NICOLE DYER-GRIFFITH has always approached life with confidence – from her beauty pageant days, her entry into politics, as head of her non-profit organisation the O2N Foundation and everything else in between. The foundation aims to create forums for the public to learn from people who have shaped the past of Trinidad and Tobago.
So when she was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, the former Miss Universe TT and government senator remained true to character, facing what she deems "an invasive inconvenience" head on.
"I have not stopped doing what needs to be undertaken. The only adjustment is that during the chemo process I shifted to working from home to protect my immune system...
"Covid19 prepared us for these eventualities, so there is no excuse really. Life continues.
"(But) I pop into my various offices from time to time," Dyer-Griffith told WMN via e-mail.
The wife of National Transformation Alliance political leader Gary Griffith and a former nurse told WMN she has always maintained a clean, healthy lifestyle, so her diagnosis came as a bit of a surprise.
"I do not drink alcohol; I do not smoke; I exercise regularly; I eat well, in that I maintain a balanced diet; I do not place my body in any circumstances that may be harmful to my health; I maintain the regular checkups; I do my annual medicals; I do what I am supposed to do; I screen as I am supposed to screen, and here I am today, diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer –" which usually means the cancer cells may have started to spread into surrounding tissues.
"I have no family history of breast cancer in my family. I also had a genealogy test undertaken and I also do not have the mutated gene."
She said her symptoms appeared about a month before she scheduled a second medical in under a year, and included swelling, firmness and stretch marks on her breast.
[caption id="attachment_1114244" align="alignnone" width="683"] Nicole Dyer-Griffith. - Photo courtesy Stephen Doobal[/caption]
"These symptoms can also be associated with a regular menstrual cycle and many even go unnoticed. It is important to note, I had no pain, the masses were not palpable, therefore could not be manually felt, and the mammograms I had previously only presented as dense tissue."
She said the only difference from her previous screenings was that an ultrasound was added.
"And that made the difference."
After that, Dyer-Griffith said she had a series of tests to confirm the diagnosis, among them a biopsy – the removal of a piece of tissue or a sample of cells from the affected area to be tested in a lab.
And by the time it was confirmed, because of the type of person she is, she was already formulating her action plan.
"As such, my ‘reaction’ was built around planning the trajectory forward to manage this 'invasive inconvenience.'
"I termed it an 'invasive convenience' as it presents as exactly that – an inconvenience," because having to deal with it takes time and focus from everything else in her life.
"Managing this takes one to two
