If you are un­der­go­ing Chemother­a­py and ex­pe­ri­ence episodes of mem­o­ry loss, or dif­fi­cul­ty in fo­cus­ing or sim­ply feel your brain is all fogged up, you are not imag­in­ing these symp­toms. Some­times peo­ple with can­cer wor­ry about, joke about, or be­come frus­trat­ed by what they de­scribe as men­tal cloudi­ness or changes they might no­tice dur­ing, and af­ter can­cer treat­ment. This cloudi­ness or men­tal change is com­mon­ly re­ferred to as “chemo brain”.

It start­ed off when I felt a lump in my breast and the ini­tial ad­vice ‘it was nor­mal to have lumps there at my age’. Af­ter some time, I went to my gy­nae­col­o­gist for my rou­tine check­ups and he said that my lumps were ab­nor­mal and rec­om­mend­ed that I go for a mam­mo­gram. When I went for the mam­mo­gram, they (med­ical of­fi­cials) were hes­i­tant be­cause of my age. They said that the re­sults show that I have dense breast tis­sue which was nor­mal for some­one my age.

“I should’ve nev­er ig­nored that lump!” the pa­tient ex­claimed with sunken eyes brim­ming with tears. Shriek­ing cries then bel­lowed through­out the cor­ri­dors as she slumped for­ward, face plant­ed in­to weary hands. As the room dead­ened with si­lence, the pa­tient then shak­ing­ly ut­tered a few un­for­get­table words, “I nev­er thought it could be me, no­body in my fam­i­ly has it…”. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this pa­tient had just re­ceived news of her crip­pling di­ag­no­sis of Stage IV Breast Can­cer.

“I was di­ag­nosed with stage 2B breast can­cer in my left breast in 2014, at the age of 30. I first be­came aware of breast can­cer when I got a can­cer scare at age 17. Since then, I start­ed sup­port­ing breast can­cer groups. When the lump was dis­cov­ered I fig­ured it would be neg­a­tive just as it was in the past, so I didn’t wor­ry. It was on­ly when the lump start­ed to cause pain, I de­cid­ed to get a lumpec­to­my pri­vate­ly.

For al­most 50 years, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety (TTCS) has been work­ing on be­half of can­cer pa­tients and their fam­i­lies to pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for bet­ter health care as they bat­tle this dread­ed dis­ease. Even dur­ing this time of un­cer­tain­ty, the TTCS re­mains com­mit­ted to the ed­u­ca­tion and con­tin­ued screen­ing of can­cer.

Across the globe, Breast Can­cer af­fects 1.38 mil­lion NEW CAS­ES year­ly, al­most the to­tal pop­u­la­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Breast can­cer is by far the most com­mon can­cer in women world­wide. In low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries the in­ci­dence has been ris­ing steadi­ly in the last years.

In re­cent years, law­mak­ers in T&T have tak­en steps to pro­tect vic­tims of abuse, in­clud­ing the lat­est amend­ment to the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act which al­lows for emer­gency pro­tec­tion or­ders to be grant­ed and broad­ens the scope of who can ap­ply for pro­tec­tion or­ders, among oth­er changes.

As a lead­ing cause of chron­ic pain and phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty world­wide, bone and joint dis­ease af­fects al­most half of the globe’s pop­u­la­tion in the form of arthri­tis, os­teo­poro­sis, back, knee and hip pain, and mus­cle and lig­a­ment in­juries. In many cas­es, age-re­lat­ed de­gen­er­a­tion of the body’s mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem is a sig­nif­i­cant con­tribut­ing fac­tor in the de­vel­op­ment of bone and joint dis­ease.

The new phrase ‘MASK-NE”, which com­bines the words “mask” and “ac­ne” - has re­cent­ly sprung up all over so­cial me­dia as peo­ple are vent­ing their woes from a new kind of fa­cial mal­a­dy. While masks play a vi­tal role in re­duc­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus, they can al­so be hard on your skin, caus­ing prob­lems that range from ac­ne and peel­ing skin to rash­es and itch­i­ness.

Imag­ine hav­ing a Sun­day spread of turkey with corn­bread stuff­ing and sor­rel con­serve, cin­na­mon-baked plan­tains and ap­ples in a cran­ber­ry glaze, and mixed greens with caramelised pecans and cran­ber­ries, com­plete with black cake and sor­rel on your din­ing ta­ble in Ju­ly, with­out hav­ing slaved in front the stove un­til 3 pm. Can­dice Thomas-Hen­ry did just that af­ter she and cater­er Kizzy Joseph crossed paths in late June…and the busy car sales agent and moth­er is look­ing for­ward to be­ing spoilt with Joseph’s culi­nary de­lights over and over again.

Around the world, near­ly one bil­lion peo­ple live with men­tal ill­ness­es. Every 40 sec­onds, some­one dies from sui­cide and de­pres­sion is now recog­nised as a lead­ing cause of ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ty among chil­dren and ado­les­cents.

Ronald Ben­jamin was re­mem­bered by the peo­ple who cel­e­brat­ed his life as a man who loved "his neigh­bour as he loved him­self" and who gave self­less­ly with­out look­ing for re­ward or adu­la­tion.