Car­ol Quash

Cre­ative di­rec­tor of Co­co Vel­vet In­ter­na­tion­al Fash­ion & Mod­el Man­age­ment, Christo­pher Nathan, has spent a great deal of his ca­reer train­ing and de­vel­op­ing young, pro­fes­sion­al fash­ion mod­els for in­ter­na­tion­al place­ment. And even as he lies par­a­lyzed in a bed at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, his thoughts still go out to his “chil­dren,” whom he said may be wor­ried that he has not been in con­tact with them in sev­er­al days.

Last week, Nathan was di­ag­nosed with prostate can­cer and metasta­t­ic spinal can­cer while in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, where he went to get some much-need­ed rest af­ter a hec­tic few months of fash­ion work­shops, style week, and com­pe­ti­tions.

“Dur­ing the work­shops I was hav­ing ex­cru­ci­at­ing back pains, so I de­cid­ed to go to the hos­pi­tal and see what was go­ing on. I went to Mount Hope (Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex), they did X-rays, and at the end they told me that I have os­teoarthri­tis in my spine.”

Nathan said he was giv­en an in­jec­tion to re­lax the mus­cle and he re­turned home to To­ba­go. He then de­cid­ed to vis­it the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he un­der­went a se­ries of scans and X-rays and was giv­en the same di­ag­no­sis – spinal os­teoarthri­tis.

On No­vem­ber 22, 63-year-old Nathan be­gan to feel “pins and nee­dles” from his chest to his toes, and by the next day his body went numb and he start­ed to get mus­cle spasms.

“So the peo­ple from the ho­tel I was stay­ing at took me to the hos­pi­tal in Be­quia, and af­ter var­i­ous scans and tests,” in­clud­ing a prostate-spe­cif­ic anti­gen test, he was in­formed that he had prostate can­cer, and that it had spread to his spine.

“Im­me­di­ate­ly, I made arrange­ments to be air­lift­ed… I came with an am­bu­lance from the air­port straight to the hos­pi­tal. I’m now ward­ed here, and I’ve gone down to St James Med­ical Cen­tre for ra­di­a­tion treat­ment.”

Nathan said he has ac­cept­ed that “God may be call­ing me home,” and he is sat­is­fied with the work he has done for the in­dus­try in which he has ded­i­cat­ed decades of his life.

“I’m now mak­ing my peace with God. I’m sur­ren­der­ing; I’m sub­mit­ting. I’m sat­is­fied with the lega­cy I’m leav­ing be­hind, which is his­to­ry-lev­el fash­ion ed­u­ca­tion and tech­ni­cal skills train­ing in the Caribbean… help­ing T&T be­come the re­gion’s com­mer­cial fash­ion hub.”

Nathan launched Co­co Vel­vet Int’l in 1997 with two di­vi­sions – fash­ion and mod­el man­age­ment. The for­mer pro­vides mar­ket­ing, event, and project man­age­ment ser­vices to fash­ion in­dus­try clients in T&T and the Caribbean, while the mod­el man­age­ment di­vi­sion dis­cov­ers, trains, and de­vel­ops pro­fes­sion­al fash­ion mod­els and as­sists them with in­ter­na­tion­al place­ment.

“Some of the mod­els de­vel­oped by Co­co Vel­vet have en­joyed lu­cra­tive ca­reers at rep­utable mod­el agen­cies in the fash­ion cap­i­tals of Lon­don, Paris, Mi­lan, and New York in­clud­ing IMG Mod­el Man­age­ment, Women Mi­lan, Elite Mod­el Man­age­ment, Ford Mod­els Se­lect Mod­el Man­age­ment, Muse & DNA Mod­els New York, Pre­mi­um Mod­els Paris, Boss Mod­els New York, Karin Mod­els Paris, CLICK Mod­els, Supreme NYC,” Nathan out­lined.

An­oth­er of his prized projects, he said, was the launch of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T’s fash­ion pro­gramme in 2006.

“We can have his­to­ry-lev­el fash­ion ed­u­ca­tion right here in the Caribbean; I’m very proud of that. And I’m al­so proud of the fact that I’ve been able to trans­form the lives of over a thou­sand young peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and put them on a path to suc­cess… I feel that I was put here on this earth by God to do the work that I did with Co­co Vel­vet.”

He said he in­tends to get as much rest as he can now – phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly.

“I’m in ter­ri­ble pain, but what­ev­er hap­pens from now, with­in the next few weeks or the next few months, I’m ready for it.”

But he can’t help but lament that, had the dis­ease been de­tect­ed ear­li­er, he would at least have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put up a stronger fight.

“I have le­sions on my spine as well as a frac­ture. The frac­ture has to mend on its own, and I don’t know yet if the post-stage can­cer spread to any of my or­gans, be­cause it spreads fast. If I had known since Au­gust, when di­ag­nosed with os­teoarthri­tis, that it was can­cer, I would have had the nec­es­sary treat­ment and ob­vi­ous­ly, I would have been in a bet­ter place.”

He said ly­ing in a hos­pi­tal bed, un­able to move or do any­thing for him­self is one of the most “undig­ni­fied” ex­pe­ri­ences he has ever had.

“I have lost con­trol of my bow­els and my uri­nary tract, so they have stuck a catheter in­to my blad­der, so I con­stant­ly uri­nate in­to a bag, and I’m not able to have a bow­el move­ment on my own.”

That aside, though, he ap­pre­ci­ates the out­pour­ing of love since he dis­closed his di­ag­no­sis on his Face­book page.

“I’m grate­ful to every­one who reached out, who prayed and of­fered any type of sup­port. Thank you.”