Car­ol Quash

Kee­mya Williams has been through more chal­lenges than the av­er­age teenag­er would have ex­pe­ri­enced at her age, but she re­fus­es to al­low them to de­ter her from liv­ing in the present and plan­ning for the fu­ture.

The 15-year-old Bish­op Anstey High School (BAHS) stu­dent is an ace wa­ter po­lo play­er who was part of the team rep­re­sent­ing her school at the Sec­ondary School Beach Po­lo and Wa­ter Po­lo Leagues in 2023 and 2024. She is al­so a mem­ber of the Roy­hil Seals Wa­ter Po­lo Club, known for its rig­or­ous train­ing, dis­ci­pline, and team­work. In Ju­ly 2025, she com­pet­ed with her team at the CAA Sum­mer Wa­ter Po­lo Tour­na­ment in Cu­raçao, at which they won gold and bronze medals. Lat­er that year, she was se­lect­ed to the T&T Na­tion­al Wa­ter Po­lo Team, rep­re­sent­ing her coun­try at the CARIF­TA Aquat­ics Wa­ter Po­lo Cham­pi­onships in Fort Laud­erdale, Flori­da, adding an­oth­er gold medal to her grow­ing list of achieve­ments.

But had it not been for her in­ner strength, faith, and the sup­port of her vil­lage, things could have gone an­oth­er way for the teenag­er.

In 2024, Williams was di­ag­nosed with sco­l­io­sis, a spinal con­di­tion in which the spine curves side­ways, form­ing an “S” or “C” shape. And al­though she was not ex­pe­ri­enc­ing any pain at the time, her par­ents no­ticed the un­even­ness in her hips—some­thing doc­tors said would have pro­gressed and caused more com­pli­ca­tions if she had not ad­dressed it then.

“The treat­ment start­ed with her hav­ing to wear a brace for 23 hours of the day,” her fa­ther, Ker­vaughn Williams, told WE.

“But she would wake up at night cry­ing, com­plain­ing that she couldn’t breathe.”

Even­tu­al­ly, it was de­ter­mined that sur­gi­cal in­ter­ven­tion to straight­en and sta­bilise the spine was nec­es­sary. And al­though she knew it was go­ing to be a com­pli­cat­ed sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure, her dis­ci­pline and op­ti­mism shone through.

“I knew I need­ed to get this done, and like any task that I have to do, I just put my mind to it and pray for a pos­i­tive out­come,” she said.

Af­ter in-depth re­search on lo­cal and for­eign sur­geons and hos­pi­tals, the fam­i­ly de­cid­ed on the Shriners Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal in Port­land, Ore­gon, wide­ly recog­nised for its spe­cialised pae­di­atric or­thopaedics pro­gramme, in­no­v­a­tive sur­gi­cal tech­niques, and holis­tic ap­proach to car­ing for chil­dren un­der­go­ing com­plex pro­ce­dures.

In De­cem­ber 2024, they trav­elled to what would be­come their home for six weeks. Dur­ing that time, Kee­mya found out she had been award­ed Rook­ie of the Year 2024 by the Roy­hil Seals Wa­ter Po­lo Club at its an­nu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny. Al­though she was un­able to at­tend the cer­e­mo­ny, the news gave her the de­ter­mi­na­tion to get over the sur­gi­cal hur­dle and get back in­to the wa­ter.

For sev­en gru­elling hours, Williams was dead to the world as the doc­tors worked to fix the de­for­mi­ty in her spine that threat­ened her pos­ture and put a pause on her play­ing her pre­cious wa­ter po­lo. Her par­ents ner­vous­ly wait­ed, with up­dates from the med­ical staff.

“Kee­mya un­der­went a com­plex pos­te­ri­or spinal fu­sion surgery, a pro­ce­dure per­formed to cor­rect se­vere sco­l­io­sis and pre­vent fur­ther pro­gres­sion of the spinal curve. Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, sur­geons care­ful­ly in­sert­ed ti­ta­ni­um rods and screws along her spine to straight­en and sta­bilise it. The fu­sion ex­tend­ed from the up­per tho­racic spine (T2) to the low­er lum­bar spine (L4), mean­ing a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of her spine was re­aligned and per­ma­nent­ly sup­port­ed. Over time, these ver­te­brae would fuse in­to a sin­gle, sol­id struc­ture, pro­vid­ing long-term sta­bil­i­ty and cor­rec­tion,” her fa­ther ex­plained.

When the pro­ce­dure was over, Williams vivid­ly re­calls ex­act­ly how she felt when she woke up.

“Pain,” she said with a loud laugh.

“I re­mem­ber be­ing con­fused and ask­ing my­self, ‘Why am I feel­ing more pain af­ter my surgery than be­fore?’ But I knew it would on­ly be for a pe­ri­od of time.”

It was a slow re­cov­ery, filled with many phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al chal­lenges that re­sult­ed in tears and sleep­less nights for both Kee­mya and her par­ents. But their sup­port, en­cour­age­ment and re­as­sur­ances nev­er wa­vered, as did her de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­gain strength, mo­bil­i­ty, and con­fi­dence.

“It was re­al­ly scary at first, but I nev­er gave up. I want­ed to get back in the wa­ter and play with my team again. I learned that even when things feel im­pos­si­ble, with hard work and sup­port from the peo­ple who love you, you can achieve any­thing.”

Three months post-surgery, Williams was back in the pool re­build­ing en­durance and re­claim­ing her ath­let­ic form. With her par­ents sup­port­ing her every step of the way, coach­es ad­just­ing train­ing, of­fer­ing guid­ance, and cheer­ing her on at every prac­tice, she slow­ly re­gained her strength and con­fi­dence in the wa­ter.

That sup­port and con­fi­dence spilled over in­to her aca­d­e­m­ic life. Hav­ing had to miss the sec­ond term of form two, her teach­ers had en­sured that she kept up with her as­sign­ments and stud­ies. When she re­turned to school in Form Three, she had to make some ad­just­ments for the tran­si­tion. But with de­ter­mi­na­tion and sup­port, she got back in­to her fa­mil­iar rou­tine and con­tin­ued ex­cel in the class­room.

“I plan to con­tin­ue play­ing wa­ter po­lo for my sec­ondary school, club and coun­try while I fin­ish sec­ondary school. My dream is to get a schol­ar­ship and at­tend uni­ver­si­ty abroad, where I can play while study­ing,” she said.