It was a fight Shana Garrick took on with the same zest that characterized her life.
The bubbly young woman in her late thirties from St Mary was in the prime of her life. She had moved from good jobs in the corporate world and had established her own business. The loan company, IOU Money she set up was helping people put their lives together and that gratified her.
She had worked with international road construction companies PIHL that built the North Coast highway and later China Engineering Company (CHEC). Miss Garrick rose to become HR manager and worked out of the Golden Grove area of St Ann during the toll road construction. The travel was becoming much for her from Port Maria everyday but she pressed on with her job.
Then almost out of nowhere… ‘wham!’… came the diagnosis — she had cancer. Breast cancer.
Her mother, Gloria Richards Garrick stood with her only child. To this day when Mrs Richards Garrick speaks about it, she feels pain.
Three years ago, one Sunday evening, Shana Garrick felt a lump in the chest region, above her right breast.
Her mother recalls that few weeks after that, her daughter started feeling a pain under the right arm “like a node was swollen,” she said. Shana Garrick went to the doctor who told her it seemed to be a hormone problem that she should watch.
Three months later she did an operation to remove the node from under her right arm.
A biopsy confirmed her worst nightmare, she had cancer.
Doctors ordered another operation, followed by a visit to an oncologist to start chemotherapy. Mrs Garrick said her daughter got a rough session about what chemo would mean. “The doctor told her she was going to lose her friends, her hair, her boyfriend…he didn’t do it in a way to show comfort. She cried and cried.”
The young Ms Garrick turned to a cousin who had been diagnosed with cancer some time before. The cousin suggested alternative treatment, “natural medicine” — diet and supplemental vitamins and rest.
The vivacious Ms Garrick continued to live her life, with things appearing to be okay for nearly three years. In that time she had left CHEC and started her own business. Then in a cruel twist of faith her right arm again started to swell. A doctor told her it appeared lymph fluids were building up in it.
It was now time for physiotherapy, and a visit to a lymph specialist.
A lover of the outdoors, Ms Garrick went to the beach almost everyday, so when she noticed redness on her chest and a doctor said it was sunburn, it was sort of logical and meant for her to take less time in the sun.
But her mother leaving nothing to chance suggested she should go see a dermatologist. The most difficult months were ahead. The doctor told her all that was happening was caused by breast cancer.
It was now clear, she needed intensive treatment and with the help of family and friends, in May, she moved to Kingston to be closer to the treatment she required.
Care was provided by the Hope Institute in Kingston. A dedicated and loyal mother and her mother’s friend stayed with Shana during the most trying times of her life. For a while, things seemed to be improving with close friends including Lisa Hanna going to see her.
But despair set in when her arm continued to swell despite the medical treatment administered. Things took a turn for the worse
in July this year.
The rigours of Intravenous chemo therapy with five treatments in one week made her extremely fatigued.
Mrs Garrick remembers that her daughter became very weak and went to sleep about 3 o’clock on Thursday, July 12. There were tense moments as she had difficulty waking her up, but Shana finally responded and was given water.
But later that same day when she wasn’t responding her mother called the ambulance. The paramedics gave her treatment before whisking her off to the University Hospital of the West Indies. Mrs Garrick had gone through a similar situation with another relative and knew that her only child was dying.
It was a hard loss for the retired educator. “I was hit very hard. I was just in her room,” she told The Times in a telephone interview last week. “I was her best friend. I cry every day. We were closer than mother and daughter.”
But amidst her devastation Mrs Garrick knew she had to let go. Her daughter, who had asked for cremation, had died.
Her mom prepared to say farewell.
There was no funeral service. No mourning event.
And also, as Shana would have wanted it, instead of thanksgiving or funeral service, her mother arranged a dinner for family and close friends at Casa Maria Hotel last month. That was farewell but not to the memories.
