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CCNTV6
  • 6 months ago
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00:00Fans and supporters of Inshan Ishmael were shocked and saddened to learn of his
00:05urothelial carcinoma diagnosis one year ago but which he only revealed on
00:12social media last Wednesday. I had bought two dogs and we were walking in two dogs
00:17and the American bully which is the big of the two started to run towards me so
00:24normally I would just open my leg and allow him to just run through and go his
00:27way and that evening I did that unfortunately the American bully decided
00:33to raise his head his head ended up hitting me my groin and I just bend on in
00:38pain for about maybe about I grimaced in pain for about maybe about two minutes.
00:43Blood in his urine the following day was dismissed for a minor injury but it
00:48persisted the following day. It was almost a hundred percent blood there was no
00:53mixture it was raw it was thick blood and I said to myself something is wrong.
00:59A series of tests showed two masses on his kidney it was removed via surgery but his
01:05journey was not meant to have the safe and speedy recovery we all pray for.
01:10After that I could say that all hell broke loose simply because from since then I have not had
01:23the capacity to walk long distances or to run I don't know what it's like to run again that is
01:31out of my vocabulary and it was found that I had cancer of the kidney. More tasks were necessary and costs
01:45had to be weighed. It is cheaper for me to go Miami book a flight do a PET scan get the results come back to
01:55the end of the end of the day. The cancer had spread from the kidney to the iliac to the hip to the L2 L3
02:08T10 T12 to the vertebrae so about eight or nine different spots. Various treatments and
02:15millions of dollars later Inshan's battle continues. We decided to do
02:21um radiotherapy and this is an expensive form of radiotherapy. The normal cost of radiotherapy was
02:30a hundred and seventy thousand dollars per spot. Inshan Ishmael had about ten spots. We got a discount
02:39for about a hundred and forty hundred and fifty thousand. Mind you we decided to try immunotherapy
02:47which is three to four hundred thousand dollars per month. I tried three months. Inshan a used car
02:54dealer brings with himself a fire he had for many years and had been known as a journalist, an activist
03:02and one who was willing to tell it as it is. Today he calls himself a shadow of what he once was.
03:09One year ago he was given two years to live. I have lost 45 pounds. I am a shadow of myself.
03:20I have difficulties breathing. I have difficulties walking, talking, moving, shoring. It has not been
03:27an easy road but I thank God because at the end of the day there are people who were struck down with
03:33cancer and one week after they died. I have been fighting this for a year now. And the struggle is
03:39not just physical. Many people don't look at the the male side of things. How this affects the the male
03:49psyche because here I am right now I have two daughters. This may sound like a joke but serious.
03:57I want to be around to see who they pick up as husbands so I can know if they hit them licks or not.
04:03I have my son you know I want to see him cross calm you know tread his path too as well.
04:09And at the end of the day I want to see my children go up. I want to see all the fruits of my labor,
04:15all the work that I work towards at least knowing that there was something that I did that in my life
04:21that was beneficial to them. As a man as the head of the household when you are struck down with cancer
04:31all these things are locked down one by one. For a man the dance with death is a complex affair.
04:38A man's goal is to try not to make a woman cry. A man's goal is not to see his wife wanted.
04:46A man's goal is not to see his child wanted. A man's goal is to make sure that a son has
04:56what he needs and what he wants. So therefore a man's role is one of balancing where he's not only
05:04balancing his life he's balancing his psyche as well because he know when he goes somebody has to do
05:12what he did and it's not going to be easy. For Inshan there was never a point where he questioned
05:19fate. You don't give yourself life. You don't give yourself death. And for me to have gotten this in
05:26this late stage there are children being born with cancer right now. There are people who got the news
05:31today at the age of 18 there you have cancer. There are children who are six and seven years old.
05:38Shouldn't I be grateful that God gave me 56, 57 years to live and thank him every day. God thank you
05:45for giving me this life rather than to sit down and say oh boy use something else you know boy look
05:49at me go do me no boy. No I am grateful. I thank God for testing me with what he has tested because in
05:57our feet it tells us that this is a way of relieving sins and to remove sins and burden from you so therefore
06:05I accept this. Yet the resolve he has today did not come overnight. I would be walking along in the room
06:14bawling and screaming like a child. I would take the bed sheet and put it in my mouth
06:21and lie down on the side of the bed bawling so I don't wake up my wife.
06:24And it has been a difficult road. It has not been easy. The man hides his emotion. A man does not want
06:36his wife to seem crying. And I found myself crying on a nightly basis. But my wife did not know.
06:44This journey has brought him closer to God. I knew that my faith has not waned. It has not gotten any
06:51weaker. If anything I think it has gotten stronger because now you are given that timeline. By the way
06:57when we celebrate our birthday we are actually celebrating our deaths getting closer. And what I
07:02am actually doing, I am actually being given a clock which I had all the time but I never really
07:10recognize it. But I have been a clock have been put above my head now. With God telling me oh no
07:16you get a message. You have limited time now. Do a good one organize. So therefore now
07:22if I was running before which of course I wasn't. But at the end of the day if I was running I have to
07:28move faster now. Inshan was able to see even his struggles mirrored through the lives of others.
07:34And when I went to places to get treatment where I had to pay, I saw people with two different
07:41colored slippers on their feet. I saw people pulling up with cars, the car literally falling apart.
07:49And I knew that these people were taking loans to try and see how they could help their loved ones.
07:55I want to thank the oncology team, Troutrin and Tobago. They are an overwork team. Not only that,
08:04in Trinidad and Tobago, there are so many people who need oncology services that cannot afford it.
08:10And I know dying every day. Something must be done. And I appeal to the Honorable Prime Minister
08:17and Hatim Bodo and others to please let this be priority and let us see how we could work together
08:24to get something done so that we may be able to help those people who are truly needed.
08:29That makes Inshan want more than ever to see the hospital in construction at the Baraka grounds
08:36completed and opened. So organizations could come together and surgeries that cost 300,000,
08:42we could stay here often because the country organization pay 150, pay 100 dollars. So there
08:47can be a mass reduction in the cost of surgery. Not only that, we plan to do surgeries free every single
08:53month. Right? Not only that, there are things when you look at the cost factor for certain things,
08:58a piece of ice, panadol, costing 50, 60 dollars. No, things have to start to change and that is
09:04where we are going to change.
09:06Because of the stage of construction, the ground floor and first floor, he says, can be opened
09:11with 5 million dollars. Inshan has taken an oath to work every day to see it come true. In Islam,
09:18one's life is purposeless if one is unable to feed the hungry, clothe the tattered or change the lives of
09:26those who desperately need it. So the calls and messages he has gotten over the past few days
09:32have saved him some comfort from his illness, which he ironically calls his blessings.
09:38It's because this brings you back into thinking about who you are and what life truly means.
09:44Urvashi Tomori, Ruknarain, TV6 News.
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