‘Afraid at first, but then that spir­it of sur­vival gave me the pos­i­tive en­er­gy I need­ed.

Once I put my trust in God, I con­tin­ued to op­er­ate in a pos­i­tive mode. It was like ‘do what you have to do’ and think of noth­ing else ex­cept be­ing that bea­con of hope to oth­ers faced with a sim­i­lar chal­lenge.”

Mar­cia Mi­ran­da has been named Glob­al Hero of Hope by the Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety. Ms. Mi­ran­da is one of the 2023 Glob­al He­roes of Hope in the Caribbean.

Glob­al He­roes of Hope are can­cer sur­vivors or care­givers who have demon­strat­ed a com­mit­ment to the mis­sion of sav­ing lives from the dis­ease. As high­ly vis­i­ble sym­bols of a per­son­al vic­to­ry over can­cer, they share their per­son­al sto­ries in a va­ri­ety of set­tings to mo­ti­vate oth­ers to fight back against the dis­ease.

My Can­cer Jour­ney

“I was di­ag­nosed on Au­gust 13th, 2004, with Stage 3B Breast Can­cer in the left breast. Sev­en­teen lymph nodes were re­moved, and they all test­ed pos­i­tive for can­cer. There was al­so a pos­i­tive supr­a­clav­ic­u­lar node in the neck. So I am triple neg­a­tive, which makes it pret­ty ag­gres­sive. How­ev­er, it is not hor­mone-dri­ven and more chal­leng­ing to treat than oth­er forms of the dis­ease.”

“My con­ven­tion­al treat­ment con­sist­ed of surgery, chemother­a­py, and ra­di­a­tion. I did al­ter­na­tive Oxy­gen ther­a­py, opt­ed for an al­ter­na­tive di­et of raw foods for six months, and switched to a pescatar­i­an di­et. I joined the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer Or­ga­ni­za­tion while un­der­go­ing chemother­a­py.”

Thriv­ing with Can­cer

“I have sur­vived for 18 years de­spite my ini­tial fears of be­ing Stage 3B with a sup­pressed im­mune sys­tem. I take ex­cel­lent care of my body. I was thrilled to be with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety or­ga­ni­za­tion be­cause I sin­cere­ly be­lieve that shar­ing and out­pour­ing with­out judg­ment and neg­a­tiv­i­ty were vi­tal to my sur­vival. I have had no re­grets or fears re­gard­ing my open­ness on my can­cer jour­ney and re­cov­ery. I am deeply spir­i­tu­al and owe my suc­cess­ful ex­pe­ri­ence to my cre­ator.”

To any­one with a health chal­lenge…

“As a sur­vivor of Can­cer, I have ac­cept­ed that this life that was giv­en to me, and it is not mine to waste or abuse. I try to do every­thing with love. Of course, I have my low tides like every­one, and I am hon­est with my­self. I do what­ev­er I must to get back on track.”

Let’s re­mem­ber to take care of our health:

1. Ex­er­cise - at least 30 min­utes a day or 1 hr/five times a week.

2. Veg­gies & Fruits - Choose to lim­it your in­take of un­healthy fats, e.g, fried foods and processed meats.

3. Min­i­mize stress, laugh and lime!

“Be­com­ing a mem­ber of The Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety af­ford­ed me in­for­ma­tion, sup­port, love, and com­fort. As an en­ter­tain­er and me­dia pre­sen­ter, I was giv­en the en­cour­age­ment and tools to ad­vo­cate for em­pow­er­ment and knowl­edge on can­cer and pre­ven­tion.”

For more in­for­ma­tion on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety:

www.can­certt.com| 800-TTCS| projects@can­cer.tt

Let’s be Bea­cons of Hope

Yes­ter­day, the world com­mem­o­rat­ed World Can­cer Day. It should be ac­knowl­edged every day, as each day there are per­sons be­ing di­ag­nosed with Can­cer. While it re­mains chal­leng­ing for any­one to fore­see the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Can­cer, as no one choos­es to imag­ine this di­ag­no­sis, it is a re­al­i­ty we each can face. In shar­ing these con­ver­sa­tions, WE each con­tribute to des­tig­ma­tis­ing the bur­den and gain a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the jour­ney one en­dures.

WE, to­geth­er can fight this dis­ease.

WE each can con­tribute to a fu­ture with­out Can­cer.

As WE im­prove our knowl­edge of Can­cer….

….WE gift our­selves the pos­si­bil­i­ty of choos­ing HOPE, in­stead of fear.

WE share these sto­ries here to­day, to em­pha­size this re­al­i­ty but more­so, share a mes­sage of Re­silience and Hope

~ WE Ed­i­tor, Dr. Safeeya Mo­hammed.

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