‘We must talk about cancer here’

Farah Jassem was 25 years old when she found a small lump under her arm. Unperturbed, and against her better judgement, she tried to live her life as usual, ignoring the growth and the pain.

An illustration of cancer cells. National Cancer Institute / Unsplash

DUBAI // Farah Jassem was 25 years old when she found a small lump under her arm. Unperturbed, and against her better judgment, she tried to live her life as normal, ignoring the growth and the pain.

What followed was two years of living in denial as well as misdiagnosis by doctors who told the Emirati there was “nothing wrong”.

By 2012, the lump was “like a bulb” and the pain was becoming too much to handle, affecting her daily life and studies at Zayed University.

“I insisted the clinic do a biopsy but in the end they only did a tissue sample. They told me nothing was wrong, again saying it was just a cyst,” said Ms Jassem.

In January the next year, her grandmother took her to Geneva, Switzerland. From there doctors sent her to a cancer specialist at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, where she was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The lump was then the size of an apple.

“I feel like I was failed by doctors in Dubai,” she said. “There isn’t enough awareness of the many kinds of cancer and there simply aren’t enough oncologists.”

When her course of chemotherapy began, doctors suggested she shave her head, but Ms Jassem refused until her hair began to fall out three months later.

“I was very depressed and I cut it in stages until Ramadan when I shaved it.

“I liked it but I got bullied by my own people who were there,” she said.

“It was a tough journey but I took it very positively. I had faith in God that I would be OK. I believed I was going to survive.”

Readjusting to life back in the UAE was tough for Ms Jassem, with the lack of “psychological support” for cancer patients a major problem.

“I struggled when I came back to Dubai. I had a shaved head and I went with a friend for a coffee. I never wear a headscarf so I wasn’t going to start and pretend. When I walked into the coffee shop, all the local men and women just stared at me. I felt so angry and said out loud, ‘what are they all staring at?’ People here can be so judgemental.”

It took Ms Jassem three-and-a-half weeks to build up the courage to leave her house again, and she would suffer panic attacks when she was around people.

“Even now, with my normal hair, I avoid crowded places but it took me a year to go out by myself. I just wanted to go back to London where I felt safer. People don’t realise that once you finish your treatment, there’s something inside you that dies.”

Now that she has beaten the disease, she hopes people’s attitudes towards those suffering from an illness such as cancer will change. “People can’t even say the word ‘cancer’ and there is still shame associated with illness, as if you’ve done something to become ill,” she said.

“People also assume that if you have cancer you will die, but that’s not true.”

The self-confessed workaholic’s philosophy now is to “live as if it’s your last day” and make the most of every moment.

“I can’t say my cancer was a blessing, but it helped change my life, my direction, the way I deal with people. It changes you.

“It showed me the importance of small things. You know what’s worth wasting your time on and what’s not. I feel more understanding of the things happening around me and really want to help people more. Money won’t help you. If you don’t have health, you have nothing.”