Lau­ra Dowrich-Phillips

For a woman di­ag­nosed with stage one breast can­cer Ali­cia John-Pow­ell is un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly pos­i­tive. She has had parts of her breasts re­moved and is un­der­go­ing chemother­a­py. But as any­one who's watched The Ba­sia Show on CN­MG would know, John-Pow­ell, known as Miss Ba­sia, is not let­ting her ill­ness get the bet­ter of her; she's cel­e­brat­ing life and even has a can­cer dance to go with it. "This is the way I choose to do my fight and any­one who wants to join me is free to do so," she said, shrug­ging off per­cep­tions that her pos­i­tive spin was in­sen­si­tive to oth­er peo­ple with can­cer.

Be­ing pos­i­tive and liv­ing a hap­py life is now key for John-Pow­ell. With no his­to­ry of breast can­cer in her fam­i­ly, and still young at 36, she be­lieves her can­cer was a re­sult of stress. "I've had a his­to­ry of emo­tion­al un­hap­pi­ness and this year was stress­ful," she said, re­fer­ring to the eco­nom­ic down­turn and the chal­lenges it posed for her busi­ness ven­tures. "From the time I chose life on this jour­ney, I de­cid­ed no one could make me un­hap­py," she de­clared. "I was such a worka­holic. This has shown me how to pri­ori­tise, how to work smarter. It has shown me how fleet­ing life could be." With a re­newed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for life, John-Pow­ell is fo­cused on the qual­i­ty of life she leads and giv­ing back is part of that.

Can­cer sup­port net­work

The Ba­sia Sup­port Net­work, which she will launch lat­er this month, as part of Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month, is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of that de­sire. Cater­ing to women with ear­ly stages of can­cer, the net­work in­tends to pro­vide a fo­rum where pa­tients can draw sup­port from each oth­er, learn how to lead healthy, or­gan­ic lifestyles, dance, do yo­ga and find some fun in the midst of their bat­tles. Sup­port groups in New York and Flori­da that gave John-Pow­ell the en­er­gy to fight her bat­tle will part­ner with the net­work. It was through these sup­port groups John-Pow­ell learnt how to pre­pare for chemo, foods to eat and how to live a health­i­er life. "It's not a med­ical sup­port group; it's an emo­tion­al well-be­ing sup­port group. We will work by re­fer­ral and we will al­so choose women to go abroad for re­con­struc­tive and can­cer surgery," she re­vealed, stress­ing that it will be pres­ti­gious in na­ture.

Some of John-Pow­ell's celebri­ty A-List friends, such as Wendy Fitzwilliam and Faye Ann Lyons, who she's pro­filed in her Ba­sia Mag­a­zine and on her show, have agreed to en­dorse the net­work. John-Pow­ell found out she had can­cer while on va­ca­tion in Dis­ney World ear­li­er this year with her hus­band, for­mer crick­eter Ri­car­do Pow­ell and two sons, RJ, five, and Ross, one. Though she had felt the lump a few days be­fore she trav­elled, doc­tors here told her she had noth­ing to wor­ry about be­cause of her age and sur­mised that it could be a blocked milk duct since she had on­ly stopped breast­feed­ing a few months be­fore. She said she had no rea­son to be­lieve she had can­cer but was con­cerned be­cause her breast looked strange. She went to the South­ern Mi­a­mi Bap­tist hos­pi­tal for a biop­sy and in 24 hours, re­ceived the re­sults. She did some tests, among them on­co­type dx, which de­ter­mines a per­son's risk for re­cur­rence and if you are a can­di­date for chemother­a­py. John-Pow­ell said she scored 43 out of 50. She al­so got a bi­lat­er­al mas­tec­to­my, which is the re­moval of tis­sue from both breasts, a move tak­en by women con­sid­ered high risk.

The surgery will be shown on an up­com­ing Ba­sia show. Her aim is to de­mys­ti­fy the dis­ease and en­cour­age women to deal with it pos­i­tive­ly. "I had sad mo­ments, I cried, I had dif­fer­ent peo­ple hold my hand at dif­fer­ent stages. I want to ex­pose things peo­ple don't tell you about, like the ear­ly menopause. I know I will save lives and peo­ple will dis­cov­er lumps and go to the doc­tor." Three quar­ters of the fight, she said, is your spir­it, and her hus­band, who stood by her side through it all, great­ly en­riched hers. If the pink, breast can­cer cap he wore the day Wom­an­Wise vis­it­ed their Mar­aval home for the in­ter­view is any­thing to go by, he is clear­ly the cheer­leader on Team Ali­cia. The cap was em­bla­zoned with the words, "I love my wife Ali­cia John Pow­ell, aka Miss Ba­sia." "He has been a cham­pi­on; he did every­thing he had to do to make sure his wife wins. I am so blessed in this ex­pe­ri­ence and be­cause of that I know my call­ing is the Ba­sia Sup­port Net­work," she said. The net­work will al­so launch in Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica, where the Ba­sia Show cur­rent­ly airs.