This Oc­to­ber, join us to raise more than aware­ness of breast can­cer; let’s take ac­tion, get screened and sup­port one an­oth­er. A breast can­cer di­ag­no­sis is over­whelm­ing, but we can re­duce that fear, by en­abling our sis­ters with the right guid­ance and em­pow­er­ing their ac­tions, so no one faces breast can­cer alone. Ear­ly de­tec­tion of breast can­cer is of­ten key to a suc­cess­ful out­come. When screened ear­ly, you are giv­ing your­self the best chance for suc­cess­ful treat­ment. Let’s not on­ly sur­vive can­cer but ‘Thrive’ in spite of it!

–Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed | guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

“My name is Can­dice Pierre-Sook­lal. I am a wife, and moth­er of two and was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer. I’ve done 32 chemother­a­py ses­sions, five can­cer-re­lat­ed surg­eries, 25 ses­sions of ra­di­a­tion and hun­dreds of blood tests. I am cur­rent­ly on main­te­nance med­ica­tions, and I am hap­py to say that since 2018 to date all my CT scans have been clean. I am not just sur­viv­ing but I am thriv­ing!

Rewind to a cou­ple of months pri­or to re­ceiv­ing that dread­ful news, I felt a small lump on my left breast and hon­est­ly I thought noth­ing of it … I thought that I was too young to get breast can­cer. I ig­nored the mass in my breast. It wasn’t un­til lat­er that year I be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pain in the breast and on­ly then I made the de­ci­sion to have a biop­sy done and I would hear those ter­ri­fy­ing words ‘you have can­cer’. It was Stage 2B.”

Di­ag­nosed at age 30

“I got my di­ag­no­sis in No­vem­ber of 2014, a few weeks af­ter my 30th birth­day. It was a di­ag­no­sis that I wasn’t ex­pect­ing to hear at that young age, mar­ried with a three-year-old daugh­ter, Christi­na. She was with me in the chang­ing room at the doc­tor’s of­fice and I guess she saw the de­pressed look on my face and thought some­thing was wrong. My three-year-old looked at me and said, ‘don’t wor­ry mum­my, every­thing will be ok.’ ... I took that as a di­rect mes­sage from God, us­ing my daugh­ter to re­mind me that He’s got me.

I chas­tised my­self for turn­ing a blind eye to the signs my body was point­ing out to me. I had so many ques­tions in my mind. I was con­fused and scared but with much prayer and strength from God, I was de­ter­mined to fight this dis­ease and not on­ly sur­vive it but con­quer it.

Be­com­ing preg­nant

“Whilst ad­just­ing to my di­ag­no­sis and dis­cussing my treat­ment op­tions, I be­came preg­nant with my sec­ond child. I was ad­vised to ter­mi­nate the preg­nan­cy, but I chose not to.

I with­held from hav­ing treat­ment done dur­ing my preg­nan­cy and even­tu­al­ly I de­liv­ered a healthy ba­by girl on my birth­day in the year 2015, nam­ing her Faith Des­tiny Sook­lal.

I start­ed chemother­a­py one week af­ter de­liv­er­ing my daugh­ter, Faith.

I found my­self be­ing scared again be­cause of all the grim sto­ries I would hear about can­cer treat­ments but again, I con­tin­ued to pray, hav­ing faith in God and al­so trust­ing the med­ical staff to take care of me and what a tremen­dous job they all did.”

The can­cer re­turns …

“The can­cer re­turned in 2016 in the same breast and this time I opt­ed to re­move the en­tire left breast. It wasn’t a tough de­ci­sion to make be­cause in my mind, I had to do what­ev­er it took to sur­vive and con­quer this. I was be­com­ing so tired and weary phys­i­cal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly and men­tal­ly. Rais­ing chil­dren and fight­ing can­cer is very dif­fi­cult for both par­ties. My girls have been through a lot since my di­ag­no­sis as my fight af­fect­ed them as much as it did to me and as a moth­er, I found my­self be­ing phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly over­whelmed. I had to find ways to deal with what I was go­ing through and to make their lives eas­i­er as well as mine.

“I found my­self re-eval­u­at­ing my pri­or­i­ties, seek­ing as­sis­tance from my fam­i­ly, learn­ing how to lim­it my­self from what was re­quired of me, shar­ing chores, rest­ing more, wor­ry­ing less about every­thing and most im­por­tant­ly, pray­ing to God for wis­dom and strength.

I am al­so for­ev­er grate­ful to all my on­col­o­gy an­gels, sur­geons and their med­ical teams, my hus­band, my two daugh­ters, fam­i­ly and friends for their nev­er-end­ing sup­port which is very im­por­tant and cru­cial in a can­cer pa­tient’s life. 

“We were able to adapt to this new life and I was able to cope bet­ter as a moth­er, sur­viv­ing can­cer. The fight is in­deed a dif­fi­cult one but mak­ing changes in your life is im­por­tant and nec­es­sary for you to sur­vive and con­quer any ob­sta­cle that life may throw at you!

I’m now an ad­vo­cate for breast can­cer aware­ness and this is my ad­vice to read­ers:

• Please do not ig­nore ab­nor­mal signs or oc­cur­rences tak­ing place in your body.

• Get­ting screened is very im­por­tant be­cause ear­ly de­tec­tion can save your life.

• Yes, it’s a scary sit­u­a­tion to be in, but don’t let fear grip you and pre­vent you from get­ting screened.

• For those who have been di­ag­nosed with any can­cer, the road to re­cov­ery is long, rough and te­dious, but I im­plore you to­day, DO NOT give up the fight.

• And most im­por­tant­ly, pray and have faith in God to help you to fight through this try­ing time.

Re­mem­ber, your faith is stronger than your fears!