Suzanne Shep­pard

He is usu­al­ly the one re­port­ing on the ex­ploits and achieve­ments of ath­letes. How­ev­er, next Sun­day CNC3 sports an­chor Robert Du­mas will be on the oth­er side of the equa­tion as a par­tic­i­pant in the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon.

Un­like the oth­er run­ners hop­ing to com­plete the 26.2-mile course from St Mary's Junc­tion, Freeport, to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, his quest will not be to win a medal or break a record. He has a very per­son­al mis­sion in mind, ti­tled Do­ing it for Dad, in aid of his fa­ther who is in ur­gent need of triple by­pass surgery.

When Du­mas sets off on the marathon, he will be seek­ing to raise $175,000 for surgery and af­ter­care for his fa­ther, Robert George Du­mas, a can­cer sur­vivor whose heart con­di­tion is so se­vere that doc­tors have warned that he can­not wait the min­i­mum four to six months to get the surgery done through the pub­lic health care sys­tem.

To raise the funds, Du­mas is invit­ing peo­ple to pledge on every mile of the marathon he com­pletes. Since he has been team­ing up with the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) in the marathon to high­light the wel­fare of ath­letes, an ini­tia­tive of that or­gan­i­sa­tion's pres­i­dent, Bri­an Lewis, he saw it as an ide­al plat­form to step up on be­half of his ail­ing fa­ther.

"I love him dear­ly, he’s my dad. Af­ter all, he has been there for me from day one and I have to be there for him. I pray he sticks around to see his grand­chil­dren go to col­lege," Du­mas said.

It is not the first health cri­sis for the el­der Du­mas, 72, who was di­ag­nosed with a par­tic­u­lar­ly ag­gres­sive form of Non-Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma in 2015.

"At one stage dur­ing his treat­ment, he was on a ward with six oth­er peo­ple who were al­so bat­tling can­cer, in­clud­ing An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh, who have all since died. My dad has been in re­mis­sion since 2015, he con­tin­ues to bat­tle against chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease, di­a­betes, and hy­per­ten­sion," Du­mas said.

On De­cem­ber 21, he faced an­oth­er med­ical cri­sis—a heart at­tack which has left him in ur­gent need of surgery. He has been ap­proved for the surgery af­ter un­der­go­ing a se­ries of tests and is now await­ing a con­firmed date for the pro­ce­dure.

"My fa­ther has been blessed just to get this far," said Du­mas. He said the fam­i­ly has been get­ting a great deal of sup­port from of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Health, Caribbean Heart Care, and doc­tors and nurs­es at the Mt Hope and San­gre Grande hos­pi­tals.

Faced with the chal­lenge of rais­ing funds to cov­er the med­ical ex­pens­es, the fam­i­ly has set up a FUND­MET­NT link, as well as an ac­count at Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed—ac­ct 180007398131.

In a so­cial net­work post con­nect­ed to the fundrais­ers, the fam­i­ly states: "We are there­fore ap­peal­ing to you to help us save our fa­ther’s life by con­tribut­ing how­ev­er you can. We have set up this fund in the hopes of rais­ing the mon­ey re­quired to get him the med­ical treat­ment he needs to help him get back on his feet.

"Every do­na­tion, how­ev­er small, will help give him an­oth­er chance at life. We know that he is very re­silient and we are all pray­ing for his com­plete re­cov­ery. Our fa­ther, his fam­i­ly, and friends will be grate­ful for any sup­port you can give through your do­na­tions, prayers, and pos­i­tive vibes."

Du­mas said since he launched the fundrais­er he has been "over­whelmed by the out­pour­ing of bless­ings—be it fi­nan­cial­ly, words of en­cour­age­ment, pro­fes­sion­al med­ical fees in some in­stances waived, and above all prayers".

He said: "Fam­i­ly, friends, and friends I have not met as yet, thank you for re­veal­ing this side of you to my fam­i­ly and specif­i­cal­ly Dad. I am even more buoyed up to com­plete that 26.2 miles on the 27th of this month in the TT Marathon for Dad."

He said his fa­ther is in good spir­its at Mt Hope and tak­ing his cur­rent med­ical changes in stride.

Speak­ing of stride, Du­mas said: "I hope to see a few of you on the road with an ice pack or two as I know I will have a few hours in that hot sun, so a shout or two to keep this big guy mov­ing on the road with Team TTO will go a long way."

Du­mas ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Bee­sham See­taram of the Min­istry of Health who has been very sup­port­ive and has pro­vid­ed valu­able ad­vice. He al­so sin­gled out Keisha Butch­er, head of Le­gal at Mt Hope and Ms Ding­wall, a so­cial work­er, along with the mem­bers of the med­ical team tak­ing care of his fa­ther.

He al­so ap­pealed for sup­port for the cause, in­clud­ing from cor­po­rate T&T.

"Every do­na­tion, how­ev­er small, will help give him an­oth­er chance at life. We know that he is very re­silient and we are all pray­ing for his com­plete re­cov­ery," Du­mas said.