It was an up­hill bat­tle, jug­gling the com­pli­ca­tions of can­cer and study­ing for SEA ex­ams but de­spite this, Sidara Akalloo emerged vic­to­ri­ous, achiev­ing her first choice school. 

As she hugged her par­ents and wiped away their tears, Sidara said she was look­ing for­ward to at­tend­ing the Na­pari­ma Girls High School in Sep­tem­ber. 

A few months ago Sidara could bare­ly walk as leukaemia had robbed her of mo­bil­i­ty, but on Fri­day, she trekked in­to her class­room and pre­sent­ed flow­ers to every­one she met, in­clud­ing her teach­ers and school prin­ci­pal Don­na Ramjohn-Khan. 

"I feel so hap­py! I did it," she wept. Sidara had been dis­traught on Thurs­day af­ter hear­ing that one of her favourite YouTu­bers, Amer­i­can gamer, Tech­noblade, had died of can­cer at age 23.  

She opt­ed not to check her re­sults on­line but col­lect­ed her script at her school. Tech­noblade had 11 mil­lion youtube fol­low­ers in­clud­ing Sidara who felt in­spired by his posts as she faced her own health chal­lenges. 

Asked what she want­ed as a re­ward for her ac­com­plish­ment, Sidara hugged her fam­i­ly and said: "I don't want a re­ward. I al­ready got it. All I want is to go to school." 

Her friends and teach­ers ap­plaud­ed.  

Her moth­er Su­ma­tee wiped tears as she gazed at Sidara. 

 "It is re­al­ly hard see­ing my child with a nee­dle in one hand get­ting chemother­a­py and a pen in the oth­er hand, study­ing and keep­ing up with her work. We are re­al­ly proud of her. She fought on and did so well. She is just so dif­fer­ent and we thank God for bless­ing us with her," she added. 

Even though Sidara was full of smiles, Su­ma­tee said last month was dif­fi­cult for her. 

"She has been hav­ing a lot of pain. Her bones ache and we had that pain for 10 days. Then she sprained one foot and we did not even know whether she will be able to grad­u­ate but she did," Su­ma­tee said. 

Sidara's sto­ry was first high­light­ed by Guardian Me­dia in March of this year. She was di­ag­nosed with can­cer on April 20 last year and un­der­went ten months of chemother­a­py. She suf­fered brief mem­o­ry loss, three bouts of pan­cre­ati­tis, pneu­mo­nia, low oxy­gen lev­els and was un­able to walk for nine months. In Jan­u­ary, through de­ter­mi­na­tion and phys­i­cal ther­a­py, she start­ed to walk once again. Asked what the ill­ness had taught her, Sidara said peo­ple must start cel­e­brat­ing the small things in life.  Even the fact that she is still breath­ing is a great ac­com­plish­ment, she added. 

Re­porter: RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA