‘I need financial help to get surgery’

WESTERN BUREAU:

WHEN 17-YEAR-OLD Rihanna Golding graduated from Hanover’s Hopewell High School in July 2023, she was upbeat to pursue her dream of doing culinary arts.

However, those thought were soon set aside, and replaced with worry when her right knee, inexplicably, started swelling to the point where she she cannot move about without support.

Then came the unexpected news, three weeks ago, as she was diagnosed with stage two osteosarcoma, bone cancer.

Documents seen by The Gleaner show the UHWI diagnosing Golding with localised right tibia osteosarcoma for neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

According to Cleveland Clinic, osteosarcoma is the most common type of cancer that begins in the bones, usually in the arms or legs. Limited movement, bone pain, a lump and an unexplained broken bone are the most common symptoms. Many treatments are available, and if the osteosarcoma has not spread to other parts of the body, the survival rate is around 70 per cent.

Now, Golding and her family who live in Bogue Hill, St James are trying to figure out how to address this painful medical reality. And she needs urgent treatment.

“I have to start chemotherapy immediately, but the doctor man at Cornwall Regional Hospital [CRH] told me that they have no bed, so my mother has to provide a bed if she wants me to start the chemotherapy. I don’t have the space for that. I should have started treatment from March 14,” Golding told The Gleaner, as she sat close to her crutches.

Recent Gleaner reports have referred to the bed shortage at under-construction CRH.

“I need financial help to get surgery done so that I can go out and work and take some of the pressure off my mother. She is a single mother and really has it hard with wi. Mommy say I must not think about it and fret because I am her only daughter and she don’t want me go and leave her,” shared Golding, as she broke down in tears.

Hopeful for better days, she spends time researching her diagnosis, and still wants to go to school.

“Mi love cook, even though mi sick and mi have it hard, I still go in the kitchen, put down a chair and cook mi yam, banana and Irish potato. Nah go make sake a mi foot mi caah do what mi love. I would love to do online classes but I don’t have the device or resources fi dweet, mi a ask fi help.”

Bernadette McCook, Golding’s mother, expressed that she just needs her daughter to get treatment so the family can know where they stand.

“Her foot hurt her wicked yuh nuh!” McCook exclaimed. “Right now, she is not on any pain medication and the only thing I have to do is help her with home remedy to ease some of the pain. Mi just frustrated right now; I just need a steady answer or a steady road to say ‘yes, it is this road I am on and that a go happen for her’,” sighed McCook.

“I want to know if she is going to be able to walk or do something for herself. I can’t bother with the going around, I can’t deal with it,” she added in frustration.

The family got two different options for treatment from two different medical facilities, one recommending that Golding’s right leg be amputated, which is estimated to cost $200,000. The other remedy offered to treat Golding without amputation, requires medical experts to do a surgery, which involves removing the cancerous bone, and replacing it with a bone from some other part of her body. That is estimated to cost $400,000 or more.

“After the biopsy, the doctor at University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) says the foot have to come off because they don’t want the cancer to spread to her lungs. I don’t know which surgery they are going to do and how they plan on doing it. I asked if something else could be done but they are saying that is the best option,” McCook explained.

Having visited the CRH twice, McCook angrily stated that she still is unable to get a bed for her daughter.

“They (CRH) have two long lists and her name is on the next list. I asked them if they really make my pickney come up here and sit down suh long and nobody saying anything to me,” she said.

When asked how effective it has been in removing the cancerous bone from other patients with a similar issue, Dr Delroy Fray, clinical coordinator at the Western Regional Health Authority said that is one question no one can answer.

“When you remove cancer, you have to get a good margin, you have to remove everything. How successful it is depends on the margin you get. But if the cancer is aggressive and you amputate it, (for the) aggressive one, you would have caught everything provided it did not spread to the lungs before you do that. It has a tendency to spread to the lungs if you don’t catch it early,” Dr Fray explained.

“What will determine the effectiveness is when you remove it and test it and to see how well your margin is. If you clear everything, even then nobody can anticipate; no book, no experience. Individuals are different and what you try to do is remove all of the cancer as best as you can. If you can’t do that, then you amputate the leg and then you will get rid of it completely,” he added.

Vilma Graham, Golding’s grandaunt said that she’s hoping for the best.

“We have to tun donkey to lift her up and carry her out a road to get taxi to bring her to the clinic. We have to walk and tap, walk and tap so is a lot of minutes. We live in a track so when we reach back home, we have to turn donkey again,” Graham declared.

If you want to help Rihanna Golding, you can contact her mother at 876-576-5260 or 876-204-6149.

Account Details: CIBC FirstCaribbean Bank, Fairview Branch

Name: Bernadette Mccook

Account#: 1002287141

Type: Chequing

ashley.anguin@gleanerjm.com