Fay­ola K J Fras­er

“I felt as though some­one had knocked me down with a big stone. I was hear­ing the words but it felt like the words weren’t for me.” Con­sul­tant pae­di­a­tri­cian, can­cer sur­vivor, and re­cent­ly ho­n­oured as a Glob­al Hero of Hope by the Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety, Dr Maria­ma Al­leyne re­calls the out-of-body ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing di­ag­nosed with can­cer in 2018.

At 47 years old, she re­mem­bers that be­fore her di­ag­no­sis, “I was just go­ing along mer­ri­ly, liv­ing nor­mal­ly, with two ac­tive boys who had just en­tered sec­ondary school,” when she start­ed ex­pe­ri­enc­ing un­usu­al symp­toms that prompt­ed her to vis­it the doc­tor.

Now in re­mis­sion, Dr Al­leyne lends wis­dom from her ex­pe­ri­ences to mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety’s (TTCS) Sur­vivors’ Net­work, hop­ing to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty and of­fer sup­port to peo­ple strug­gling with the dis­ease.

Af­ter train­ing in med­i­cine at UWI St Au­gus­tine and Mount Hope and com­plet­ing her spe­cial­i­sa­tion in the UK, Dr Al­leyne had been a prac­tic­ing pae­di­a­tri­cian in the pub­lic ser­vice for many years when, in late 2017 in­to 2018, she be­gan feel­ing gen­er­al­ly un­well.

“I couldn’t say what it was,” she re­mem­bers, “but I was feel­ing gen­er­al malaise, very tired, and even­tu­al­ly my an­kles start­ed swelling and I had heart pal­pi­ta­tions.” She con­sult­ed a car­di­ol­o­gist who pre­scribed med­ica­tion for the pal­pi­ta­tions, but the symp­toms per­sist­ed. “I start­ed hav­ing weak­ness in my low­er limbs,” she says, “so I walked across to the neu­ro­sur­geon’s clin­ic,” and through an MRI, the neu­ro­sur­geon found a sig­nif­i­cant tu­mour im­ping­ing on her spinal col­umn.

The tu­mour was re­moved short­ly af­ter and sent off for his­tol­ogy, which con­firmed it was can­cer­ous. “They were sure it was can­cer­ous, but were still try­ing to de­ter­mine what the can­cer was,” she de­scribes.

On the rec­om­men­da­tion of her on­col­o­gist, she went abroad for fur­ther di­ag­no­sis. In De­cem­ber 2018, a bone mar­row as­pi­rate and PET (positron emis­sion to­mog­ra­phy) scan con­firmed she had mul­ti­ple myelo­ma—a type of blood can­cer that af­fects plas­ma cells, a white blood cell found in the bone mar­row re­spon­si­ble for help­ing the body fight in­fec­tions.

The rec­om­mend­ed so­lu­tion was a bone mar­row trans­plant, but she was faced with the stag­ger­ing cost of the surgery—two mil­lion US dol­lars.

Through­out this dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od of di­ag­no­sis and weigh­ing her op­tions, Dr Al­leyne grap­pled emo­tion­al­ly with try­ing to main­tain a sense of nor­mal­cy. “I was con­sumed with thoughts of what would hap­pen to my chil­dren, what would hap­pen to my pa­tients, and as an on­ly child I al­so felt re­spon­si­ble for tak­ing care of my moth­er.” De­ter­mined to re­main strong for her sons, she used plan­ning her next steps as a cop­ing mech­a­nism—un­til the trans­plant cost be­came known. “And re­al fear set in.”

Then fate in­ter­vened. A man who at­tend­ed the clin­ic at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal where Dr Al­leyne worked had done his own re­search and dis­cov­ered a hos­pi­tal in Cali, Colom­bia, where the trans­plant was done safe­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly “at one tenth of the cost”.

On June 18, 2018, Dr Al­leyne un­der­went her bone mar­row trans­plant at the Colom­bian hos­pi­tal. Even now, sev­en years lat­er, she cel­e­brates this date as her “re­birth”, at­tend­ing church on the day each year to thank God for her sec­ond chance at life.

The gru­elling re­cov­ery process in­volved two weeks of com­plete iso­la­tion to avoid in­fec­tion, fol­lowed by an­oth­er two months at a re­cov­ery fa­cil­i­ty in Colom­bia. Through­out the en­tire jour­ney—from di­ag­no­sis to trans­plant to re­cov­ery—Dr Al­leyne leaned on her faith, spoke to God, and drew strength from her fam­i­ly and friends who stood by her. “I was sur­round­ed by love and joy,” she re­calls. “One of my best friends who lives in the UK even came to Colom­bia to be there with me.”

By 2020, ful­ly back on her feet, she be­gan her mis­sion to sup­port oth­er can­cer pa­tients and sur­vivors. Join­ing the TTCS that year, she im­mersed her­self in the Sur­vivors’ Net­work, ac­tive­ly help­ing to plan and ex­e­cute events and meet­ings.

At the heart of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety’s mis­sion are their sur­vivors—brave in­di­vid­u­als whose jour­neys em­body courage, hope, and re­silience. Through a wide range of ini­tia­tives, the Sur­vivors’ Net­work aims to up­lift, em­pow­er, and sup­port them at every stage of their jour­ney. From emo­tion­al sup­port and pa­tient nav­i­ga­tion to com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing events like Re­lay For Life and Lu­mi­nar­ia, the net­work en­sures sur­vivors are cel­e­brat­ed, heard, and nev­er alone.

The TTCS’s sig­na­ture an­nu­al gath­er­ing, Re­lay For Life, unites sur­vivors and sup­port­ers in a mean­ing­ful show of strength and sol­i­dar­i­ty. In 2025, the event will take the form of a Crick­et Fete Match on Ju­ly 19 at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

A T20 hard­ball match will be played be­tween top play­ers from ma­jor crick­et clubs across the coun­try and an All-Stars Team fea­tur­ing no­table past and present crick­eters. This en­gag­ing na­tion­al event helps the TTCS ex­tend its reach and raise aware­ness about the con­nec­tion be­tween lifestyle and can­cer.

Ap­point­ed a Glob­al Hero of Hope in 2025, Dr Al­leyne re­ceived the ho­n­our through the Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety’s Glob­al Re­lay For Life ini­tia­tive. These Glob­al He­roes, all sur­vivors or care­givers, are cho­sen from par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries to serve as pow­er­ful sym­bols of per­se­ver­ance and hope.

Dr Al­leyne sees her role as giv­ing voice to those strug­gling with can­cer and strives to break the stig­ma and shame sur­round­ing the dis­ease. She stands firm in her mes­sage to can­cer pa­tients: “You are not can­cer, and it is just a blip in the road. No­body should have to strug­gle alone. You didn’t get can­cer be­cause of some­thing you did or be­cause you didn’t pray hard enough.”

Her own chal­leng­ing jour­ney con­tin­ues to in­spire many, as she re­mains stead­fast in her mis­sion to of­fer sup­port, raise aware­ness, build com­mu­ni­ty, and bring hope to sur­vivors.