KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Oc­to­ber has two pur­pos­es for Jami­la Ban­nis­ter. Cel­e­bra­tion and ad­vo­ca­cy.

About a year and half ago–on May 24, 2023, to be pre­cise–the com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al was di­ag­nosed with in­flam­ma­to­ry breast can­cer (IBC). Ban­nis­ter kicked off Pink Oc­to­ber with the cel­e­bra­tion of her birth­day on the very first day of the month.

“I'm so thank­ful to be here for an­oth­er year, thank­ful to see an­oth­er birth­day,” she said.

“In­flam­ma­to­ry breast can­cer in one of the rarest forms of breast can­cer that af­fects women. It's a par­tic­u­lar­ly ag­gres­sive strain that that tends to af­fect younger women of African de­scent more than any oth­er group. Un­like many oth­er forms of breast can­cer, it doesn't usu­al­ly show up with a lump.”

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the T&T Can­cer So­ci­ety warn­ing signs for breast can­cer usu­al­ly in­clude:

• A lump or thick­en­ing of an area of the breast that does not dis­ap­pear

af­ter a rea­son­able pe­ri­od of time

• Changes in the size or shape of the breast

• Changes in the skin of the breast such as dim­pling, puck­er­ing or a rash

• Breast pain that does not go away af­ter a rea­son­able pe­ri­od of time

• In­vert­ed nip­ple or un­usu­al nip­ple dis­charge

Ban­nis­ter re­mem­bered feel­ing strange sen­sa­tions in her right breast in Oc­to­ber 2022.

At the time she didn't think it was any­thing to be alarmed about.

She re­called, “It felt like zips of pain. I did my an­nu­al breast and pap smear in De­cem­ber and every­thing seemed al­right. By Jan­u­ary of 2023, though, my right breast start­ed swelling and I had a con­sis­tent dull pain that would flare up to an in­tense burn­ing from time to time. This trig­gered a num­ber of doc­tor's vis­its, from a GP to a scan, to a mam­mo­gram, back to my GYN and fi­nal­ly to a spe­cial­ist, who was fi­nal­ly able to tell me what was go­ing. By May 4, it was fi­nal­ly con­firmed as breast can­cer.”

Her di­ag­no­sis was clas­si­fied as lo­cal­ly ad­vanced be­cause it had al­ready pro­gressed to her lymph nodes.

“Be­cause of this and the im­mense spread of the dis­ease through­out my right breast, I had to pro­ceed im­me­di­ate­ly to chemother­a­py in or­der to ar­rest the progress of the dis­ease be­fore any surgery could be done,” she said.

“I en­dured eight rounds of chemother­a­py; a mix of Tax­ol and Car­bo­platin as well as the hor­mone sup­pres­sant Her­ceptin which I got 18 times.”

Tax­ol is a tax­ane chemother­a­py drug that blocks cell growth by stop­ping mi­to­sis while Car­bo­platin is a chemother­a­py drug that con­tains the met­al plat­inum. Both are used to treat can­cer.

Her chemother­a­py treat­ment was fol­lowed up with a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my.

“The mas­tec­to­my ex­pe­ri­ence was in­tense,” she said.

“Apart from get­ting used to my body look­ing and feel­ing un­like any­thing I’d seen or ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore, men­tal­ly I had to ad­just to what hav­ing this new body would be like. Surgery usu­al­ly means the loss of sen­sa­tion in the area where you’re cut and this could be tem­po­rary or per­ma­nent.”

It took time for Ban­nis­ter to get used to los­ing a pri­ma­ry eroge­nous zone.

“I didn’t feel sad though, I felt more re­lief as I just want­ed to be rid of the threat to my life. Re­cov­ery was al­so rough to be­gin with, but I was well tak­en care of and made a full re­cov­ery.”

Ban­nis­ter has not en­tered her next phase of ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py. “It's been a long 18 months and count­ing of nee­dles and knives, but I've grown used to it now,” she said.

“Ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py is a form of lo­calised treat­ment meant to re­duce the chances of re­cur­rence of dis­ease. Un­like chemother­a­py, which is med­ica­tion that run through one’s veins, ra­di­a­tion fo­cus­es specif­i­cal­ly on the af­fect­ed area. It’s the fi­nal phase of in­tense treat­ment and I’m hap­py to have got­ten to this stage.”

On In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2023 Ban­nis­ter pre-launched her e-com­merce busi­ness The Beau­ti­ful Mar­ket which caters to women who have ex­pe­ri­enced hair loss. She said the di­ag­no­sis prompt­ed her to reeval­u­ate her choic­es and pur­pose in life.

“It forced me to be much more in­ten­tion­al about the life I want­ed to lead and the lega­cy I want­ed to leave,” she said.

“I've be­come more in­ten­tion­al about the re­la­tion­ships I build, about my spir­i­tu­al life and my walk with God, more in­ten­tion­al about the food I con­sume, keep­ing ac­tive and def­i­nite­ly not sweat­ing the small stuff. It has made life ex­treme­ly ful­fill­ing, peace­ful and clear. What start­ed off as a very dark and sad ex­pe­ri­ence has re­shaped my life in a way that I'm so grate­ful to God for.”

With a very strong cir­cle of sup­port, Ban­nis­ter is ready for the next phase.

“My fam­i­ly, my par­ents, sib­lings, my friends and even peo­ple I met along the way have shown up for me in such amaz­ing ways,” she said.

“Good sup­port is so im­por­tant when fac­ing a di­ag­no­sis like can­cer and I cer­tain­ly had that. Apart from that, I al­so had to make sense of the sit­u­a­tion, so I spent a lot of time read­ing books like 'An­ti-Can­cer' and 'Not the breast year of my life'. I al­so spent a lot of time lis­ten­ing to and read­ing scrip­tures of heal­ing which soothed my soul on the nights that anx­i­ety would steal my sleep.

“Join­ing on­line com­mu­ni­ties with oth­er sur­vivors was al­so a game chang­er for me be­cause the first-hand knowl­edge from women who walked this road be­fore was gold­en in help­ing me un­der­stand what I was up against while be­ing en­cour­aged.”

Ban­nis­ter re­cent­ly launched a new blog to teach, sup­port and give new­ly di­ag­nosed pa­tients knowl­edge they need to nav­i­gate their di­ag­no­sis and treat­ment.

“The Thrive Guide Blog, was an idea that came to me when I re­flect­ed on how lost and con­fused I felt when I was first di­ag­nosed,” she ex­plained.

“There were no lo­cal re­sources that ex­plained in­flam­ma­to­ry breast can­cer that I could eas­i­ly find on­line. I vowed to help oth­er learn more about IBC.

“But the idea evolved in­to a blog and an on­line knowl­edge base about how to nav­i­gate breast can­cer treat­ment in T&T when I re­alised how many pa­tients I met who were al­most 'feel­ing their way through the dark' with this ex­pe­ri­ence when try­ing to nav­i­gate and un­der­stand all the mov­ing parts.”

She be­lieved there need­ed to be more in­for­ma­tion about treat­ment spe­cif­ic to T&T.

“I wrote about all of the things I ex­pe­ri­enced in for­mat to guide oth­er pa­tients who may be like I was, look­ing for first-hand knowl­edge about nav­i­gat­ing breast can­cer in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ban­nis­ter’s aim is to con­tin­ue shar­ing her sto­ries and ex­pe­ri­ences in a bid to help pa­tients con­cre­tise things they are feel­ing but don't have the words to ex­press, help them fig­ure out the es­sen­tials they will need at every stage of their jour­ney, and help them nav­i­gate the men­tal over­whelm one can feel when nav­i­gat­ing a se­ri­ous ill­ness.