Patient working to inspire women in cancer fight to find...

From 3A

Even as she chronicles her journey on her Facebook page, she always attempts to put a positive spin to it.

“My life is being restored to some sort of normalcy and I am trying to promote that more to let them [other women] understand that it is just a phase. It is difficult and I have been through it all and more because I am facing it with a pandemic and away from my family…and there is a silver lining… I couldn’t see it then but I want to show them that your life can be restored to some kind of normalcy after the different type of treatments that is basically killing your body,” Dabie told this newspaper.

Dabie pointed out that many times the negative impact of the rigorous treatment on one’s body is not highlighted enough and she recalled that she longed to just give up and cut the treatment. She has not been undergoing chemotherapy since last March but according to how she puts it her body “has maxed out” and is “too toxic” for treatment and she is not sure when she will be able to resume that treatment.

The cancer has spread to her lymphatic system and so she has never been cancer free since she started treatment as every time she does a scan a new lymph node is detected. She is still undergoing radiation treatment.

Became ill

Dabie had been a media practitioner for many years and she has had stints at MBC Channel 93 and later at NCN, from where she resigned as the creative director in 2017, after which she did some work for ExxonMobil. It was while her catering service was booming that she became ill. She was looking to expand her business as she already had one assistant helping her in the kitchen and three delivery drivers.

But she started to experience extreme fatigue and she was tired most of the time. She lost weight and experienced painful vomiting.

There were also symptoms of what was thought to be a urinary tract infection (UTI) and she had stopped seeing her period for a few months. The latter, however, was a relief to Dabie as she recalled that previously she had seen her period for months at a time and usually had to see a doctor who most times prescribed contraceptives. She also had serious lower back pain.

As her illness progressed, Dabie visited the St Joseph Mercy Hospital, where she was treated for the symptoms until a doctor

Carol shows where intervention had to made in the upper part of her body to treat cancerous lymph nodes

recommended she see an urologist. It was he who recommended that she visit the Guyana Cancer Institute for a CT scan. The scan revealed a mass but at that time it was not confirmed that it was cancerous. Her lefty kidney was already affected by the mass because of how the tumor rested and it could not have drained properly.

A biopsy was recommended and the samples were sent to Trinidad but it was

while she waited for the results and got sicker with each passing day that her father decided to send her to the US as her frightened family needed answers. The period was reminiscent of what they experienced when her mother was ill even though Dabie is too young to remember.

Dabie bled during the flight to the US and had to be rushed to a hospital almost immediately after landing and it was there that she was later told she was stricken with stage three cancer which had already spread to the cervix and ovaries as well.

At that point Dabie said she was still hoping it was not cancer and she recalled the encouraging words of her father before she boarded the plane. Even after more than two years since her diagnosis he still has not used the word cancer when discussing the illness with her.

“So when it was confirmed that it was cancer and cervical cancer…I kind of sank. Because one not because I was sick but because of the stigma attached to cervical cancer. Because being in Guyana and everything, people talk about cervical cancer [and] having multiple sex partners and all those things. I was like, ‘How could I get affected with cervical cancer?’” Dabie said.

She recalled that she was married at a young age and never had a very active sexual life. She remembers being questioned about her sexual life and her partners by an acquaintance, who pointed out that one of her sexual partners had to have given her the HPV virus.

“I was like it begins…I am thinking here comes all the negative things about cervical cancer. I was just sitting there and I am listening and I am just so embarrassed and I wanted to sink,” Dabie said.

She also shared that around that time as well she deactivated all her social media accounts as she “did not want to face the world anymore”.

“I was more concerned about what people thought about this cancer than thinking about me and actually being affected with cancer,” she said.

It took her a few weeks before she shared what was happening on social media and even at first when asked the type of cancer she was diagnosed she went into the long explanation of how it may be transmitted instead of just saying cervical cancer.

“And even with all that I have been through with the treatment and the pandemic and not being with your family, cancer was still not the main problem. That was like the easiest part to deal with,” Dabie said.

Her first major surgery was on Old Year’s Day of 2019 and it was eight hours long as she could not have started chemotherapy and radiation without the surgery. The mass could not have been removed but the active lymph nodes were removed and it was discovered that they had spread to different parts of her body.