These are two articles about Anna’s sister, Katya and her fight with a brain tumour. As fans of Anna’s, let’s keep her sister in our thoughts.

From NBR:

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman’s partner Katya Paquin is to have further surgery to try and remove a brain tumour.

Dr Norman told NZPA that Ms Paquin visited Wellington Hospital on Thursday for pre-surgery preparation and would go back on October 17 for the operation.

“This is their third attempt to get the tumour, they’ve got parts of it before and they’re hoping this time they will finish it off,” Dr Norman said.

Asked how he coped with the stress, he answered: “I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is.”

The tumour was diagnosed just a few months before the last election.

“It happened in April-May 2005, it was much more stressful because it was the first time and it was a haemorrhaging tumour back then and I was the campaign manager at that time.”

Ms Paquin is a Green Party researcher.

Dr Norman said the couple had good family support. Ms Paquin’s sister is the Oscar winning actress Anna Paquin.

From NZ Herald:

Katya Paquin, petite and wearing a Deborah Sweeney designer dress, and her partner Green Party co-leader Russel Norman are snuggled together in what could pass as a ramshackle student flat in an old Hataitai villa.

There’s a cheese board and Milton’s organic wine on offer amid the bohemian chic decor, a collection of mismatched and borrowed furniture dominated by a large home-made bookcase crammed with many books and CDs.

Here they have entertained Paquin’s famous sister Anna when she visits from Hollywood, where she has found fame after nabbing the part of Flora in the Jane Campion film The Piano in 1993.

Katya Paquin, now 29, went as 12-year-old to an open audition with a friend after the friend’s mother read an ad in the paper. Paquin and her friend were among a bunch of youngsters who turned up.

“We were not a theatre family at all. I’d never done any acting or anything like that.” Neither had younger sister Anna, but she tagged along for the experience.

“My sister came with us but we were too old for the part. I am three years older so that’s quite a big difference for that role, but it’s funny how things work out.”

Katya doesn’t remember Anna’s gasping Oscar acceptance speech: “I think I may have been at school. I think I got the news over the phone – it was really great.”

Now Paquin talks about the tumour growing in her brain with the same clarity and determination with which her partner talks about politics. “I am hoping to get through this,” she says.

Paquin’s had surgery on the tumour and faces more in the future. She’s had gruelling treatment and takes medication daily, but sidesteps questions about its severity.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail but, you know, I am hoping to get through this.”

There’s laughter and kisses and cuddles with Norman, 41. The room is filled with their love.

Diagnosed with a brain tumour three years ago, Paquin has been “kind of dealing with it ever since”.

She downplays the gravity of her medical condition, using words such as “tricky health stuff” to describe all that she is going through.

“I mean a lot of people have difficulties that they have to deal with and we are trying to deal with it as best as we can.
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