Aisha, still smiling

One can only be amazed at the positive attitude of Aisha Harrigin, 31, her reliance on God, and her determination to be as happy as possible in her life.

She survived ten years in an abusive relationship, continues to undergo the mental, emotional, physical and financial rigours of having breast cancer and the corresponding treatments, a mastectomy, a heart condition, and, as of last week, being diagnosed with skin cancer. Harrigin’s fight with cancer began when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 28, while she was four months pregnant.

At the time, the stay-at-home mother had two girls from a previous, unhealthy relationship. She said when she became pregnant with her third child, she was extremely excited as she was convinced it was a boy.

Harrigin said she had always had a lump in her breast but two months into her pregnancy, she began to feel a “lancing pain” in her right breast.

She went to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where a needle aspiration was performed, but no fluid was extracted. The doctor told her it was “just a lump” and not cancer, but decided to perform a lumpectomy to test the lump.

Two months after removing the lump, the results came in. They told her the cancer was contained in the lump, not outside, but still advised her to abort the baby and to have a mastectomy “or else the cancer would spread and she could die.” Confused and upset, she went to her obstetrician, who was located in the same hospital, and advised Harrigin to go to the National Radiotherapy Centre in St James.

“I was so angry, knowing that I never got a break in life. From an abusive relationship for years, finally I was so happy about being pregnant to get this news, and then, on hearing I had cancer, the baby’s father and I separated,” she told Sunday Newsday.

When she went to the centre, a team of doctors said it was the first time they heard about cancer being contained within a lump and not affecting the cells outside. Again, they told her she would have to abort the baby, which is a common practice because she could not be treated without it affecting the baby negatively.

However, she told them she would wait until the baby was born before accepting any treatment.

“One of the doctors jump up and said if I want to die, so be it. I told him that none of them were God, and I got up and walked out of that room,” she said.

One doctor followed her, told her they would induce labour eight months into her pregnancy, allow her two months with the baby, at which time she would return for treatment. She did this, the lump was tested, and eventually a doctor made plans for her treatment.

“At first I got a lot of run around and delays because they couldn’t find my doctor... it was really frustrating.

Then my family was saying things like, ‘You know when they cut you it’s then the cancer spreads even more,’ putting fear in your mind, making you feel to not go back,” she said.

However, by that time, the lump had recurred, so she started chemotherapy.

At the time Harrigin was unemployed and on welfare and her situation remains unchanged. She said her eldest daughter attends a special school, the other children’s schools always need something, she tries to contribute to the home with respect to food, and still has to buy clothes, books toiletries, medication, treatments, and other incidentals for herself and her children.

Thankfully, she lives with her mother, but she and her three children - ages 13, 11 and two - all sleep in one room.

Harrigin recalled that initially, her friends and family felt pity for her and would often help, but as time went on, they became less willing to assist her. In addition, after chemotherapy, she would be sick for days but, as soon as she could, she would get up and do things for herself, and so people believed she was not really sick.

Sadly, the physical and financial hardships were not the only things she had to endure. She said as she began to look sickly and lose her hair, she would often cry when she looked at herself in the mirror. Also, she said if she and her siblings argued, they would say hurtful things like, she should hurry up and die.

It was all very stressful for her.

However she continues to be thankful for her mother who, she said continues to support her in any way she can. Harrigin told Sunday Newsday she underwent chemotherapy for two years. Initially, the mass shrunk but at one point when her mother became ill, she stopped going for treatment for four months to help with her mother’s business.

She was jolted into returning to her treatment when another patient she had developed a relationship with died. He friend was only diagnosed one year previously with stage one cancer.

When she returned, doctors found that the mass had not grown but the drug no longer worked and they had to experiment again to find another that did. She explained that about eight sessions of chemotherapy is done with a particular drug and, if that does not work, the doctors try with another. One drug made her extremely sick and they had to try again. The doctors finally found one that worked, but it soon became unavailable and so she had to start the process over again. And so it continued for two years.

She stressed that the mass was attached to her muscle and so doctors could not operate until it was small enough, however, she said there is only so much chemotherapy the body could endure. “The whole process is an effort to reduce the lump to be able to do the surgery safely. But then more cancer nodules began to pop up in more areas of my breast and they had to do the surgery although it was risky.

So they did my mastectomy on the 9th of August,” she said.

Doctors told her 95 percent of the breast was cancerous and that she was at death’s door.

Because of the amount of cancer in the breast, doctors decided she had to do radiation and chemotherapy after the surgery, which included a skin graft. However, because the wound from the surgery has not yet healed, they cannot perform radiation because the cut could become infected. So, a few weeks ago, Harrigin went through one session of chemotherapy, had a reaction to the drug, and had to be hospitalised for a week and a half with fluid in her lungs and chest wall.

“Because you have to wait so long for everything in the public health system, it was only after the surgery that they got the results of my CT scan and realised my lymph nodes were swollen. If they had gotten the results before they would have known I had abnormal lymph nodes and an increased chance of infection,” she said. If that was not enough, during the X-ray to view her lungs, doctors realised her heart was enlarged, which she could have been born with it or it could have been a side effect of the chemotherapy.

Then, during one of her post-op check-ups at the centre, she noticed bumps on her skin. Doctors immediately performed a biopsy and on Monday she was informed that she had skin cancer.

Soon she has to start back chemotherapy, on a drug that would not affect her heart and that would hopefully be compatible with her system, as radiation has to wait until she is fully healed.

“To tell you the truth, when I found out about the skin cancer, I smiled because with all of this, you draw closer to God. In life, there are things humans cannot control.

I told God that I have no control of this, and I left it in His hands. When I smiled the doctors watched me like I was crazy but I have no choice.

What else could I do? Cry? No matter how I feel I have to see about the problem so it’s best that I smile and live life happy every day. That’s the most I can do other than pray and try to fight it. If it’s aggressive to me, let me be aggressive towards it and see how it works,” she said.

Harrigin added that during her mastectomy her lymph nodes were also removed. Until she is fully healed she is not allowed to lift anything heavier than 15 pounds, and she can not go near direct heat.

This means that she cannot lift her son, iron her children’s clothes, or cook for them. She said sometimes her daughters complain, or say they want to go live by their father because she cannot do anything for them, and it desperately hurts her feelings. But, she said she knows they are just upset and do not really mean it.

She said she did not know what she would have done without the help of the members of Embracing All Real Survivors (EARS) Cancer Support Foundation, whose members understand what she has been going through and provide financial and emotional support.

Despite all this, Harrigin has never regretted waiting for her son to be born before taking treatment even though those months could have made a difference. She said she always tells her children no one is guaranteed tomorrow, that she may not necessarily die of cancer, that she could leave the house and be killed by a stray bullet, so they should not live with regret.

“Cancer makes a person watch life and live life differently. It makes me want to be more happy everyday.

I don’t want to die with a ‘setup’ face. I want to die smiling,” she said.