JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Lumps–A survivor’s story: Penned in pain and purpose

by

Ryan Bachoo
38 days ago
20250706

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Four weeks be­fore Jamie Sabeeney was due to grad­u­ate in 2023, she re­ceived the most dev­as­tat­ing news of her life. The usu­al emo­tions that come with com­plet­ing uni­ver­si­ty, those of joy and ac­com­plish­ment, were over­shad­owed by a stage 2B Hodgkin’s lym­phoma di­ag­no­sis. It up­end­ed her en­tire world.

Three days be­fore grad­u­a­tion, she start­ed chemother­a­py.

Her roller­coast­er ex­pe­ri­ence with can­cer over the last two years would in­spire her to write a book that will be launched in the com­ing weeks, ti­tled Lumps. It’s most­ly a com­pi­la­tion of her jour­nals dur­ing can­cer treat­ment.

She told WE mag­a­zine last week, “I guess halfway through I re­alised I’d been writ­ing so many jour­nals that I should turn this in­to a book. So said, so done. I fin­ished my treat­ment and de­cid­ed to turn it in­to more of a sto­ry. It goes through from day one of me ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the pain to the lumps.”

In 2021, Sabeeney re­ceived the COVID-19 vac­cine be­cause she had to re­turn to uni­ver­si­ty. She said she in­stant­ly got a pain in her neck, and a lump ap­peared in the same spot. The doc­tors were con­vinced it was not can­cer. They were wrong.

“It’s a very slow-grow­ing can­cer, so it starts in your neck, then it moves down to your chest and your armpits, and then your thumb up, and so on,” Sabeeney ex­plained.

Through­out that emo­tion­al­ly gru­elling jour­ney, writ­ing would help her. It wasn’t al­ways easy to take the pain she felt to her fam­i­ly, so she poured it out on pa­per. She said, “I did not want to let my par­ents know how I was feel­ing most of the time be­cause I didn’t want them to get scared, and I would cry on my own, hide in a room where my par­ents could not see me. It’s not easy hav­ing a child go­ing through this; they would want to take the pain away from you. So, writ­ing def­i­nite­ly helped. You can get out of any­thing. You can say any­thing to your phone or a piece of pa­per. It was the best way for me.”

Now, her words in that book could be­come the hope that an­oth­er can­cer pa­tient needs.

She ex­plained, “When I start­ed to do my treat­ments, I was look­ing at oth­er peo­ple who were go­ing through some­thing sim­i­lar to try and get an idea of what this is. What am I go­ing to ex­pe­ri­ence? Am I go­ing to have the same feel­ings as them? So, I said I’m go­ing to write, and I want can­cer pa­tients to see what I went through, and this might help them pre­pare for their treat­ment. But I al­so said that this book could help oth­er peo­ple, not nec­es­sar­i­ly some­one who’s go­ing through can­cer. It could be some­one who knows some­one who is go­ing through can­cer.”

The en­tire jour­ney has changed Sabeeney. She ex­plained, “I tell peo­ple all the time I think that I’m a dif­fer­ent per­son. My whole out­look on life has changed. I nev­er thought that I took my friends, fam­i­ly, or life for grant­ed, and it turns out that I did. I didn’t even know that I was tak­ing these things for grant­ed. Get­ting put in a sit­u­a­tion like this, life is way too short, and you do not know. We’re not promised to­mor­row, we do not know what’s com­ing, and this has taught me so much.”

In­spir­ing oth­ers has be­come so im­por­tant to Sabeeney that she is al­so as­sist­ing oth­ers in their own fight against can­cer.

The sto­ry of Chloe Ram­nar­ine moved her so much that Sabeeney vis­it­ed the 21-year-old from Grand La­goon, Ma­yaro. Ram­nar­ine is a Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) stu­dent whose life has been turned up­side down by a di­ag­no­sis of can­cer.

Since 2023, she has been bat­tling stage 2B Hodgkin’s lym­phoma, a type of can­cer that af­fects the lym­phat­ic sys­tem. Ram­nar­ine was forced to stop her stud­ies and start chemother­a­py, en­dur­ing gru­elling rounds of treat­ment that would clear the can­cer, on­ly to have it re­turn. In March 2024, just two weeks be­fore her uni­ver­si­ty ex­ams, Ram­nar­ine’s doc­tors de­liv­ered the dev­as­tat­ing news: the can­cer had re­lapsed.

Both Sabeeney and Ram­nar­ine have be­come friends since the for­mer found out about the di­ag­no­sis.

Sabeeney said, “It’s just crazy to find all these young peo­ple hav­ing can­cer or hav­ing the same is­sues. It’s just so crazy, and it’s hard as a young kid be­cause you have a big life ahead of you. I just want­ed to boost her and make her know that it’s okay.” Sabeeney said Ram­nar­ine was now can­cer-free, as is she.

How­ev­er, Sabeeney’s work in bat­tling can­cer is not over. Through her book, she will con­tin­ue to help can­cer pa­tients through the hard­est bat­tle of their lives. She hopes her own jour­ney will not on­ly give them a glimpse in­to what their di­ag­no­sis will be like but al­so give them hope that they can emerge from this death sen­tence too.

What is Hodgkin lym­phoma?

Hodgkin lym­phoma is a type of can­cer that af­fects the lym­phat­ic sys­tem. The lym­phat­ic sys­tem is part of the body’s germ-fight­ing and dis­ease-fight­ing im­mune sys­tem. Hodgkin lym­phoma be­gins when healthy cells in the lym­phat­ic sys­tem change and grow out of con­trol.

The lym­phat­ic sys­tem in­cludes lymph nodes. They are found through­out the body. Most lymph nodes are in the ab­domen, groin, pelvis, chest, un­der­arms and neck. The lym­phat­ic sys­tem al­so in­cludes the spleen, thy­mus, ton­sils and bone mar­row. Hodgkin lym­phoma can af­fect all these ar­eas and oth­er or­gans in the body.

(https://www.may­oclin­ic.org)


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored