SOME 19 years ago, Celeste Belgrave was the happiest woman on earth when she gave birth to her daughter Mekyla. The young mother was still in the early phase of motherhood and was still learning to care for a child, when the mother and daughter’s life were taken on a rollercoaster. At just seven months old, Mekyla was diagnosed with cancer.

“While I was breastfeeding her, I looked into her eyes and I observed. I expected her eyes to follow me, which it never did. But her eyes looked like they had contacts on them. They had a glossy look. At three of four months, we noticed it. And before five or six months, we took her to several doctors, about three different doctors,” Celeste stated. And after a few other tests, Mekyla’s parents were told she had bilateral retinoblastoma, one of the rarest cancers there is.

To save her daughter’s sight, Celeste and Mekyla went to Trinidad. This would mark the beginning of a yearlong stay in Trinidad and Tobago. Celeste recounted that upon reaching Trinidad, they were told of the bleak situation. “The right eye was already at 60 per cent of cancer. It made no sense keeping the eye. It was already over the 50 per cent mark of saving.”

All through the journey, Celeste says that both she and Mekyla were lucky to have the support of Mekyla’s father and a few other people in Trinidad. Mekyla’s parents made the difficult decision to carry out the operation on both of her eyes. In those moments, all Celeste was considering the life of her daughter, saying, “After we did the right eye, the doctor said that they got all the cancer. But now all we had to do was chemotherapy.”

Millions of men and women fight against the debilitating battle of chemo daily, while Mekyla was undergoing chemo at just ten months old. “She didn’t understand anything. It didn’t impact her in any bad way,” Celeste stated. During this time, neither Mekyla or her mother had returned to Guyana, and Mekyla had seldom left the hospital. But on her daughter’s first birthday, Celeste requested for Mekyla to have her birthday outside of the hospital.

After six rounds of chemo and a dozen follow-up visits, Celeste and Mekyla returned to Guyana a year later. Upon their return and in the years that followed, Celeste had begun taking steps into how and what it meant to raise a blind child. “I was living in East Ruimveldt at the time, and I heard about a lady that had a blind child that was living not too far from me. And when I met her, she gave me a book called, ‘How to raise a blind child’. She began telling me what to do and I got support from other parents,” Celeste stated.

When Mekyla was the age of two, Celeste enrolled her in a school. Mekyla began attending classes on just Fridays before she was fully integrated into going to school every day. After completing her secondary education, Mekyla moved on to primary school. It was during these years that schooling proved its difficulties. Celeste stated that Mekyla faced bullying from some of her classmates, she shared that, “As the parent of a special needs child, it used to frustrate me.”

Mekyla spent seven years in primary school, but the extra year was worth it Celeste stated, “She ended up spending seven years in primary school. Because she didn’t want to write it that year. But it was worth it because when she wrote common entrance, she topped her class. So, it was worth it.” Mekyla progressed further and went on to attend North Georgetown High School.
High school was a new and difficult step for both Mekyla and Celeste. But with the help of a few exceptional teachers, Mekyla completed her secondary education with stellar grades. The family received support from friends, teachers and institutions like the unit for the visually impaired and cancer associations like The Giving Hope Foundation.

Today Mekyla is a student at the University of Guyana and is working on gaining a degree in psychology. Celest shared: “Mekyla is onto university now. She is doing social work, and then she will be pursuing a degree in psychology.” Celeste is exceedingly proud of her daughter, stating that she is happy that Mekyla is alive. “The doctors say that remission begins at five years. After five years you can say ‘I am cancer free’. So, when Mekyla was six years old, I kept a big party.”

Celeste, as a mother with firsthand experience with cancer, and a lesser known one at that, thinks that it is important to discuss and represent all types of cancers. She stated, “As we know, everything surrounds breast cancer in October. You don’t get to see other types of cancers coming out and being seen. There are all types of cancers and children suffering from all types of cancers, and people don’t know.” To all parents and persons struggling with cancer, whether that of a family member or oneself, Celeste urges resilience and to never give up because there is life after cancer.