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All James Montague wants is to see his daughter in church clapping, singing and, praising again, while her mother, Kathy-Ann, is longing to have grandchildren from her eldest daughter.
In a last plea, after several calls to the public to help cancer-stricken Cindy Montague get financial aid to have a bone marrow transplant done abroad, her family is begging the public one last time to help save her life.
Montague’s ‘fighter’ attitude has caused her to live past the three-month prognosis since diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma (cancer originating from white blood cells called lymphocytes) six and a half years ago. (See more info in side bar with Dr Kenneth Charles).
Now even at stage four she keeps fighting for her life. She is in need of a bone marrow transplant costing $300,000 (TT) to be done in Cuba or $1.2 million (TT) to have it done in the US, where doctors advised she should seek the medical service. But she is nowhere close to these figures even after years of trying to raise funds.
Montague’s story was highlighted four times by the GML newsroom between 2014 to now, with the most recent being published in the Sunday Guardian’s now concluded series on cancer awareness last month.
We were prompted to feature her story one last time after Montague suffered a massive stroke on July 25, 2018, just six days shy of her 29th birthday. The stroke left her with temporary memory loss, unable to speak and use her lower extremities. She is also unable to sleep well and suffers with daily migraines.
It was one day after completing her fifth cycle of chemotherapy treatment that she experienced the stroke. Her sister Jenelle, who was home at the time it happened, explained prior to the stroke Montague was informed by her doctor she would need an additional six cycles of chemo which caused her to become very depressed as each treatment leaves her feeling unbearably ill.
Montague was placed on an intense chemotherapy treatment as her body rejects radiation therapy, which was required to be done simultaneously.
At her home in Arima on Thursday, Montague was confined to a wheelchair and for the first time revealed a completely bald head—the loss of hair being a side effect of the chemotherapy treatment. She could only communicate with her hands and make murmuring sounds with her mouth. But every now and again she managed a smile.
A mother’s pain
Her mother, on the other hand, could not hold back the tears as she pleaded with the public one last time for financial assistance and shared with us the tiring and painful journey since her daughter was diagnosed.
“As a mother going through this with my daughter, it is really a lot of build up inside,” she says as tears well up in her eyes.
“I have been going through a lot of pain and it has been hurting ever since I found out my daughter has cancer… it has been eating me up on the inside. I am supportive as her mother, I cannot go out and do a job because I want to be there for my daughter and she and I are very close. I am just asking persons out there if there is any assistance they can give to us I will highly appreciate it.”
In 2014, during an interview Montague told the T&T Guardian “I don’t know if they think I am going to die anyway so they see no point in giving the money. Or they think I don’t look sick enough. I really don’t know what to think.”
Four years later, her mother reiterates this saying they have actually encountered people during fund-raising drives who would look at Montague and query her cancer status saying she looks well and they don’t believe she is ill.
“Most times I would go out there with a couple of tickets to sell, asking for help and the response I would get sometimes, I don’t know. As a mother knowing that you’re going out there being genuine, going to these people asking for help. Some people are like ‘you again,’ ‘she’s keeping another barbecue again.’ It’s really frustrating and if my daughter were not in this position, I would not have been going out there to ask people for help,” Kathy-Ann says.
Added to Montague’s existing medical woes, she now requires therapy following the stroke. However, therapy is carded to begin in October at the Mt Hope Hospital, a time period her mother said was too far away and the family has started weighing options.
While Montague’s father, a martial arts instructor, believes that his daughter should not question God and just believe Him for a miracle, her sister says, “I just want my sister to be cancer free, to be able to live a happy and normal life so she could have kids because she loves children.”