Natasha Said­wan

Pro­duc­tion Ed­i­tor

natasha.said­wan@guardian.co.tt

Sarah Ra­goonath knew the pain of can­cer long be­fore she re­ceived her own di­ag­no­sis.

More than 20 years ago, she watched her moth­er, Anne Boodoo, lose her bat­tle with ovar­i­an can­cer. Anne was 47.

Last year, on Oc­to­ber 10, Sarah found her­self con­fronting this ill­ness in her own life.

It’s been a long year for Sarah and, to­day, with just four chemother­a­py in­jec­tions re­main­ing, Sarah—mar­ket­ing man­ag­er at Gulf City Lim­it­ed, La Ro­maine—is most­ly in the clear, though the emo­tion­al weight of her jour­ney re­mains vivid.

“I feel so many emo­tions—re­lief, grat­i­tude, and sad­ness—all at the same time,” Sarah shared.

“I feel re­lieved and grate­ful be­cause I’m at the end of the tun­nel and see­ing the light. I’m get­ting my life back af­ter it was on hold for an en­tire year. At the same time, I feel sad be­cause you miss your old self.”

Find­ing her way

through treat­ment

Di­ag­nosed with triple-pos­i­tive breast can­cer—a type her doc­tors re­as­sured her was very treat­able—Sarah was placed on a reg­i­men that re­quired chemother­a­py pri­or to surgery to shrink the tu­mour. Though the phys­i­cal toll has been heavy, vis­i­ble signs of re­cov­ery are be­gin­ning to re­turn.

“Phys­i­cal­ly, I’m get­ting back eye­lash­es, eye­brows, and hair,” she said. “I am not ful­ly my old self, but I don’t mind where I am be­cause I’m alive.”

Nav­i­gat­ing chemother­a­py was a dai­ly men­tal and phys­i­cal bat­tle for her.

“Chemo was trau­mat­ic be­cause es­sen­tial­ly you are in­ject­ing poi­son in­to your sys­tem with the hope that it gets you bet­ter,” Sarah ex­plained.

Jug­gling treat­ment along­side full-time work, home life, and rais­ing her two sons re­quired im­mense sta­mi­na.

“It’s phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly drain­ing, and it’s de­press­ing be­ing in a place (hos­pi­tal) where every­one is fight­ing and try­ing to stay pos­i­tive, not know­ing if we’re go­ing to make it.”

Emo­tion­al toll of can­cer

For Sarah, who turned 50 in March, one of the hard­est as­pects of treat­ment was the sud­den change in phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance.

Treat­ment be­gan on No­vem­ber 10, 2025, and while her first two ses­sions passed with­out no­tice—al­low­ing her to co­or­di­nate a ma­jor Christ­mas launch at work over the week­end be­fore at­tend­ing chemo on Mon­day—the vis­i­ble signs of ill­ness even­tu­al­ly caught up.

“No­body can pre­pare you for when your hair starts to fall. A bob-style hair­cut didn’t pre­vent the heart­break,” she re­called. “Even­tu­al­ly, you start to look like a can­cer pa­tient, and it stirs up pity and, hon­est­ly, some un­want­ed con­ver­sa­tion.”

When asked about neg­a­tives, Sarah added that some well-mean­ing com­ments miss the mark. She point­ed out that re­marks min­imis­ing the di­ag­no­sis can be hurt­ful.

“Peo­ple say things like, ‘It’s just hair, it will grow back,’ or ‘You’re lucky you caught it at Stage Two.’ Even at Stage Two, I still had to un­der­go full, rig­or­ous treat­ment just like a Stage Four pa­tient.

“No two pa­tients ex­pe­ri­ence the same can­cer; every­one has their own pains and their own way of deal­ing with them,” she added.

Sarah found com­fort in mod­ern med­i­cine, adding that nau­sea man­age­ment has im­proved sig­nif­i­cant­ly com­pared to past gen­er­a­tions.

“I re­mem­ber my mom be­ing very sick, vom­it­ing all the time,” Sarah re­flect­ed. “Thank good­ness for ad­vance­ments in med­i­cine, as my nau­sea was al­most non-ex­is­tent.”

