It start­ed off when I felt a lump in my breast and the ini­tial ad­vice ‘it was nor­mal to have lumps there at my age’. Af­ter some time, I went to my gy­nae­col­o­gist for my rou­tine check­ups and he said that my lumps were ab­nor­mal and rec­om­mend­ed that I go for a mam­mo­gram. When I went for the mam­mo­gram, they (med­ical of­fi­cials) were hes­i­tant be­cause of my age. They said that the re­sults show that I have dense breast tis­sue which was nor­mal for some­one my age.

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.

In re­cent years, law­mak­ers in T&T have tak­en steps to pro­tect vic­tims of abuse, in­clud­ing the lat­est amend­ment to the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act which al­lows for emer­gency pro­tec­tion or­ders to be grant­ed and broad­ens the scope of who can ap­ply for pro­tec­tion or­ders, among oth­er changes.

The new phrase ‘MASK-NE”, which com­bines the words “mask” and “ac­ne” - has re­cent­ly sprung up all over so­cial me­dia as peo­ple are vent­ing their woes from a new kind of fa­cial mal­a­dy. While masks play a vi­tal role in re­duc­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus, they can al­so be hard on your skin, caus­ing prob­lems that range from ac­ne and peel­ing skin to rash­es and itch­i­ness.

As a lead­ing cause of chron­ic pain and phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty world­wide, bone and joint dis­ease af­fects al­most half of the globe’s pop­u­la­tion in the form of arthri­tis, os­teo­poro­sis, back, knee and hip pain, and mus­cle and lig­a­ment in­juries. In many cas­es, age-re­lat­ed de­gen­er­a­tion of the body’s mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem is a sig­nif­i­cant con­tribut­ing fac­tor in the de­vel­op­ment of bone and joint dis­ease.

Imag­ine hav­ing a Sun­day spread of turkey with corn­bread stuff­ing and sor­rel con­serve, cin­na­mon-baked plan­tains and ap­ples in a cran­ber­ry glaze, and mixed greens with caramelised pecans and cran­ber­ries, com­plete with black cake and sor­rel on your din­ing ta­ble in Ju­ly, with­out hav­ing slaved in front the stove un­til 3 pm. Can­dice Thomas-Hen­ry did just that af­ter she and cater­er Kizzy Joseph crossed paths in late June…and the busy car sales agent and moth­er is look­ing for­ward to be­ing spoilt with Joseph’s culi­nary de­lights over and over again.

Around the world, near­ly one bil­lion peo­ple live with men­tal ill­ness­es. Every 40 sec­onds, some­one dies from sui­cide and de­pres­sion is now recog­nised as a lead­ing cause of ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ty among chil­dren and ado­les­cents.

Ronald Ben­jamin was re­mem­bered by the peo­ple who cel­e­brat­ed his life as a man who loved "his neigh­bour as he loved him­self" and who gave self­less­ly with­out look­ing for re­ward or adu­la­tion.

Men who are se­cret­ly strug­gling with stress, de­pres­sion or oth­er is­sues af­fect­ing men­tal health can reach out to the Ro­tary Club of Port-of-Spain West. Re­cent­ly-elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the Club, Sonya Phillip and her team are part­ner­ing with men­tal health ex­perts to help trou­bled males work out their prob­lems through CALM.

You have no­ticed that your sev­en-year-old re­cent­ly start­ed bed­wet­ting, when pre­vi­ous­ly she did not have this prob­lem. You have al­so no­ticed; her lev­el of anx­i­ety is fluc­tu­at­ing, and you heard her snor­ing. But how is it pos­si­ble for a sev­en-year-old to be snor­ing? Your child may be pre­sent­ing with the tell-tale signs of Ob­struc­tive Sleep Ap­nea (OSA). As we all nav­i­gate this COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic, let’s en­sure we are in­formed and not miss­ing these signs or detri­men­tal con­se­quences of OSA.

Cere­bral Pal­sy (CP) is an un­wel­come glob­al phe­nom­e­non. World Cere­bral Pal­sy Day, which oc­curs an­nu­al­ly on Oc­to­ber 6, re­minds us that there over 17 mil­lion peo­ple im­pact­ed by this dis­or­der. CP is one of the most com­mon phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties af­fect­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble among us, our chil­dren. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, CP oc­curs over the span of a child’s en­tire life­time with no cure.