Zenouska’s Story

Back in late 2018, my mum was feeling unwell. She was in her early fifties and her hot flushes and fatigue were put down to the menopause. A couple of months after she was so unwell she was struggling to catch her breath, in December 2018, she was taken to A&E with fluid in her lungs. After a couple of weeks of trying to drain the fluid out and failing, the doctors diagnosed my mum with Stage 4 Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. This was a shock for me and my family; she ate a healthy and balanced diet, exercised regularly, had never smoked and didn’t drink excessively.

I was 20 years old and in my final year of my Bachelor’s degree at the time, whilst my younger sister was 17 years old and in her final year of her A-Levels. These are tough years for any student to face but facing them knowing my mum was never going to be cured was extremely challenging.

My mum was put on targeted therapy rather than chemotherapy. It’s essentially a drug you take twice a day which seeks out and destroys the tumorous cells, unlike chemotherapy which cannot distinguish between cancerous and healthy cells. For six months, my mum was living a good life, because she wasn’t experiencing the side effects that chemotherapy would have brought on, and the drug appeared to be working. She and I had the most incredible summer, eating out, drinking wine and living our best lives. My mum got to see me graduate and she saw my sister go off to university.

Sadly this time soon came to an end.

Soon after summer, things took a turn for the worse. She lost the ability to use her left hand, she was experiencing blurry vision and eventually she collapsed on more than one occasion. The doctors were certain she was fine but my mum insisted on a brain scan, which showed the cancer had spread to several places in her brain. Additionally, we found out, via a letter sent to our house, that the cancer had also spread to her bones. My mum had whole head radiotherapy, as well as targeted radiotherapy for the bones, but it didn’t help.

We had been told originally that my mum could have chemotherapy if targeted therapy was unsuccessful, but after this whole ordeal the doctors said that she was too weak for chemotherapy and that it would kill her. I remember what I said to the doctors that day; I said that if she was dying anyway why couldn’t they just try chemotherapy? They said she might have some more time with us if she didn’t have chemotherapy. I was so angry at the time, but looking back on it now I don’t think it would have made any difference.

See, radiotherapy hadn’t worked. The cancer had taken over her brain. She wasn’t living anymore, she was just surviving. My mum couldn’t remember who I was anymore, nor could she remember my sister, and she forgot my dad on occasion. She didn’t recognise that she was at home every day. She would only respond if we spoke French. Cancer had taken away the person my mum was before. Before, she was an NHS nurse; now, she was a patient. She was no longer the person I could go to for anything and everything.

She passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic on May 4th, 2020. The pandemic has made funerals, grieving and socialising much harder, but it is comforting to know she is finally at peace. She was the most wonderful, kind and caring mother that I could have ever asked for, and I hope that I can make her as proud of me as I am of her.

Asha Rajcoomaree Ramchunder

07.07.1965 – 04.05.2020