As Guyana joined the world yesterday in observance of World Cancer Day there is at least one man, Lloyd Cameron, who believes his prostate cancer diagnosis brought about a change in his life that not only placed him on a path of reflection but made him want to become a better version of himself.
Cameron, 65, is currently the only male member of the Periwinkle Club, a support group for cancer survivors and their families. Even as he fights to become cancer free, he wants to impress upon men to treat their spouses with love and for especially young men to be careful when starting a family. The latter is to ensure that they are able to give their children the financial and emotional support they need.
As a father of 18 children (two of whom are now deceased) with different women, Cameron now regrets not being that pillar of support for all of them as they needed. Even though he was willing, it was impossible for him and he now understands how that affected his offspring.
It was in early 2018, Cameron said, that he started to see blood in his urine and he immediately knew that something was wrong. He visited a doctor and following an ultrasound he found out that his prostate was enlarged. He said he was told “it is not cancer but it could turn cancerous”.
As he was not feeling unwell, he continued to work in the interior hoping for the best, but later that same year he realised that he was “urinating a lot and then stoppage of water; I couldn’t urine at all. I was in the interior then and I had to fly out right away…”
A visit to the doctor revealed that his prostate was further swollen and he had to be given a tube to assist him to urinate.
Over time, the pain got progressively worse and Cameron said at one point he was “walking and bending and I was feeling sick all the time”. Two biopsies in 2019 and 2020 did not show the cancer. Those were done at public hospitals. He decided to go to a private institution and it was then he learnt that he had stage four prostate cancer.
“I feel sad when I hear and the family start crying,” he said. “I didn’t cry, because I said man you come to live and you have to die sometime. But at the same time I was not really feeling so sick and the pain like how my brother and other relatives go through before they died.”
He revealed that a brother, uncle, cousin and a sister-in-law all died from cancer.
“Up to today a good friend of mine died from cancer in New York because he was diagnosed too late,” he said, sadly even as he maintained he would keep fighting the disease.
On his first visit to the doctor after he got the news, Cameron said, he was accompanied by his current wife, his sister, a daughter and a cousin and he was advised to have a surgery, but he was later advised against this.
At that point, he joined the Periwinkle Club, which has been a huge support to him since.
Over a nine-month period, Cameron said, he received eight sessions of chemotherapy, but according to him, “it didn’t work out successful… the cancer stay at one stage it ain’t move from stage four”.
He was later told about an injection that costs $120,000. He has since had three of those injections and when he spoke with this newspaper, Cameron was waiting to have a CT scan done to ascertain whether they had helped.
“I can only hope and pray now and wait to see what will happen,” he told this newspaper, even as he indicated that he was feeling better.
‘Strength from the women dem’
“I am really feeling stronger now and is the strength from the women dem from the club, you know, that helping me,” Cameron said of the Periwinkle Club.
He said he has received financial support from the club, but it is the emotional support he cherishes more.
The man, who has grandchildren and great grandchildren, said being among the women has helped him to appreciate the opposite sex more and he questions how men can hurt women.
“You know, is when I sit down among dem women and I see how they are so beautiful in their ways. They speak to you. They almost speak life into you. ‘Don’t give up’, ‘we are here to fight’ and ‘cancer is not for one person’, they would say and the encouragement is really beautiful. I can’t really find words to explain, but is really nice,” Cameron said.
Since becoming a member of the club he has been supporting all of its activities.
“Although I had different, different ladies, two time I ever hit a lady and now looking back I say I shoulda never do it, but, you know, I was ignorant then. But now, you know, I can’t understand how men could kill and beat beautiful creatures like women,” he said. “It does hurt me now so much when I hear about domestic violence. It does bring tears to me.”
Cameron has 11 daughters.
Dropped out of school
“Dem time dah I didn’t really understand life, you know. And you never use to use condom and so,” he said in an effort to explain how he fathered so many children.
Narrating his history, he revealed that he had three children before meeting the woman he married and with whom he had three more children.
At that time, he was working in the interior but he later got sick and was unable to maintain his family. His wife, he said, decided to go to New York to work but it took a while for her to send for the family.
“In that time, I get back strong and I start working again and I end up with a lady again outside and she get child for me and thing. And she [his wife] hear and I told her yes and she get vex, you know. And she tell me that when me paper come in that the two extra children can’t come up; how she know about the first three children but not the other two…,” he recalled.
Cameron said he decided not to migrate to the US, but he took his wife’s three children to their mother and returned to take care of the others.
Cameron dropped out of school at an early age. He said one of his older brothers was playing with another child. “They was playing and putting them finger on a wood and the other was firing the knife and you had to pull away the finger and me brother end up cutting off the boy finger,” he related.
“The headmaster for the school beat he, beat he…,” he said, adding that his brother went home with a bloodied derrière.
His relatives met the headmaster out of the school and dealt him a beating and this resulted in both him and his brother being expelled. They were enrolled in another school many miles away, which entailed them paddling for hours in the Pomeroon. This proved too much for him and he eventually dropped out of school. He also said “I didn’t like dictation and spelling”.
While his siblings continued and got an education, Cameron said, he eventually moved to the city where he first became employed with the Mayor & City Council as a teenager. He later left and “worked on sea”, he said, and eventually became a miner.
Reflecting on his life, Cameron said he was most sad about not having all of his children with one woman and raising them under one roof.
He admitted that some of his children have expressed that they felt neglected by him, even though he claimed that he “anchor down after behaving bad”. He has five children with his current wife.
“If I could live my life all over again, I wouldn’t do the same thing. I would be like the rest of me brother them and marry and have one wife and live for my family,” he said.
He recalled that his son, who died in an accident in his early 40s, followed in his footsteps as he had 10 children with different women and for that he was very sad.
He encouraged men not to hit women and exhorted young men who are about to start their families to be focused and make every effort not to have children with different women.
The Periwinkle Club was formed in 2006 as a support group for cancer survivors and their families. The club’s motto is ‘We Flourish Under all Circumstances’. Initially it was introduced as a women’s club to support breast and cervical cancer survivors and allow them to meet, share their experiences and learn how to grow together. This has since changed to allow men in the group and survivors of all types of cancers. The club provides food hampers and assists members by paying medical bills.
It is located at 3783 Iguana Street, North Ruimveldt with telephone number 218-0885 and email address periwinklecancerclub@gmail.com.
