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.

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Chloe remains hopeful as cancer progresses to Stage 4

by

33 days ago
20250123
Chloe Ramnarine smiles after landing in Columbia for life saving cancer surgery last month.

Chloe Ramnarine smiles after landing in Columbia for life saving cancer surgery last month.

PHOTO COURTESY CHOLE RAMNARINE

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

 

Doc­tors in Colom­bia have up­dat­ed Chloe Ram­nar­ine’s di­ag­no­sis to ear­ly Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, re­vis­ing the ini­tial Stage 2 di­ag­no­sis made lo­cal­ly.

Ram­nar­ine, 21, of Grand La­goon, Ma­yaro, touched the hearts of thou­sands of peo­ple last year af­ter Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed her strug­gles with can­cer. She has been un­der­go­ing tests and treat­ment at the Fun­dación San­ta Fe de Bo­gotá, a pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tal in Colom­bia, since ear­ly Jan­u­ary.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ram­nar­ine said even though the can­cer was worse than she thought, her spir­its re­mained buoyed by the love and sup­port she con­tin­ued to re­ceive from peo­ple near and far.

“I am grate­ful to say that my treat­ment plan has been ad­just­ed to bet­ter suit my sit­u­a­tion and is aimed to en­sure my full re­cov­ery. I’ll be do­ing im­munochemother­a­py, fol­lowed by a PET scan, and then the bone mar­row pro­ce­dure will be sched­uled,” Ram­nar­ine ex­plained.

She added, “I want to again thank every­one who stood by me. Your gen­er­ous do­na­tions, your kind­ness and care, and words of en­cour­age­ment mean the world to me.”

Her moth­er, Thilly­er Ram­nar­ine, al­so said she was hap­py for the ex­cep­tion­al care her daugh­ter had been re­ceiv­ing so far.

“I am grate­ful that a team of spe­cial­ists is now guid­ing her treat­ment. The land­lords where we are stay­ing have been so kind, and even though our stay in Bo­gotá will be longer than we an­tic­i­pat­ed, we are com­fort­ed by their gen­eros­i­ty,” she said.

She al­so praised God that all their med­ical ex­pens­es were cov­ered.

“We re­ceived a US$10,000 grant from the Min­istry of Health, and this is what we are us­ing for the ad­di­tion­al ex­pens­es,” Thilly­er added.

She ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the team at the Fun­dación San­ta Fe de Bo­gotá, say­ing once all goes well, she and her daugh­ter will re­turn home by April.

Ram­nar­ine was di­ag­nosed with Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma in Feb­ru­ary 2023 when she dis­cov­ered a small lump on her neck. She had to halt her stud­ies in Com­put­er Sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies as she un­der­went gru­elling chemother­a­py ses­sions. When the can­cer came back in March last year, she was ad­vised to seek bone mar­row surgery abroad.

Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed her sto­ry in De­cem­ber, and with­in weeks, donors raised the US$140,000 that was need­ed to fund her life-sav­ing surgery.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored