RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

One year ago, Kristo­pher Mo­hamed’s life changed in a way no teenag­er ex­pects. The for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent, on the cusp of med­ical school and adult­hood, was di­ag­nosed with Stage IV Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, a di­ag­no­sis that forced him to con­front the fear of mor­tal­i­ty far ear­li­er than most of his peers.

To­day, Mo­hamed is thank­ful­ly in re­mis­sion—stronger, wis­er, and pas­sion­ate about how he lives and serves oth­ers.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian, Mo­hamed said that in­stead of re­treat­ing in­ward from the trau­ma of can­cer, he chose to turn out­ward, build­ing re­silience not just for him­self, but for oth­ers fac­ing the same ter­ri­fy­ing road. In one year, he has part­nered with oth­er can­cer vic­tims, of­fer­ing sup­port and teach­ing them how to face the world with grat­i­tude, rather than bit­ter­ness.

“To­day, I feel grate­ful more than any­thing else. Life in re­mis­sion is qui­eter. I’m learn­ing how to live again with­out every­thing re­volv­ing around ap­point­ments, med­ica­tions, and scans, which was my re­al­i­ty for months,” he said.

Re­call­ing the day he was di­ag­nosed, Mo­hamed said he had suf­fered from trou­bling symp­toms—re­lent­less night sweats, mi­graines, hives, and chest pain so se­vere he could not lie flat. In Feb­ru­ary 2025, he was rushed to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, vom­it­ing and cough­ing up blood. Af­ter days of test­ing and un­cer­tain­ty, he was giv­en the news that he had can­cer.

“The mo­ment I was di­ag­nosed felt un­re­al,” he re­called. “I re­mem­ber hear­ing the words, but not ful­ly pro­cess­ing them. It felt like my fu­ture sud­den­ly be­came un­cer­tain, and I was forced to learn about this form of can­cer overnight.”

Three months lat­er, doc­tors con­firmed the dis­ease had pro­gressed to Stage IV, spread­ing from his neck to his left lung and armpits.

His treat­ment re­quired im­munochemother­a­py, in­clud­ing the drug nivolum­ab, which is not avail­able through the pub­lic health sys­tem. The cost of care—cov­er­ing three months of treat­ment, PET scans, and hos­pi­tal fees—to­talled US$135,000, a stag­ger­ing fig­ure for any fam­i­ly.

When his sto­ry be­came pub­lic, sup­port fol­lowed in waves. For­mer class­mates from San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry and Na­pari­ma Col­lege reached out. Strangers sent mes­sages of en­cour­age­ment. Do­na­tions poured in through a Go­FundMe cam­paign that steadi­ly climbed to­ward its tar­get.

“The re­sponse gave me strength,” Mo­hamed said. “Peo­ple took the time to lis­ten to my sto­ry, to share their own, and to sup­port me in ways I nev­er ex­pect­ed. That gen­eros­i­ty in­spired me to fight even hard­er.”

He said the days af­ter chemother­a­py were among the hard­est, marked by ex­haus­tion, nau­sea, and phys­i­cal weak­ness. Those months co­in­cid­ed with the start of med­ical school, adding men­tal pres­sure to an al­ready over­whelm­ing jour­ney.

“There were changes in weight, fa­tigue, hair loss — so many phys­i­cal changes,” he says. “Emo­tion­al­ly, I be­came more vul­ner­a­ble, but al­so more self-aware. I learned to sit with dif­fi­cult emo­tions in­stead of run­ning from them.”

Fear was his con­stant com­pan­ion. Fear that the treat­ment might not work. Fear of los­ing his in­de­pen­dence and am­bi­tions. Fear of what life would look like if the path ahead shift­ed again.

“What helped most was tak­ing things one day at a time,” he said. “Sup­port from my fam­i­ly, small rou­tines, mo­ments of nor­mal­cy, and re­mind­ing my­self that treat­ment had an end­point made the days man­age­able.”

His par­ents Joelle Koy­lass and Ja­son Mo­hamed be­came his an­chor—emo­tion­al­ly, phys­i­cal­ly, and men­tal­ly. Health­care work­ers, too, played a crit­i­cal role, of­fer­ing not just med­ical ex­per­tise, but com­pas­sion.

“They treat­ed me as more than just a pa­tient,” he says. “That made a dif­fer­ence.”

The love from his grand­moth­er Kay Pu­choon, sus­tained him. Mo­hamed said he al­so drew strength from mem­bers of the pub­lic who had nev­er met him but be­lieved in his re­cov­ery.

Be­yond treat­ment plans and hos­pi­tal vis­its, Mo­hamed said he re­alised that not every­one had his sup­port sys­tem. Many around him strug­gled silent­ly with fear, grief, and iso­la­tion, so he reached out.

“I re­alised that young pa­tients need more emo­tion­al sup­port and hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” he said. “They need to be in­clud­ed in de­ci­sions and re­as­sured that it’s okay to grieve the life they had while still hop­ing for the fu­ture.”

Mo­hamed said his di­ag­no­sis showed him what need­ed to be done. “More em­pha­sis must be placed on men­tal health sup­port dur­ing and af­ter treat­ment,” he said, adding, “Sur­vivor­ship does not end when chemother­a­py does. There’s a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od that many peo­ple don’t talk about. Pa­tients need guid­ance dur­ing that phase.”

Mo­hamed said it’s why he formed a sup­port net­work for chil­dren and young peo­ple with can­cer—a space root­ed in shared ex­pe­ri­ence, em­pa­thy, and re­silience. Draw­ing on his own jour­ney, he hopes to help oth­ers nav­i­gate fear, un­cer­tain­ty, and re­cov­ery with dig­ni­ty and hope.

Look­ing back, Mo­hamed said can­cer re­shaped his un­der­stand­ing of strength.

“I learned that I’m stronger than I ever thought,” he said. “Not be­cause I didn’t strug­gle, but be­cause I kept go­ing de­spite fear, ex­haus­tion, and un­cer­tain­ty.”

Even now, he said, re­mis­sion does not erase anx­i­ety. The fear of re­cur­rence lingers, par­tic­u­lar­ly around scans or un­fa­mil­iar phys­i­cal symp­toms.

“There’s al­ways that con­cern,” he ad­mit­ted. “But I’m learn­ing not to let fear con­trol how I live.”

When he looks ahead ten years in­to the fu­ture, Mo­hamed sees a life ground­ed in pur­pose.

“I see my­self healthy, ful­filled, and mak­ing a mean­ing­ful im­pact, both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly,” he said. “I want to use my ex­pe­ri­ences to help oth­ers.”

For fam­i­lies and young peo­ple cur­rent­ly fac­ing can­cer, he had this mes­sage.

“You are al­lowed to be scared, tired, over­whelmed, and still hope­ful. You are more than your di­ag­no­sis. This chap­ter does not de­fine your en­tire sto­ry.”

Mo­hamed said he is grate­ful for the sup­port he re­ceived, say­ing his sto­ry shows that de­spite a dev­as­tat­ing di­ag­no­sis can­cer pa­tients can use their lives to be­come a cat­a­lyst for com­pas­sion, courage, and ser­vice. In choos­ing to turn out­ward, Mo­hamed said he has en­sured that his fight ex­tends be­yond him­self, of­fer­ing strength to those still walk­ing the road he knows all too well.