When a teenag­er is di­ag­nosed with can­cer it is a hard­er pill to swal­low. They are ex­posed to more of life and there­fore their knowl­edge of what can­cer is makes it hard­er for the en­tire fam­i­ly to cope. JBF talks to Ane­sha who beat the odds, and is now a part of the health­care sys­tem in a very pos­i­tive way.

Ane­sha: I was on­ly 15 years old when I dis­cov­ered a small mass on my neck. Since it did not af­fect me in any way (some­times I for­got that it was even there), I car­ried on with my dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties. A few months lat­er, af­ter re­al­iz­ing that it was much big­ger, I went to “Dr Google” out of cu­rios­i­ty. There I read that swollen lymph nodes may be a sign of can­cer and like any oth­er per­son around that age, I im­me­di­ate­ly thought that I was go­ing to die.

A month lat­er, I had two swollen lymph nodes even though I was on an­tibi­otics. Af­ter an­oth­er vis­it to the doc­tor, it was found that my white blood cell count was high­er than usu­al, I was put on more an­tibi­otics and again, there was no change in the size of the nodes. Al­though the re­sults from the CT scan test­ed pos­i­tive, my doc­tors at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal per­formed a biop­sy, which con­firmed that I had Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma. Know­ing from the start that can­cer could have been a pos­si­bil­i­ty, this news sank in well for nei­ther my fam­i­ly nor my­self.

In or­der to be­gin chemother­a­py, a few tests were done, a bone mar­row as­pi­ra­tion and an echocar­dio­gram, af­ter which I was im­me­di­ate­ly ward­ed for peri­car­dial ef­fu­sion which is ex­cess flu­id be­tween the heart and the sac sur­round­ing the heart, known as the peri­cardi­um.

My very first chemother­a­py did not end well, with­in a week I start­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence side ef­fects such as fa­tigue, loss of ap­petite, weight and hair loss. Af­ter be­ing trans­ferred to the JBF Ward to con­tin­ue my treat­ment, my once thick, long hair was now thin and knot­ted. This was when I came to the re­al­iza­tion that I had can­cer. The last two to three ses­sions were un­for­get­table as I was ad­mit­ted for low blood count and giv­en trans­fu­sions. Dur­ing this time, I suf­fered from ex­treme weak­ness, fa­tigue and mouth sores to the point where soft foods and flu­ids were my on­ly op­tion.

Al­though I was about to start Form five, I had to stop school. The thought of oth­er stu­dents prepar­ing dili­gent­ly for their CXC ex­am­i­na­tions haunt­ed me. I am in­deed thank­ful to my teach­ers and prin­ci­pal at Saraswati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege. I’m grate­ful for their guid­ance and thought­ful­ness; mak­ing the work ma­te­r­i­al avail­able to me, en­sur­ing I was able to sit my ex­ams.

While ward­ed I was ad­min­is­tered var­i­ous chemother­a­py drugs which sparked my in­ter­est in be­com­ing a phar­ma­cist who will one day be able to pre­pare chemother­a­py for can­cer pa­tients. De­spite the many tri­als and tribu­la­tions, I be­lieve if it wasn’t for a can­cer di­ag­no­sis, I prob­a­bly wouldn’t have been a phar­ma­cy stu­dent to­day.

Hav­ing my check-ups at the hos­pi­tal (now every six months) gives me the most chills. Sim­ply walk­ing through the en­trance of the pae­di­atric hos­pi­tal and along the hall­way to the clin­ic feels as if I am that same can­cer pa­tient of near­ly five years ago. That dread­ful feel­ing of wait­ing for my blood test re­sults still linger on to­day. Vis­it­ing Aun­ty Chevaughn and Un­cle Noel on the JBF ward brings back so many mem­o­ries forc­ing me to re­live those mo­ments. Through­out my treat­ment and even to date, I of­ten ask my­self, “Will it ever re­turn, and what if it does and I haven’t been able to ac­com­plish my goals in life?” Some days I look at the “nor­mal” peo­ple around me, those who have no health is­sues or nev­er had can­cer and I won­der what my life will be like in the next cou­ple of years. Will I suf­fer from any long-term ef­fects that might in­flu­ence my way of liv­ing? I am very thrilled to be can­cer-free but, it is true that life af­ter treat­ment comes with mixed emo­tions.

This jour­ney was an emo­tion­al roller­coast­er but, I am grate­ful for the lessons learned and most thank­ful to God and my fam­i­ly for hav­ing been my biggest sup­port and for be­ing by my side 24/7. Thank­ful­ly, my doc­tors de­tect­ed my can­cer at an ear­ly stage. As I ap­proach my fifth-year can­cer-free, I urge you to go out there and live life con­scious­ly each day (ex­cept for now - stay in­side). To those fight­ing can­cer, my prayers are with you and al­though this is an over­whelm­ing time for you, my ad­vice is to breathe and take each day at a time. There will be good and bad days but try to stay pos­i­tive al­ways, speak to some­one if you have to. Most im­por­tant­ly pray and trust your health­care providers. My deep­est thanks to Dr Ravi Bha­ga­loo, Dr T Ku­ruvil­la, Dr Yardesh Singh, the on­col­o­gy staff at the San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tal, Dr Bod­kyn, Dr Lalchan­dani, our nurs­es, the JBF, teach­ers, friends, well-wish­ers and last but not least, my god­par­ents.

JBF: Thank you for shar­ing your jour­ney with us Ane­sha. May God con­tin­ue to bless you as you ac­knowl­edge Him in all your ways.

“And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glo­ri­ous name.” 1 Chron­i­cles 29:13

Chevaughn Joseph

Just Be­cause Foun­da­tion

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