RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Even now, as he en­dures the pain of stage four Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, 19-year-old Kristo­pher Mo­hamed is think­ing about oth­ers.

For years, Mo­hamed ded­i­cat­ed his life to help­ing chil­dren with di­a­betes through his vol­un­teer work with the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. His heart, al­ways drawn to ser­vice, car­ried him through school as a high achiev­er—vale­dic­to­ri­an of San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry, head pre­fect of Na­pari­ma Col­lege, and an ad­vo­cate for youth em­pow­er­ment.

Now, that same heart is fight­ing for its own life.

He was di­ag­nosed ear­li­er this year with Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma and the can­cer has now spread from his neck to his left lung and armpits. He’s cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing im­munochemother­a­py, a US$135,000 treat­ment that in­cludes an im­port­ed im­munother­a­py drug, nivolum­ab, which is un­avail­able in Trinidad’s pub­lic health sys­tem.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hamed said his faith in God, the lit­tle fight­ers from the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion, as well as his sup­port sys­tem at home, keep him strong.

“I re­mem­ber their lit­tle faces. They were so full of hope de­spite hav­ing di­a­betes. If they could keep go­ing, then I can too,” he added.

Mo­hamed said last Feb­ru­ary, he start­ed cough­ing up blood and couldn’t lie down be­cause of chest pains.

“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 re­called.

“The morn­ing I was rushed to the hos­pi­tal, I was vom­it­ing and spit­ting up blood.”

What was first di­ag­nosed as pneu­mo­nia turned out, af­ter months of wors­en­ing symp­toms and fur­ther scans, to be can­cer.

Three months lat­er, he was giv­en the dev­as­tat­ing news.

“When they said it might be can­cer ... that was my worst mo­ment,” he said.

“You don’t know how to cope with that. But now, I’ve been do­ing my re­search, talk­ing to oth­ers like me. I’ve found some peace.”

Mo­hamed said he has cho­sen not to give up.

Even while un­der­go­ing gru­elling rounds of treat­ment—each cy­cle span­ning 28 days with four-hour ses­sions twice a month—Mo­hamed has kept his mind busy.

“I re­cent­ly did a di­a­betes ed­u­ca­tion course with the In­ter­na­tion­al Di­a­betes Fed­er­a­tion and got 92 per cent,” he said with a small smile.

“It’s hard to do much phys­i­cal­ly right now, but I want to stay sharp. Med­i­cine is still my dream.”

He re­called watch­ing his grand­fa­ther, Hay­den Koy­lass, sur­vive a heart at­tack and see­ing the care he got from lo­cal doc­tors.

“See­ing the sur­geons care for him … it lit some­thing in me. I want­ed to be like them. I still do,” Mo­hamed said.

De­spite the chemother­a­py, Mo­hamed said he is plan­ning to pur­sue a sur­gi­cal scrub tech­ni­cian course or an anaes­thet­ic tech­ni­cian course at St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal, as a step­ping­stone to­ward med­ical school.

“If I make it through this—and I will—I want to help oth­ers like me. Maybe even go in­to on­col­o­gy or haema­tol­ogy. Pa­tients need doc­tors who un­der­stand, who care deeply. I want to be that doc­tor,” he said with a smile.

Mo­hamed cred­it­ed much of his strength to those around him, in­clud­ing Chloe Ram­nar­ine and Roel Mo­hammed, both of whom have can­cer.

“Chloe and Roel have both been through sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences and have helped me so much. Just be­ing able to talk with some­one who gets it—it means every­thing,” Mo­hamed said.

He said his doc­tors have been “awe­some” and have start­ed an im­munochemother­a­py treat­ment, and the drugs are sourced from abroad.

The to­tal treat­ment cost ex­ceeds US$135,000, and Mo­hamed said his fam­i­ly had start­ed a Go­FundMe cam­paign to help cov­er on­go­ing care.

Mom’s prayers

Mean­while, Mo­hamed’s moth­er, Joelle Koy­lass, said she still finds it hard to be­lieve her son has can­cer.

Wip­ing away tears, she whis­pered, “Some­times I for­get he’s sick be­cause he just keeps go­ing. He’s al­ways re­search­ing, al­ways plan­ning. He’s still help­ing peo­ple. Even through chemo.”

Joelle, who is a stay-at-home mom, said she is grate­ful that she can take care of Mo­hamed around the clock.

“I wouldn’t want any­one else tak­ing care of him but me, but it’s hard. The costs … the stress. His med­ica­tion alone is so ex­pen­sive. We’re do­ing every­thing we can,” she said.

His fa­ther Ja­son Mo­hamed, an IT spe­cial­ist, works to sup­port the fam­i­ly. Joelle said younger sis­ter Yle­na Mo­hamed—who just com­plet­ed her CXC ex­ams—is qui­et­ly strug­gling to come to terms with her broth­er’s plight.

Grand­moth­er Kay Pu­choon, who helped raise Mo­hamed, said she wished she could take on the bur­den of can­cer rather than Mo­hamed.

“He is such a won­der­ful child, for this to hap­pen to him. I tell them to give it to me in­stead. Why should he have can­cer?” she cried.

Any­one want­i­ng to con­tribute to Mo­hamed’s three months of im­munother­a­py treat­ment, in­clud­ing PET scans, hos­pi­tal fees, and fu­ture care that could in­clude stem cell trans­plants abroad if need­ed, can con­tribute to Go­FundMe – Help Kristo­pher Fight Can­cer. Do­na­tions can al­so be made to Ja­son Mo­hamed Ac­count# 080237923131 (sav­ings) Re­pub­lic Bank Mara­bel­la. Mo­hamed can be reached at 492-8725.