When Kashamra “Kay” Hamilton-Steede was diagnosed with cancer and relayed that information to her teenaged son, his first question was: “Mum are you going to die?”
Without missing a beat, her answer was a firm “no.” She told him she was going to live to see him become a man and to even help raise her grandchildren.
Having told her son that, Kay knew she had a promise to keep and that she had to fight for her life.
Prior to her diagnosis in 2022, Kay was enjoying life. Her partner at the time lived abroad and she was used to travelling back and forth. She was, essentially, doing everything a healthy person would do.
In August 2021, she began paying more attention to her breasts. It all started as a result of her visit that year to Girlfriends Expo. While there, she had visited a booth where demonstrations were being made on how to search for lumps in the breasts.
Kay remember telling the young woman at the booth that everything in her breast felt like a lump, as she had fibrocystic breasts and could not tell the difference.
“I remember her showing me a diagram and telling me to know my breasts.”
After that encounter, Kay made the conscious decision to periodically check her breasts.
While checking one day, she felt an unusual lump – which, according to her, was not there before.
About a month after finding the lump, Kay decided to visit the doctor. She went to four different doctors, all of whom told her she was fine and that she simply had fibrocystic breasts. However, Kay was not convinced that all was well.
One doctor after checking her breasts, simply told her to go home and relax as she was way too young to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Kay was 36 years old at the time.
Still not satisfied that all was well, Kay went to a local health facility and asked to have an ultrasound performed on her breasts.
She was told that that was not possible unless she had a doctor’s referral.
Still determined, she remembered she had a female doctor friend whom she felt at that stage she should turn to . . . if only to get the referral letter she so badly needed.
However, this doctor decided to first carry out her own examination.
“My gut was telling me that something was wrong. When she felt my breasts, she confirmed what I had felt all along. There was indeed a lump.”
Kay was advised to make the appointment to have the ultrasound done right away. Not wanting to alarm her parents or her teenaged son, the only person she told about the test was her then partner.
“I recall the doctor asking me why I did not come in sooner to get the ultrasound. I told her I had been to a few doctors and none of them had recommended I have an ultrasound,” Kay told Easy.
After the ultrasound was performed, Kay asked the bold question: “Do I have cancer?”
The response was simply, “It looks like cancer.” However, she was also told that further discussions with her doctor would be necessary.
She was also advised to have a biopsy performed on her breast.
Kay left the doctor’s office and immediately scheduled an appointment for the biopsy. Not wishing to have her parents worry about her diagnosis, she simply asked her dad to drive her “to a doctor’s appointment.”
She was expecting just her dad to accompany her, but her mum decided she was going along as well.
It was only minutes before she reached her destination that Kay informed her parents – after being pressed by her mother – that she was there to have a biopsy.
The results came back positive.
Kay knew she had her parents’ support as well as that of her boss and son whom she next informed. She also knew she had to act fast.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2022 and had surgery performed in September.
Always the jovial type who would make a joke of everything, Kay was relatively fine throughout the tests she had to endure following her diagnosis. But two weeks prior to the scheduled surgery, everything hit her like a ton of bricks.
Before she was officially diagnosed, she had felt brave. After the diagnosis, she had remembered sitting in the doctor’s office with a smile on her face.
“The doctor could not understand it. He asked me if I had heard what he had said, that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I told him I did and that all I wanted to know was the plan going forward.
“He told me I had a good spirit and that I should do everything he asked me to me do, as a qualified doctor capable of treating cancer patients.
“I remember going into my bathtub before the surgery and crying my heart out. I called my boss because I had already gone through so much – the tests and doctor visits. They had taken a toll on me. Now there was the surgery.
“My boss just listened and I needed that.”
She had made up her mind to have a double mastectomy. . . that is, to have both breasts removed.
“ . . . . There was a 99 per cent chance that the cancer could reach the other breast. I made that decision on my own. I was not going to hold on to something that could take my life.”
Chemotherapy treatment began at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 2023, and apart from initially losing her hair, all went well for Kay. She also underwent daily radiation treatment from Monday to Friday for five weeks and as part of her healing process, must now be on medication “for a number of years”.
Kay faced another surgery last year to address ovarian cancer.
Along the way, the personal assistant and her partner parted ways. But Kay who got engaged last year, tied the knot in April this year, having found love, even after her double mastectomy.
She praises the team at Cancer Support Services for their care, counselling and general help during her cancer journey.
Today, she has a message for women especially: “If you are diagnosed with cancer, do not give up the fight. It is the mind that will take you. I had Stage 2 cancer, but I never gave up at any point. Work through what you are feeling and communicate with the persons close to you.
“Cancer is a diagnosis, not a death sentence. Get checked. Not knowing your status is what you should be afraid of. Once you know your status you can do something about it.
“I have known persons who had Stage 4 breast cancer and are still fighting. God has been in everything I have gone through and He will be there for you too. Don’t ever give up.”
In her fight, Kay has kept her promise to her son – to be there when he becomes a man and to meet her grandchildren somewhere down the road. (CH)