Senior Reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian.co.tt
Anessa Doon, whose 22nd birthday is less than a month away, says her only wish is to see her daughter grow up.
Two years ago, Doon sought medical help for a lump on her chest that kept increasing in size and was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. After three bouts of different chemotherapy treatments, doctors have recommended another medicine, but it has to come from India.
However, she cannot afford the lifesaving medicine and is appealing for help to raise funds to purchase it through a local pharmaceutical company. Doon was advised that she would need 16 doses of treatment and one dose cost $27,000.
When she first noticed the lump, she thought she got hit while rough playing with relatives. However, the lump kept growing, so she decided to get it checked at the hospital.
“I keep going to the hospital. They keep saying was broken ribs and all kind of thing and one day I do a biopsy and they say when I get the results it was a tumour on my chest,” she said in an interview at her Mafeking Village, Mayaro home.
Doon is a housewife and her husband is a construction worker
Making an emotional appeal for help, Doon’s mother Sherryann Mohammed said she could not bear to lose another child.
“It kind of hard for me too because 12 years ago I lost one of my daughters with pneumonia, so to find out I could lose a next child, it real kind of hard right now,” she said.
Doon, who believes the medication from India would eradicate cancer, said, “The doctor them done give up already and they say it not making no sense I go away anymore so the medicine that coming down (from India) will help.
She is concerned about the effects of the illness as her daughter’s behaviour towards her has changed.
“She doesn’t want to come by me and stuff like that,” she said.
Doon’s feet are swollen, her legs are weak and the disease has affected her mobility. She makes regular trips to the hospital for blood transfusions because her platelets drop to dangerously low numbers.
“Well, I can’t walk properly now. I does have to get help to go up the steps and the legs does be in pain. I have to take painkillers,” she said.
“If I can get some assistance, please, to raise the funds to get my medicine because I have a three-year-old daughter and I want to live to see her grow up.”
Anyone willing to assist can make deposits to Republic Bank Ltd account number 470034597701.