By Lakhram Bhagirat
People choose not to share their experiences for a number of reasons and one of the major ones is to escape society’s judgment. The feeling of being judged is too much for some people to deal with and it quite often deprives some people of the help they really need. Not everyone is willing to share that they are suffering from a disease so deadly that it requires a great deal of courage to beat, and even that is not guaranteed.
However, Christine Jardim is of the belief that we should embrace what is going on in our lives and share our experiences in order to help and get the help we need to deal with those issues. Jardim was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago and says that she finds talking about what she is going through has helped her to encourage as well as help those in similar situations.
“Don’t be ashamed of it; you didn’t bring it on yourself. Don’t be afraid to talk to people. Reach out to people to help you. You need to do that. It is good to share it because in sharing we get help, because there is always somebody going through it and by sharing they would tell you how not to treat your body and stuff like that,” she advised.
The 47-year-old mother of two discovered a lump in her right breast in 2013, and immediately became aware that something may be wrong. She would usually check herself and never found anything so it sparked her curiosity and that led her to the Woodlands Hospital. She was examined and a lump was discovered after which she was referred to the Georgetown Public Hospital for a biopsy.
The sample was sent overseas to be analysed and it came back with a ‘nothing to worry about’ letter.
“They said that I could take out the lump and the doctor took out the lump at Woodlands. Two years after, I felt another lump in the same right side and I decided to go to Trinidad and when I went to Trinidad, they did everything there and took out the lump and there it was, it was stage two cancer.”
She had her procedure done at the West Shore Medical Private Hospital in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and her right breast was removed along with the lymph nodes off the right arm. She then began receiving chemotherapy right at the Hospital.
Jardim completed eight rounds of chemo along with 16 sessions of radiation, and has been cancer-free for almost three years. She remembers travelling back and forth between Trinidad and Guyana so that she could receive her treatment. She remembers being scared and feeling all alone even when her family and friends were right there holding her hands. She remembers how much she needed her family’s and friends’ support to get through session after session of chemotherapy and radiation.
Her extended family has a history of breast cancer, but she never thought that she would have been the next victim.
“I would cry and so, because after I started my chemo, one day I noticed that my hair was falling off and then my eyelashes and the hair went. It is hard to adjust to a change like that, because one day you are okay and the next day everything is haywire. I would get depressed and I would stay like that and cry, because you know when you take chemo, you would get bad feelings and you want to throw up with the medication,” Jardim explained.
She said throughout it all her family has been her rock and her daughter was there every step of the way. Jardim said that a support network for someone battling cancer was integral, and that was why she would encourage persons to speak about their experiences because of the mere fact that your experiences could help someone who is just as scared as you were.
Cancer has changed the way Jardim looks at life now. She is much more conscious of the decisions she makes as well as what she puts into her body. Exercise is integral so is ensuring that the right amount and type of food is eaten.
Now she basks in helping her family and those less fortunate as well as sharing every little thing she did during her battle. (Times Sunday Magazine)
