After 28 years, SFU student receives degreeIt took her almost three decades, but Sandi Haynes finally received her bachelor's degree with distinction from Simon Fraser University last week.

"I took my first post-secondary course when I was on maternity leave with my oldest daughter, who turns 30 in January," said Haynes, a member of the Gitxsan First Nation, in a press release. Haynes initially took several courses per semester while raising her three children in the Interior of B.C., but 10 years ago she became disabled by chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. The pain became so was so severe she had to quit her job and reduce her studies to just one course per semester.

"It was never a question of if I would finish," she said, "but when."Even during the years she looked after her mother who suffered from Alzheimer's and needed kidney dialysis three to five times a day near the end of her life, Haynes never let go of her determination to finish her degree."If you have it in you to dream, you have it in you to succeed," she said. www.twitter.com/BurnabyNOW_news