At eighty-one Claudia Linguist is a pillar of strength as not only does she live on her own and do everything for herself, but she has been a breast cancer survivor for 29 years and is always ready to lend a helping hand.
Others in similar circumstances would complain, but this mother, grandmother and great grandmother has a positive outlook in life which she insists is the pathway to longevity. While she may have the occasional ache and pain that come with old age, she would tell you that she is in marvellous health. While she is not entirely happy with her home circumstances, she has a roof over her head and she believes that change is on the way.
And so when the Sunday Stabroek interviewed her at her Lilendaal, East Coast Demerara home she preferred to focus on the positive aspects of her life saying she hopes she is an inspiration to someone who may read her story.
The mother of two lost both her breasts to cancer but that is the least of the things which bother her and today she spends her days reading and taking care of herself, and is always ready to get up and answer a cry for help.
“If anybody sick or so I would go and help out the situation… you know it is a kind of social work, that is how I occupy my time,” she said with a hearty laugh.
She recounted that a 70-year-old cousin recently discovered that she had cancer and it was she who did the “running around with her.” She shared the joke of them ending up at the morgue of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) while they were trying to get a blood test done for her cousin.
“When we say we come to get this done the attendant said, ‘Granny this is the mortuary’ and that was just a big joke,” Linguist said, almost keeling over in laughter while adding that they eventually they found the right department.
A normal day will see her waking and tidying her room and having her breakfast before reading her bible. If she has clothes to wash she does her washing and some days she has to get her marketing done. The making of her bed is an important chore as Linguist said she does not like to see “a rumpled up bed, even if I am lying on it I neaten the sheet.”
“I do everything for myself: I cook, I wash, clean and do my own marketing and I love to read; my days are pretty occupied,” she said adding that she does all her own business transactions. Many times she would observe persons younger than herself taking young relatives with them to help with their business transactions, and she thanks God she can do it on her own and that she is still in command of all her faculties.
Linguist also does a lot of walking as a means of exercise as she knows it is important for her to remain active. And she also travels often and can go to Bartica or Linden on the spur of the moment to visit relatives. People would sometimes marvel at the fact that she travels “alone with a lot of bags… But it is a matter of your mind you know… I travel, and my dear, if I had money where I live would have just been the headquarters; I would have been travelling out of the country, I wouldn’t have been stationed one place for a very long period,” she said.
She has two daughters, two grandchildren and one great grandchild, and even though she knows they love her she prefers her independence although she welcomes whatever help they can provide.
Linguist said she is “not really happy” about the way things are in her life, but that one has to “exercise patience.”
“I learn a lot along life’s pathway; patience is one of mankind’s best virtues,” she continued, explaining too that she is helped by her children and other relatives.
“I don’t want to live with my children at all; I tell them that I am independent, I can do every single thing for myself at this point and time. If I live to about ninety-eight I would need help… but not now, I can manage, I can manage well.” She related how a relative wanted her to live next to them and she said, “Not me.”
Cancer
Linguist was 52 years old when she found out she had cancer, and she said she did not a shed a tear nor was she depressed but instead she focused on beating the disease.
She recalled that she was losing weight rapidly but felt no pain, and never thought that she had cancer. She assumed that it was grief over the death of a grandchild that was responsible for the weight loss.
“That is why I say this thing is so deceiving, not a pain,” Linguist said, going on to recount how it was a surprise visit from a sister who is a nurse in Barbados that enabled her to make the discovery.
“That is why I like to talk to people, because it is a very deceiving sort of sickness because some people do feel pain and some don’t.”
When the doctor diagnosed cancer he simply told her, “‘You have breast cancer,’ and I asked him ‘Doctor how soon could you perform the surgery?”’
“I never panicked, I never cry ‒ right through my sickness I never cry, honestly as I sit here. All my thoughts were and all I focus on is to fight this disease; I must fight it and I must overcome it,” was how she described her attitude at the time.
On the October 11, 1984 she lost her right breast and six years later it was discovered that the cancer had spread to her left breast, so on November 17, 1990 that was also removed. But Linguist said
she never allowed this to affect her as again she focused on survival and prayed constantly.
“I never at no time at all lost hope or burdened my mind; some persons as soon as they discover that they have cancer they already see their tomb… but not me, I just see life, life before me and that is my general attitude since I developed cancer,” the survivor said.
Over the years she has speaking openly about the disease and how it affected her since she is not ashamed and if speaking could help someone she would be very happy. She does occasional checks but since 1990 she has had no issues and if she feels sick, cancer is never the first thing that comes to mind.
Linguist recently found out about the Periwinkle cancer support group and she plans to join as sharing her experience with others as a means of inspiration is what she looks forward to doing.
She spoke of the friend of one of her sisters who lives in another country and who was diagnosed with cancer. In her case, she supported her by talking to her on the telephone.
“I even went to a wedding and I took out a nice picture and I sent it to her and I told her at the back of the picture, ‘Whenever you feel downcast or depressed and life is it at its end, if you think so you just turn over this picture and look at me, I am a living example of God’s work.’”
A former seamstress, Linguist worked for a few years with the National Service as a house mother for girls who were back then housed at a school in Belfield, East Coast Demerara. In her younger days Linguist said she taught ,but she never followed it up as her first love was nursing.
“I did not really set my mind to teaching but I am sorry now I did not focus on it… but in your young days you make a lot of foolish mistakes,” she said with a laugh.
She had applied to study nursing but the first time she was too young and she later got pregnant and in those days one could not be pregnant while waiting, and when she applied the second time “I find myself pregnant again so that is how the story goes…” She did not apply a third time as she got discouraged and said “probably that was not for me,” even though in hindsight she sees it as one of the foolish mistakes of her youth.
“I just hope that this interview with give somebody who thinks they are at death’s door inspiration… once you are born there would always be two things: problem and death,” Linguist said.
