own pain was to help others,” Hallie said. “She wanted them to know that, because she knew there’d be a lot of pain they’d have to go through.”

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At Queen’s Park, where Fletcher stood months ago, asking for more time, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said he couldn’t imagine what her family is going through.

“As a father of two little girls myself, and my wife passed away — I can’t even imagine what that does to the family. And that’s not the kind of Ontario I think that we ever expect to see. I expect Ontario to be first on the list for new drugs. … We can do a lot better,” Hudak told reporters.