Cancer survivor Rosanna Surajdeen said since her cancer returned this year, she wants to live her best possible life and make the best memories. She said she urges everyone she meets, male or female, to get tested.
Surajdeen was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 at 53 when her gynaecologist urged her to do a mammogram after her annual checkup. The results were suspect and when she did a CT scan, she found out she had bilateral breast cancer.
“That meant what it was on the left side, it was exactly the same on the right side. So I had it in both breasts. I had stage 2 on the left side and stage 1 on the right side.
“When I did the first biopsy, it came back negative and for some strange reason my oncologist, Prof Vijay Narinesingh, said to me he wanted to do a second biopsy, I suppose because of his experience, and it came back positive.”
She said she opted to have a double mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy, as she had a history of cancer in her family.
A mastectomy is surgery to remove a breast. Sometimes other tissues near the breast, such as lymph nodes, are also removed. A lumpectomy is surgery to remove cancer or other abnormal tissue from the breast.
“My father died from colon cancer and my aunt had brain cancer, both on my father’s side of the family.
"It was very scary getting the news, but having gone through it with my father prepared me for my own journey.
“I told myself even though it was hard, I wasn’t going to be defined by it, because I saw what it did to my father and I saw how he chose to live his life firstly, and then what had happened to him when he was diagnosed a second time.”
She said after starting treatment, she was a survivor for five years and had changed her lifestyle.
“You tend to look at your whole life, how you’re going to be eating healthy. Things you would take for granted, you’re now looking at closely.
“A lot of people look at me and don’t realise I’m a survivor. I was recently diagnosed again. Although I was doing all the correct things in my book, the cancer came back. It has metastasised to lungs and bones.”
Surajdeen said part of what made her able to deal with her ailment was her support network, both familial and at the Cancer Society.
“I tell everyone who has been diagnosed or has any type of ailment, without support or some kind of family and friends, sometimes you lose the battle.”
She said the counsellors at the Cancer Society were extremely helpful with managing both the physical and mental aspects of the disease.
“The society offers you so much help. They’re there for you. They put you in touch with other survivors who can relate to what you’re going through. I have had other peers in the society. We talk, we cry, we laugh together. They can’t tell their spouses because they feel they’re a burden to the caregivers, so they hide a lot of the stuff.
“You have your friends, you have your family, you have your people, but sometimes you can’t be totally honest with them. I found with my dad and myself that your caregivers are pained by w
