‘I decided, I’m going to fight this!’
Husband stirred breast cancer warrior to battle after initially giving up
Published:Tuesday | November 1, 2022 | 12:10 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
When breast cancer survivor Jeffena Fullcott-Dorman lost all hope of living in 2010, her husband, Michael Dorman, drilled into her mind the need to speak victory over her life.
And that the Christian woman listened and did.
Now she is able to rejoice a decade later as her cancer remains in remission.
“Him say, ‘You nah dead lef’ mi and Michaela, so you know you a go do the chemotherapy’,” the survivor recalls of her husband’s urgings.
“It was a terrible process, but I have people around me who loved me and every time I went for chemo, there was always somebody who came with me and spent the whole day with me,” Fullcott-Dorman said during Monday’s Gleaner Company-staged Live with Flair Luncheon capping Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
“I had given up, and then I decided, I’m going to fight this! There is still hope!” the 54-year-old said.
Fullcott-Dorman was 42 years at time of her diagnosis on November 4, 2010.
She told The Gleaner that she feels great to be a survivor, and when she hears of other women being diagnosed, she prays for them and the journey they will have to take on, as she did.
“I had a friend who died earlier this year, and she was bubbly, and I wasn’t hearing anything from her, and the next thing I heard she was in KPH, then the next thing I heard, she died, so I’m grateful I’m alive.
“Every morning that I wake up, I say, ‘God, I thank you for opening my eyes’,” Fullcott-Dorman said in a Gleaner interview on Monday.
Fullcott-Dorman remembers the shock discovery of her lump while taking a shower.
She got the call for her results on November 4 – when she was on the verge of travelling overseas. She wept uncontrollably.
“I went to the other doctor and he said you have to do a mastectomy for where it’s at, because it was in the tubes – the lining that leads the milk to the nipple – and in January 25, 2011, I did my surgery and removed my left breast,” Fullcott-Dorman said.
The survivor was initially sceptical about chemotherapy, but she eventually rose to the challenge, inspired by a doctor. Starting with radiation, Fullcott-Dorman underwent treatment at the University Hospital of the West Indies. She completed her treatment on December 4, 2016.
Fullcott-Dorman is elated that she has been in remission since then.
Her message to women in the midst of their own battle with breast cancer is: “Don’t give up the fight! Chemo does not kill you! You need persons around you more to encourage you with the fight!”
The guest speaker at the event was also a breast cancer survivor, government Senator Dr Saphire Longmore.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer during Breast Cancer Awareness Month on October 3, 2017. It was a day before she was scheduled to participate in a breast cancer awareness segment on Television Jamaica’s ‘Smile Jamaica’ morning show.
“I came out of the shower and my hand brushed against my breast and, because of my clinical training, I immediately looked myself in the mirror and said, ‘I have cancer’,” the psychiatrist and holistic practitioner said.
Longmore urges Jamaican women to be ready to face the threat of breast cancer.
“Preparation is the best prevention. Prevention is better than cure, but preparation is the best prevention,” she said.
She also warned persons to have effective health insurance policies and engage in practices associated with early detection.
The luncheon was sponsored by Flow, Supreme Ventures Foundation, Scotiabank, FirstRock Group, Mystique Integrated, Stationery and Office Supplies, The Original Arm Candy by Gianna Fakhourie, Epic Transformation, Medical Disposables and Supplies, P.A. Benjamin Manufacturing Company, Sunshine Snacks, and Baileys.