In a move that surprised almost everybody around her, Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, revealed on Wednesday her ongoing treatment for leukemia, with the most surprising element being she had been battling the disease from past 10 years. The disclosure came four days after the 56-year-old lawmaker bumped her state-issued SUV into the back of a vehicle stopped at the red light.

Just after the crash, her office issued a statement saying Migden was trying to reach for her cell phone when the accident happened, but on Wednesday in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, the senator said that her medication for leukemia might have disoriented her.

"My only explanation is that it is medically related in some way," she told the Chronicle.

Migden said she plans to undergo neurological tests to try to determine what might have happened last Friday.

Migden said she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997 and doctor at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) had given a life expectancy of three to five years.

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood or bone marrow and is characterized by an abnormal proliferation of blood cells, usually white blood cells. Some common symptoms associated with the disease include fevers, frequent infections, general body weakness, pain in bones and joints, swollen lymph nodes and weight loss.