Fay­ola Fras­er

At 61, Alana Mo­hammed is ap­proach­ing re­tire­ment af­ter a long ca­reer as an ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant, ready to em­brace the next chap­ter of her life. Raised in Vista­bel­la, San Fer­nan­do, she fond­ly re­calls a child­hood shaped by fam­i­ly val­ues, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty. With three chil­dren—and one fur ba­by—Mo­hammed ra­di­ates a spir­it she de­scribes as high, hap­py, and pos­i­tive. But her sto­ry goes be­yond sur­viv­ing can­cer; it’s about con­fronting it with un­wa­ver­ing courage.

On what seemed like an or­di­nary Sat­ur­day, Mo­hammed vis­it­ed her GP for knee dis­com­fort that “wasn’t even re­al­ly hurt­ing.” Her chil­dren ques­tioned the ne­ces­si­ty of the vis­it, but fate had oth­er plans. While wait­ing out­side the doc­tor’s of­fice, a ca­su­al brush of her hand against her right breast re­vealed a lump.

“God knows what He’s do­ing at all times,” she re­flects.

Up­on ex­am­i­na­tion, her GP rec­om­mend­ed a mam­mo­gram and breast ul­tra­sound. Tests re­vealed two lumps, and a sub­se­quent biop­sy con­firmed her fear: can­cer.

The di­ag­no­sis hit on every lev­el—med­ical, emo­tion­al, and spir­i­tu­al.

“I cried, I cried, I cried for days,” Mo­hammed re­calls. But amid the sor­row, she fo­cused on the fu­ture.

“You have chil­dren to see get mar­ried and have grand­chil­dren,” she re­mind­ed her­self, sum­mon­ing the re­solve to plan her next steps. With clar­i­ty, she re­quest­ed a mas­tec­to­my, which was per­formed just a month lat­er, on Ju­ly 1, 2022. “I didn’t want to wait. I knew I want­ed it re­moved.”

Treat­ment was gru­elling. Chemother­a­py—af­fec­tion­ate­ly and iron­i­cal­ly dubbed “Mr. Chemo”—be­gan in Sep­tem­ber 2022. Eight rounds every three weeks left her phys­i­cal­ly ex­haust­ed, emo­tion­al­ly drained, and al­most un­recog­nis­able.

“Those in­tra­venous drugs, oh boy, took a toll on me. I’d look in the mir­ror and bare­ly recog­nise my­self.”

She coped by fo­cus­ing on sim­ple dai­ly goals: eat, hy­drate, and rest. Ra­di­a­tion fol­lowed, more man­age­able and even bring­ing the bless­ing of rest­ful sleep. The most pro­found mo­ment, how­ev­er, came when she rang the sym­bol­ic bell, mark­ing the end of ac­tive treat­ment.

Sup­port came in many forms. Her chil­dren—Asif, Ansel, and Anya—stood stead­fast­ly by her side, and even her ex-hus­band joined in a shared com­mit­ment to keep the fam­i­ly strong. Her best friend of over 30 years, Na­dia, nev­er left her side. Oth­er can­cer sur­vivors formed part of her heal­ing cir­cle, prov­ing that shared ex­pe­ri­ence can be the best med­i­cine.

Emo­tion­al­ly, Mo­hammed re­mains can­did: “I’m a crier. I’m cry­ing even now as I’m typ­ing this.”

She ac­knowl­edges there are still hard days, but she feels men­tal­ly stronger. “I’m a high-spir­it­ed, hap­py, pos­i­tive per­son,” she says, her emo­tion­al and men­tal strength an­chored by faith. “Put God first, and you will mas­ter the art of heal­ing with Him,” she ad­vis­es oth­ers fac­ing sim­i­lar bat­tles. Faith, she in­sists, is es­sen­tial—not op­tion­al—on the dif­fi­cult jour­ney.

Now in re­mis­sion, Mo­hammed speaks can­did­ly about life be­yond treat­ment. Hor­mon­al ther­a­py—a dai­ly tablet for five years or more—has its own bur­dens.

“That lit­tle pill caus­es ex­treme bone pain, mood swings, thin­ning hair, de­pres­sion, and mus­cle cramps so bad I have to jump out of bed just to ease them.”

Even three years lat­er, she hasn’t re­gained full feel­ing in her feet due to lin­ger­ing chemo ef­fects. Yet she per­sists, re­spect­ing that the tablet is do­ing its job.

Re­mis­sion, she ex­plains, can feel like walk­ing a tightrope. “Peo­ple may think sur­vivors are fine once they hear ‘you’re in re­mis­sion,’ but the truth is, we nev­er stop fear­ing. Any ail­ment—tooth pain, body aches, flu, headache—ig­nites the fear that some­thing is wrong,” she says. The emo­tion­al whiplash—laugh­ter one mo­ment, tears the next—is re­al, but Mo­hammed has ac­cept­ed, even em­braced it. “I love me, so I cry it out.”

To­day, her days fo­cus on what mat­ters most: faith, fam­i­ly, and the fu­ture. Her chil­dren re­main her great­est trea­sures, and her fur-ba­by Ol­lie of­fers un­con­di­tion­al love. “I may not go to church every Sun­day, but I am a pray­ing woman,” she smiles. Though her jour­ney con­tin­ues, her out­look is one of grace, grat­i­tude, and pur­pose. “As my doc­tors say, you got through this. Now con­tin­ue to live your life… with­in mod­er­a­tion.”

From that seem­ing­ly or­di­nary Sat­ur­day out­side her doc­tor’s of­fice to the day she rang the bell, Alana Mo­hammed’s sto­ry is a pow­er­ful re­minder that can­cer is not just a dis­ease with a start and end date—it’s a jour­ney that re­shapes every­thing.

Ad­vo­cat­ing for those in re­mis­sion is im­por­tant to her, cre­at­ing waves of em­pa­thy and un­der­stand­ing for those for whom the fight con­tin­ues.