World Can­cer Aware­ness Day, ob­served an­nu­al­ly on Feb­ru­ary 4, seeks to raise aware­ness about can­cer and en­cour­age its pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion, and treat­ment. On this year’s World Can­cer Day, themed “Unit­ed by Unique” we are called to re­mem­ber our col­lec­tive com­mit­ment against can­cer, and the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion ac­knowl­edges every pa­tient’s unique ex­pe­ri­ences and the val­ue of peo­ple-cen­tered care de­liv­ered joint­ly by health­care providers, fam­i­lies, friends and com­mu­ni­ty.

Guardian Me­dia's Nicole Dray­ton has been open about her Can­cer di­ag­no­sis and has open­ly shared with WE the ups, downs and chal­lenges of nav­i­gat­ing life with the dread­ed dis­ease. A year lat­er, Nicole shares where she has been and where she is go­ing, and as she says, it's a jour­ney filled with grat­i­tude.

C is for can­cer, and C is al­so for com­mu­ni­ty, and this is the best part of deal­ing with can­cer, as your com­mu­ni­ty helps you get through the gru­elling process.  

I can’t stop say­ing thank you to all those who have poured in­to me in so many ways. I ap­pre­ci­ate and love you all. 

Last year went so fast, and it was like a blur. In No­vem­ber 2024, I found a lump on my right breast, and I went to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety in De­cem­ber of 2024, where I was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer two days be­fore Christ­mas. 

I un­der­went a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my in March, the next year and had a sec­ond surgery in May, as the can­cer had spread to my lymph nodes un­der my right arm, so that changed my can­cer stage 1 di­ag­no­sis to stage 3c now. The emo­tion­al break­downs, doc­tor vis­its, the dif­fer­ent scans, eight rounds of chemother­a­py and now 15 rounds of ra­di­a­tion every day, plus med­ica­tion for the next ten years to help keep can­cer at bay.  It has been a crush­ing jour­ney.

But de­spite it all, I am still grate­ful.

I’m thank­ful to God for en­sur­ing I reached this far. 

Can­cer has sure­ly changed my life. The changes aren’t just the phys­i­cal changes, like my de­ci­sion to shave my head bald be­fore my first chemother­a­py ses­sion; I re­moved both of my breasts (dou­ble mas­tec­to­my), not that I had to, but I did it for my peace of mind. I have no plans of hav­ing re­con­struc­tion done (my per­son­al pref­er­ence). I have al­so had 23 lymph nodes re­moved, which means I’m lim­it­ed in what I can do with my right arm. Now, if I do some­thing as sim­ple as lift­ing a bag, sweep­ing or even cook­ing, it can lead to my arm swelling. 

Men­tal­ly, I am no longer the same. I keep won­der­ing what if some­thing is hid­ing.

Emo­tion­al­ly, I grieve and am still griev­ing the loss of the old Nicole. I am al­so strug­gling with the chem­i­cals be­ing used to fight can­cer in my body, the brain fog, the tired­ness, loss of ap­petite, and weight gain. 

But a line from rap­per Kendrick Lamar’s Eu­pho­ria, which was a diss to rap­per Drake, asks, “Have you ever played, have you ever? Ok, let’s play, have you ever watch your en­e­my down with a poke face?” That’s how I felt, I was “diss­ing” can­cer, as I en­tered the gayelle to fight for my life!

But as I said be­fore, C is for com­mu­ni­ty, and my com­mu­ni­ty is too many to name.

But, I’m thank­ful for all the sup­port, the hugs and kiss­es, the staff from the Can­cer So­ci­ety, St James Med­ical Com­plex for chemother­a­py and now the Can­cer Cen­tre of the Caribbean for ra­di­a­tion. Let me tell you, they are all Top Tier. I have been giv­en the best treat­ment at every stage of this jour­ney. 

Mov­ing for­ward, I’m just learn­ing this new ver­sion of me, who is ever thank­ful that I’m here a year lat­er af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed.

Here’s to many, many more years.