“My daugh­ter was di­ag­nosed with Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma on Jan­u­ary 23rd, 2020 at the age of 15. There were no symp­toms or so we thought. Look­ing at my daugh­ter at that time, I saw a joy­ful, en­er­getic and lov­ing per­son as she usu­al­ly is, up un­til the day she was di­ag­nosed.

It all start­ed on Jan­u­ary 13th, 2020, when a lump ap­peared on the right side of her neck. I took her to the doc­tor, where a CT Scan was im­me­di­ate­ly done. The scan re­vealed that the can­cer had metas­ta­sized through her body. Mass­es were found on both sides of her neck, un­der her right arm, around her tra­chea, right side of her colon and le­sions on both lungs.

When we re­ceived the re­sults, I felt as if our world was falling apart, I was not sure how to feel or think. My first ques­tion was, “What did I do wrong?” “How could this hap­pen to my child?” “How much more time will I have with my daugh­ter?” I couldn’t imag­ine how my daugh­ter was feel­ing. For us, it was a roller coast­er of dis­tress­ing emo­tions but there was no time to even process any­thing as treat­ment had to be­gin right away.

We were im­me­di­ate­ly sent to Mt Hope for fur­ther test­ing, where the doc­tors re­peat­ed a CT scan and got the same re­sults. I was in de­nial up un­til the day we re­ceived the re­sults from her biop­sy, with which the doc­tors con­firmed she had stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma.

As the can­cer was de­tect­ed in an ad­vanced stage, the med­ical team at the JBF ward be­gan treat­ment right away. She did Chemother­a­py for 11 months and took dif­fer­ent med­ica­tions, did blood work and PET/CT scans. Her last cy­cle of chemother­a­py end­ed in Jan­u­ary 2021 and she is now mov­ing on to ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py. The JBF Ward is now our sec­ond home.

When our jour­ney be­gan, we had no idea about what to ex­pect, how my daugh­ter would tol­er­ate treat­ment and the side ef­fects that come along with it. Not all days were great, some days felt like a night­mare. How­ev­er, hav­ing the sup­port of fam­i­ly, her friends, my co-work­ers and man­agers who are so sup­port­ive and un­der­stand­ing, her school (which con­tin­u­ous­ly calls to lend its sup­port) and the amaz­ing doc­tors, nurs­es, and staff at JBF, are all a great help and com­fort.

Dur­ing this Covid-19 pe­ri­od, we thought there would have been set­backs or de­lays with treat­ment, how­ev­er, on the pae­di­atric ward, the treat­ment sched­ules were fol­lowed on time with no de­lays. I was so wor­ried that her weak­ened im­mune sys­tem could be eas­i­ly com­pro­mised dur­ing Covid-19. We took ex­tra pre­cau­tions with her in­ter­ac­tions with oth­ers and main­tained all phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing rec­om­men­da­tions. There was a bright side to the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic where she was able to at­tend most of her class­es on­line, even dur­ing chemo! If not, she would have missed school and all her class­es.

Al­though my daugh­ter is go­ing through this dif­fi­cult jour­ney, she al­ways re­mains en­gaged in en­cour­ag­ing ac­tiv­i­ties with her friends and us. Yes, there are times where she would break down and hope it would all be over soon, which is ex­pect­ed, but she nev­er gives up.

I must say, what­ev­er the out­come, there is al­ways that light which will over­come any dark­ness. Her dad and I al­ways try to stay fo­cused and re­main op­ti­mistic. Through prayers, love, sup­port and keep­ing a pos­i­tive mind and at­ti­tude, we have man­aged to cope and work every day on get­ting bet­ter. Her treat­ment jour­ney is al­most over, and we in­tend to stay sol­id, know­ing we CAN over­come this.

To any­one who is go­ing through this or has their sto­ry, or even knows some­one who must deal with can­cer, think­ing pos­i­tive, and hav­ing a prayer­ful at­ti­tude helps over­come many ob­sta­cles. It may not hap­pen right away, but you will even­tu­al­ly get there. If no one knew that my daugh­ter had can­cer, they would not be able to tell as she al­ways has a smile on her face!”

- Sub­mit­ted by Kel­ly Per­sad

We recog­nise all the sub­mis­sions sent to guardian­health­plus2020@gmail.com. They all shared the mag­ni­tude of hu­man courage. We se­lect­ed this sto­ry of re­silience, as this young 16-year-old girl bat­tles stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma dur­ing a pan­dem­ic and con­tin­ues to do so. This fam­i­ly and every fam­i­ly, we keep close in prayer.

~ Health Plus Team

CHILD­HOOD CAN­CERS

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, “Un­like can­cer in adults, most child­hood can­cers do not have a known cause. It be­gins with ge­net­ic changes in a sin­gle cell that then grows out of con­trol.” Many stud­ies have sought to iden­ti­fy the caus­es of child­hood can­cer, but very few can­cers in chil­dren are caused by en­vi­ron­men­tal or lifestyle fac­tors.

Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma (Hodgkin’s Dis­ease)

Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma is a can­cer that af­fects your lym­phat­ic sys­tem which is a part of your im­mune sys­tem that helps to fight in­fec­tion and dis­ease. This sys­tem in­cludes the lymph nodes, ton­sils, bone mar­row, spleen, and thy­mus. It has been re­port­ed in in­fants and young chil­dren, but it is con­sid­ered rare be­fore the age of five. Most cas­es are in teenagers and young adults.

The most com­mon symp­tom of Hodgkin lym­phoma is swelling of the lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are found in the neck or above the col­lar­bone, as well as un­der the arms or in the groin. They are usu­al­ly pain­less, firm, rub­bery, and mov­able in the sur­round­ing tis­sue.

Cop­ing with Child­hood Can­cer

For any fam­i­ly, be­ing in­formed that their child is di­ag­nosed with can­cer is dev­as­tat­ing. Ad­just­ing to this di­ag­no­sis and find­ing ways to stay strong is chal­leng­ing for every sin­gle per­son in that fam­i­ly. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, one such fam­i­ly, the Josephs, turned their lost bat­tle with Child­hood Can­cer in­to a bene­dic­tion for oth­er fam­i­lies cop­ing with a sim­i­lar tragedy found­ing The Just Be­cause Foun­da­tion (JBF).

My child has just been di­ag­nosed with can­cer. What’s next?

Find­ing out that your child has can­cer can be dev­as­tat­ing. There are a range of emo­tions you might feel in­clud­ing anger, dis­be­lief, sad­ness. Some­times a di­ag­no­sis can feel like a re­lief, es­pe­cial­ly if your child has been un­well for some time and you have been wor­ry­ing about what is wrong.

Or, you might feel numb and that it isn’t re­al.

Every­one feels and re­acts dif­fer­ent­ly. There is no right or wrong way to feel. There is still much to learn about what caus­es or how to pre­vent most child­hood can­cers. It’s not some­thing you or any­one has done and no one is to blame. The most ef­fec­tive strat­e­gy to re­duce the bur­den of can­cer in chil­dren is to fo­cus on a prompt, cor­rect di­ag­no­sis fol­lowed by ef­fec­tive ther­a­py.