RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

An out­pour­ing of sup­port is help­ing 19-year-old Kristo­pher Mo­hamed in his fight against Stage Four Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, with his Go­FundMe fundrais­er slow­ly climb­ing to 43 per cent of the US$135,000 need­ed for life-sav­ing treat­ment.

Mo­hamed, who is un­der­go­ing im­munochemother­a­py, said the re­sponse since his sto­ry was first shared has giv­en him strength and even more hope.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hamed said: “I would just like to thank you all for sit­ting down and tak­ing time to lis­ten to my sto­ry. Since the in­ter­view, many peo­ple mes­saged and called me to share their own sto­ries and words of sup­port and to do­nate as well. So I’m eter­nal­ly grate­ful for that.”

Di­ag­nosed ear­li­er this year, Mo­hamed’s can­cer has spread from his neck to his left lung and armpits. His treat­ment plan in­cludes an im­port­ed im­munother­a­py drug, nivolum­ab, which is not avail­able through Trinidad’s pub­lic health sys­tem.

The to­tal cost of his care, which in­cludes three months of im­munother­a­py, PET scans and hos­pi­tal fees, is US$135,000.

“Just to give an up­date, chemother­a­py is pro­gress­ing and very soon I’ll be com­plet­ed with my sec­ond cy­cle, where I’ll do an­oth­er PET scan to get more de­tails on the ef­fec­tive­ness of the med­ica­tion,” he said.

Even as he bat­tles his ill­ness, Mo­hamed said he in­tends to con­tin­ue ad­vo­cat­ing for youth em­pow­er­ment.

“My faith in God, the lit­tle fight­ers from the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion, as well as my sup­port sys­tem at home, keep me strong,” he said.

Mo­hamed re­called the first signs of his ill­ness ear­li­er this year.

“At the end of Feb­ru­ary, I start­ed get­ting re­al­ly sick—night sweats, mi­graines, hives, chest pain so bad I couldn’t even lie down,” he said. “That morn­ing I was rushed to the hos­pi­tal, I was vom­it­ing and spit­ting up blood.”

He said three months lat­er, he was told that the can­cer had pro­gressed to Stage Four.

Mo­hamed said he has been en­cour­aged by the kind­ness of strangers, friends, and for­mer school­mates from San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry and Na­pari­ma Col­lege who have reached out to him. He said he has been spend­ing much of his time speak­ing to well-wish­ers.

He said since his di­ag­no­sis, hun­dreds of peo­ple have shown their sup­port, not just through do­na­tions but al­so by shar­ing mes­sages of en­cour­age­ment.

Any­one wish­ing to help Kris­tio­pher Mo­hamed can do­nate via Go­FundMe—Help Kris­tio­pher Fight Can­cer or con­tribute di­rect­ly to Ja­son Mo­hamed, Ac­count #080237923131 (sav­ings), Re­pub­lic Bank Mara­bel­la. He can al­so be con­tact­ed at 492-8725.