Be­fore the pan­dem­ic of COVID-19 brought health­care to its knees, Di­a­betes was al­ready a glob­al epi­dem­ic with more than 420 mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing with this dread­ed dis­ease world­wide. No­vem­ber is de­clared Na­tion­al Di­a­betes Month, a time when com­mu­ni­ties across the world team up to bring at­ten­tion to di­a­betes. When you con­sid­er that one in two of the peo­ple who have di­a­betes go by un­di­ag­nosed, it is easy to un­der­stand why an aware­ness month is need­ed.

In an at­tempt to en­sure com­mu­ni­ty ca­ma­raderie de­spite the chal­lenges of COVID-19, coun­cil­lor for San­gre Grande North East Paul Mon­go­las host­ed two vir­tu­al com­pe­ti­tions: Know Your Coun­try (Artis­tic Ex­pres­sion, Spelling Bee and Quiz) and Tal­ent (Show and Tell, Sto­ry Telling and Tal­ent Show).

Many sin­gle moth­ers face ex­ploita­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion in myr­i­ad ways, from fam­i­ly and friends, in the work­place, evic­tion and un­em­ploy­ment, while some places for rent do not al­low chil­dren.

Self-taught Ma­yaro artist Char­maine Mur­ray, whose work has been sold coun­tries abroad, is urg­ing cit­i­zens to use art as a ther­a­py to re­duce pan­dem­ic stress.

Even when beach­es, rivers and pools were or­dered closed due to COVID-19, there were wa­ter deaths. From a two-year-old at a fam­i­ly pool in Cunu­pia to a teenag­er at Clax­ton Bay, the trag­ic sto­ries were re­port­ed.

“So doc, you mean, I can’t smoke at the cor­ner with my pad­na (part­ner) and keep the mask at the side?” A ques­tion that baf­fled me on the ra­dio pro­gramme, The Lunchtime Doc­tor, when the caller asked in a se­ri­ous tone. It brought to my sud­den re­al­i­sa­tion that aware­ness was still ne­ces­si­tat­ed, in 2020, dur­ing a pan­dem­ic; on Lung Can­cer, the risk fac­tors and the ben­e­fits of smok­ing ces­sa­tion.

Care­giv­ing is a tough job. This No­vem­ber, with­in which nu­mer­ous Health Days are com­mem­o­rat­ed, we re­mem­ber the in­di­vid­u­als who lov­ing­ly give baths and med­ica­tions, clean hous­es, shop for, and com­fort the mil­lions of el­der­ly and ail­ing pa­tients who are clients, friends or loved ones. We al­so recog­nise that the every­day de­mands of care­giv­ing are al­ready a full-time job, made even more chal­leng­ing with the ad­di­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing and pro­tec­tive mea­sures to safe­guard your loved ones from COVID-19.

Trinida­di­an-born en­to­mol­o­gist Dr Michelle Samuel-Foo nev­er had all her school books and had to study by the light of a can­dle when­ev­er there was a pow­er out­age at her home in Bak­er Trace, Guaico. Still, she had a fire in­side that would not go out.

In the ever-widen­ing con­ver­sa­tion of vir­tu­al learn­ing that has gripped the globe since the start of the pan­dem­ic, its ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages, the dig­i­tal di­vide and those who risk falling be­hind, one age group has been seem­ing­ly left com­plete­ly out of the con­ver­sa­tion. Per­haps there is a feel­ing of com­pla­cen­cy that chil­dren be­tween ages two and sev­en have more than enough time to catch up, it is the old­er ones we must wor­ry about.

If you are un­der­go­ing Chemother­a­py and ex­pe­ri­ence episodes of mem­o­ry loss, or dif­fi­cul­ty in fo­cus­ing or sim­ply feel your brain is all fogged up, you are not imag­in­ing these symp­toms. Some­times peo­ple with can­cer wor­ry about, joke about, or be­come frus­trat­ed by what they de­scribe as men­tal cloudi­ness or changes they might no­tice dur­ing, and af­ter can­cer treat­ment. This cloudi­ness or men­tal change is com­mon­ly re­ferred to as “chemo brain”.

All peo­ple, whether male or fe­male, are born with some breast cells and tis­sue. Even though males do not de­vel­op milk-pro­duc­ing breasts, a man’s breast cells and tis­sue can still de­vel­op can­cer. Though, male breast can­cer is very rare, it is just as se­ri­ous as that which women ex­pe­ri­ence.

“I was di­ag­nosed with stage 2B breast can­cer in my left breast in 2014, at the age of 30. I first be­came aware of breast can­cer when I got a can­cer scare at age 17. Since then, I start­ed sup­port­ing breast can­cer groups. When the lump was dis­cov­ered I fig­ured it would be neg­a­tive just as it was in the past, so I didn’t wor­ry. It was on­ly when the lump start­ed to cause pain, I de­cid­ed to get a lumpec­to­my pri­vate­ly.