Mrs. Zo­bi­da Rag­birs­ingh

Can­cer doesn’t dis­crim­i­nate, It can af­fect any­one.

In all my years of giv­ing health ad­vice, cau­tion­ing pa­tients, pre­sent­ing at con­fer­ences, lead­ing health pro­grams and ini­tia­tives did I think, that Can­cer would touch me, but it did.

This is my sto­ry….

One typ­i­cal af­ter­noon, I was do­ing my usu­al walk up and down the hills in front my home. At the end of the last lap, I sud­den­ly felt a gush, as if my wa­ter bags had bro­ken. On ex­am­i­na­tion, I re­al­ized that I was hav­ing a heavy pe­ri­od. Be­ing a nurse, I knew that this was not a good sign. I act­ed quick­ly and my neigh­bour took me to the Health Cen­tre right away. I was treat­ed for the ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain, a few per­ti­nent in­ves­ti­ga­tions and re­ferred to the gy­nae­col­o­gist.

The vis­it with the gy­nae­co­log­i­cal on­col­o­gist was quite alarm­ing. Thank­ful­ly, she was ex­treme­ly gen­tle and pa­tient in per­form­ing the ex­am­i­na­tion to ob­tain a sam­ple from the lin­ing of my womb. This was com­pli­cat­ed, as I have had three pre­vi­ous Cae­sare­an Sec­tions. She de­cid­ed to do an ab­dom­i­nal and pelvic MRI which re­vealed en­dome­tri­al can­cer and a small nod­ule un­der my left breast was dis­cov­ered. The biop­sy of the left breast now re­vealed stage 1 can­cer. Up­on hear­ing these di­ag­noses, I knew my next steps had to be surgery, as soon as pos­si­ble. On the 7th of No­vem­ber of 2020 I had a to­tal hys­terec­to­my which is re­moval of womb, ovaries, fal­lop­i­an tubes and cervix; lumpec­to­my of left breast and ac­com­pa­ny­ing re­moval of lymph nodes un­der left arm.

My surgery last­ed five and a half hours. So far, I’ve un­der­gone sev­en surg­eries. I must give praise and thanks to my sur­geons, on­col­o­gists, ra­di­ol­o­gists, the en­tire can­cer care team. Up­on dis­charge on the 8th of De­cem­ber 2020, I had an an­gel stay with me for one month. She ful­filled the role of nurse in every sense of the word, hence my speedy re­cov­ery. My grat­i­tude to her is nev­er end­ing to this day, in ad­di­tion to those who trans­port­ed me for my ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py in April 2021, un­der­go­ing 25 ses­sions on con­sec­u­tive days.

What did I learn on this jour­ney?

Prayers and faith in the Almighty kept me ground­ed and I re­mained pos­i­tive, spir­i­tu­al­ly, and emo­tion­al­ly up­beat. Prayer from all my friends and as­so­ciates from the world poured in for me. This sup­port went a long way to­wards my re­cov­ery. In my heart, I know God has more of His work for me to do in the fu­ture. I know this is just an­oth­er chap­ter in my jour­ney of help­ing per­sons. I am tru­ly grate­ful for my ear­ly di­ag­no­sis at stage 1 and my speedy re­cov­ery. I kept think­ing I have to get bet­ter for my chil­dren, my four grand­chil­dren; Liam, Cameron, Ben­jamin, Sophia and es­pe­cial­ly for all the or­gan­i­sa­tions and per­sons I serve, as they con­tin­ue to lean on me. In De­cem­ber 2022, I was able to at­tend the In­ter­na­tion­al Di­a­betes Fed­er­a­tion Con­fer­ence in Lis­bon and served on the Nom­i­nat­ing com­mit­tee for this or­gan­i­sa­tion.

As a nurse with years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the health­care field, I found my­self now re­ly­ing on the strate­gies I pre­vi­ous­ly shared to pa­tients to cope:

1. Stay­ing faith­ful and grate­ful to the Almighty

2. Nev­er ques­tion­ing His plan or say­ing, “Why Me?”

3. Know­ing this too will pass, as so many oth­er chal­lenges in life, this will just be an­oth­er I con­quer!

As I con­tin­ue my jour­ney in life, I hope that my sto­ry can em­pow­er all the women read­ing this, to not be afraid, to please go and have their health checks - pre­ven­tion is bet­ter than cure!

Mrs. Zo­bi­da Rag­birs­ingh

- Reg­is­tered Nurse > 50 years

- Mid­wife, Dis­trict Health Vis­i­tor

- Past Pres­i­dent, Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T

- Past Pres­i­dent, Ro­tary Club of Princes Town

- Vice Pres­i­dent, Health, In­ter­na­tion­al Di­a­betes Fed­er­a­tion (2018-2019)

- Dis­tin­guished Nom­i­nee, Guardian Me­dia Women of the Year 1988