Faith, fam­i­ly and the

strength to keep go­ing

To push through treat­ment, Sarah adopt­ed a struc­tured, pro­fes­sion­al mind­set.

“I pro­grammed my mind to do this and get over it. I treat­ed this like a job—I had a count­down and ticked off each ses­sion when com­plet­ed.”

Her faith was an­oth­er vi­tal pil­lar. “This is when God stepped in, she said.

“He held my hand and said, ‘walk with me’. No­body else can save you but God.”

Through­out her treat­ment, strength came from both ex­pect­ed and un­ex­pect­ed places.

Her hus­band Neil, to whom she has been mar­ried for 22 years, along­side her sons Luke, 21, and Joshua, 18, served as her ul­ti­mate rock.

“You hear some hor­ror sto­ries about our health­care sys­tem, but my ex­pe­ri­ence was dif­fer­ent. My ser­vice was ex­cep­tion­al,” she shared.

Pro­fes­sion­al care came from Dr Steven Sankar, Dr Visham Bha­ga­loo, Dr Aneela Shah, and the med­ical team at Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal/Can­cer Cen­tre South.

Sarah al­so found ex­tra­or­di­nary sup­port in her work­place. Gulf City’s ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Sean Hadeed be­came a pil­lar of strength, of­fer­ing flex­i­ble hours, time off for clin­ic vis­its, and dai­ly in­spi­ra­tional quotes.

“My boss in­spired me to change my mind­set, which helped me heal,” she said. “He en­cour­aged me to strength­en my mind and to face my can­cer with a pos­i­tive mind­set. I had the com­plete sup­port of my of­fice.”

An un­ex­pect­ed bond

that in­spired her fight

On the chemother­a­py ward, Sarah forged a mean­ing­ful bond with Roel Mo­hammed, a 21-year-old can­cer rel­a­tive and pa­tient who of­fered ad­vice and com­pan­ion­ship dur­ing some of her ses­sions, right up un­til his pass­ing.

“His can­cer jour­ney broke my heart, as I have two sons around his age. Roel reached out to me when I was di­ag­nosed and walked with me through chemo, what to do, what to ex­pect. His calm dis­po­si­tion and strength com­fort­ed me on my low days. When he passed, I made up my mind to fight hard­er be­cause I felt he was guid­ing me from heav­en. I made a promise to look out for his mom, Cindy, who is al­so my cousin,” Sarah shared.

“Added to that, mem­o­ries of my mom and aunt, who both suc­cumbed to the ill­ness, kept me go­ing when I felt it was be­com­ing too dif­fi­cult.”

Small, prac­ti­cal acts of kind­ness from friends—drop­ping off lunch, sit­ting through hours of treat­ment, or sim­ply show­ing up - made all the dif­fer­ence.

Sup­port that goes

be­yond sym­pa­thy

For those cur­rent­ly fac­ing a di­ag­no­sis, Sarah em­pha­sis­es the pow­er of per­se­ver­ance and prac­ti­cal sup­port. She ad­vis­es loved ones not just to of­fer sym­pa­thy, but to step in with tan­gi­ble help—prepar­ing meals, run­ning er­rands, or as­sist­ing around the house.

As she pre­pares to com­plete her fi­nal in­jec­tions, Sarah added that the jour­ney doesn’t end with the last treat­ment.

“Can­cer does not end when treat­ment ends. The fa­tigue is re­al, and you live with the fear that it may come back. I ask God every morn­ing and every night to keep this can­cer away. Prayer is so im­por­tant.”

A sec­ond chance at life

Beat­ing can­cer has giv­en Sarah a re­newed com­mit­ment to liv­ing ful­ly.

“I be­lieve I’ve been giv­en an­oth­er chance at a whole new life. In one sec­ond, your whole world can change. Treat your body well—your body is your tem­ple. Find that pur­pose and live your life. Don’t wait for the next ten years or un­til your chil­dren grad­u­ate. Com­plete that buck­et list!”