Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Alana Mo­hammed de­scribes her­self as a fight­er who looks at death with un­flinch­ing eyes. Af­ter sur­viv­ing the sur­prise at­tack of can­cer, the 57 year old has re­turned to liv­ing her life in San Fer­nan­do where she works as an ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant. She is al­so en­joy­ing win­dow shop­ping for the Christ­mas sea­son.

It was last year in May when Mo­hammed had been di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer, the world’s lead­ing type of can­cer ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO). At the time of the dis­cov­ery, she had been vis­it­ing her physi­cian for an ail­ment con­cern­ing her knee. While wait­ing in the re­cep­tion room, she rest­ed her hand on her chest and felt a lump on her right breast. Mo­hammed was shocked.

Fi­nal­ly get­ting to see the doc­tor, he ex­am­ined her and ad­vised to do a mam­mo­gram and a breast ul­tra­sound. Af­ter a week of wait­ing for re­sults, it was found that there were, in fact, two lumps in Mo­hammed’s right breast. She said she had no symp­toms of the can­cer be­fore the doc­tor’s vis­it.

“I was blown away, I couldn’t com­pre­hend what was go­ing on. I said to my­self, ‘What is go­ing on with me?’”

Fol­low­ing her gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er’s or­ders, two months lat­er in Ju­ly, she un­der­went a mas­tec­to­my which re­sult­ed in the to­tal re­moval of her right breast. She start­ed chemother­a­py in Sep­tem­ber that same year for six months and ra­di­a­tion in March 2023.

Re­gard­ing Trinidad’s health ser­vices, Mo­hammed has not had any com­plaints She even went as far as say­ing that her time spent in the On­col­o­gy De­part­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tal where she had re­ceived chemother­a­py was like be­ing at the Hy­att.

How­ev­er, when the moth­er of two was asked whether the re­moval of her breast had im­pact­ed her self-im­age and sense of fem­i­nin­i­ty, her eyes filled with wa­ter.

“It was a bit tough when I did the surgery ... My daugh­ter took care of me for the first three weeks at home. She nursed me back. And every time she would get in the show­er she’d ask me, ‘Mom­my, you want to take a look?’ and I’d say, ‘Not yet …’ But be­fore she went back out to work she said, ‘Mom­my, you have to look at (the scar).’”

Now, Mo­hammed has the con­fi­dence to look at her­self in the mir­ror and she prais­es God for spar­ing her life.

“Yes, I have one breast, but it’s not show­ing that I have one breast, now is it? It’s a padded bra!” she laughed.  

En­dur­ing the rig­or­ous tri­als that came with her di­ag­no­sis, Mo­hammed is not wor­ried about the pos­si­ble re­turn of can­cer, cit­ing a per­son’s mind­set was the start­ing point of feel­ing at peace and liv­ing life to the fullest. She has not felt guilt to­wards her­self for the di­ag­no­sis, how­ev­er, she ad­mits to hav­ing cried many times through­out the process,  bear­ing the weight of hos­pi­tal vis­its, med­ica­tion, and oth­er treat­ments.

“I cry it out, I let it out. I don’t keep it in­side, be­cause I know to my­self if I let that anger take over me it would be dev­as­tat­ing to my own health. I try my very best to be pos­i­tive. I see things al­ways for the bet­ter, this is my per­son­al­i­ty. Some­times it does get to me, and I cry it out,” she said.

“I think your mind­set plays a lot in this. You don’t feel the can­cer, you tell your­self, ‘You’re go­ing to be okay.’ Your mind­set is im­por­tant. Ever since I’ve known my­self I al­ways knew that can­cer was not a death sen­tence–you can over­come it. God blessed me with beau­ti­ful chil­dren and a ther­a­py dog named ‘Olie’; he helped me a lot,” she said.

More­over, be­sides tak­ing on the phys­i­cal woes of can­cer treat­ment, she has al­so been the re­ceiv­er of fear­ful com­ments from oth­ers, hav­ing been told that her teeth would fall out from chemother­a­py and that she would vom­it and have di­ar­rhoea. These voic­es at­tempt­ed to in­stil fear with­in her mind, but she re­mained res­olute in lis­ten­ing sole­ly to the voice of her body.

“Peo­ple will come at you with all sorts of things. I looked, in­stead, to see how my body re­spond­ed to the ra­di­a­tion. And on­ly you know your own body. Your mind­set is prime,” she said.

She ad­vis­es those di­ag­nosed with can­cer to strict­ly fol­low the in­struc­tions put for­ward by their doc­tors.

“The list doc­tors gave you to fol­low, the chemo and ra­di­a­tion, please fol­low those lists, it works to your ad­van­tage. I did not go through any vom­it­ing, di­ar­rhoea, or con­sti­pa­tion. I re­spect ‘Mr Chemo’ be­cause he is a dan­ger­ous drug. The on­ly thing I had was fa­tigue. And my hair fell out beau­ti­ful­ly,” she said.

The 57-year-old fight­er has been through tremen­dous hur­dles in her life to which she now re­sponds: “I’m still here.” She thanks God for spar­ing her life and restor­ing her back to good health.

“God is the mak­er of us and He knows how much we can take and how much He’s go­ing to give. My faith is in Him.”

Breast can­cer is not on­ly a con­di­tion of old­er women

–Dr Ram­paul

Dr Ra­jen­dra Ram­paul, an on­coplas­tic sur­geon at the Pink Hi­bis­cus Breast Health Spe­cial­ist Cen­tre, has been treat­ing pa­tients for ten years in Trinidad. He is con­cerned by the high rates of breast can­cer in the coun­try, which al­so af­fects men.

“I have al­ways been trou­bled by the high in­ci­dents of breast can­cer in our coun­try. What is al­so trou­bling is that breast can­cer is not a con­di­tion of old­er women, I’ve of­ten had to look af­ter women in their thir­ties and for­ties with breast can­cer.

“Based on my ex­pe­ri­ence-based opin­ions, it is prob­a­bly a con­tri­bu­tion of ge­net­ics. We are an iso­lat­ed is­land with an iso­lat­ed ge­net­ic pool, it must have an ef­fect af­ter 300 years,” he said.

Rapid-fire ques­tions for Alana

1. Favourite movie?

Dra­ma

2. Chadon beni or chive?

Chadon beni

3. Cin­derel­la or Snow White?

Cin­derel­la

4. San Fer­nan­do or Port-of-Spain

San Fer­nan­do!

5. Favourite book?

Har­ry Pot­ter

6. To honk a bad dri­ve or cuss?

Honk a bad dri­ve

7. One sur­pris­ing fact about Alana?

No sur­pris­es. I am what I am. What you see is what you get.