RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­eign ex­change chal­lenges have de­layed Chloe Ram­nar­ine’s jour­ney to Co­lum­bia, where she is due to re­ceive life-sav­ing can­cer surgery.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ram­nar­ine said she was still await­ing a date from the Fun­da­cion San­ta Fe Hos­pi­tal in Colom­bia, where she will un­der­go bone mar­row surgery to treat her Hodgkin’s lym­phoma, a form of can­cer that af­fects the lym­phat­ic sys­tem.

Ram­nar­ine said through gen­er­ous do­na­tions, she re­ceived all the mon­ey need­ed to do the surgery.

“We are so thank­ful for this, but al­though we have re­ceived the funds, there’s a de­lay with con­vert­ing the mon­ey to US dol­lars. The banks are work­ing on it, and we hope every­thing goes smooth­ly,” Ram­nar­ine ex­plained.

Asked how she felt in the lead-up to the surgery, Ram­nar­ine said she want­ed to get back to a nor­mal life.

“I’m feel­ing ex­cit­ed and ner­vous as the day ap­proach­es—it’s a mix­ture of emo­tions,” she said.

Her moth­er, Thilly­er Ram­nar­ine, said once the hos­pi­tal re­ceived the mon­ey in US dol­lars, a date would be arranged. She said they had al­ready sought ac­com­mo­da­tion in Co­lum­bia, with some places will­ing to hold a spot un­til they re­ceived a con­firmed date.

Ram­nar­ine, who is a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, was di­ag­nosed with can­cer in Feb­ru­ary 2023. In March, she was forced to pause her stud­ies and be­gin chemother­a­py af­ter her can­cer re­lapsed.

Doc­tors lat­er helped arrange a con­sul­ta­tion to have the surgery done at a cost of US$120,000.

The bone mar­row trans­plant is un­avail­able in T&T.