When 72-year-old Marquita Jordan first discovered a lump in her right breast over three decades ago, she never imagined it would mark the beginning of a journey defined by faith, endurance, and healing.
“I had a mass in the right breast,” she recalls to Barbados TODAY about her discovery. “I went to the doctor. She said it’s nothing to worry about. But months later, I still wasn’t satisfied.”
Unsettled by the lump, Jordan sought a second opinion. “I went to another doctor and she sent me for a test — a mammogram. I did the mammogram, and when the results came back, it showed cancer.”
The diagnosis changed everything. “She referred me to the hospital for radiotherapy,” Jordan says. “She suggested that I would have to get surgery because of the size of the mass.”
The news was devastating for Jordan, who saw it as a death sentence. “I panicked,” she admits. “Nobody ever told me that you could suffer cancer and live.”
At the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s Radiotherapy Department, she met two nurses who helped ease her fears. “Nurse Blackette spoke to me positively,” she said. “She says: ‘It’s not a death sentence. You could be sitting in your house, and a car could come and drive and kill you.’ That stuck in my mind.”
Encouraged by her praying mother and at her uncle’s invitation, Jordan travelled to New York to get a second opinion. “My uncle, a preacher at Grace Baptist Church in the Bronx, said: ‘Come on down.’ He and my cousin’s mother helped me get into a hospital in Manhattan.”
There, she had her first surgery in October 1992. “When they went in, they said they didn’t see anything, so I was feeling really glad. But then they did another biopsy and said they found something,” she says.
Jordan returned to Barbados later that year for radiotherapy and chemotherapy. “The radiotherapy used to be tiring because of the heat,” she says. “But what I used to do was go to radiotherapy every morning, buy a cold drink after, and then go to work.”
She recalls a conversation with another woman who was going through the same situation; when she explained that she would be heading to work after treatment, the woman was shocked. “She would reach out to me, which she did and she couldn’t understand you’re doing radiotherapy and going to work. What kind of person are you?”
She credits her family for providing the support she needed: “I had some friends who were very supportive, very, very supportive, so it helped a lot. I had a sister who died two years ago… she used to take care of my daughter, and Deborah used to take care of my daughter as well.”
Through it all, she leaned on her faith, her family, and books that shaped her healing. “I came across a book by Deepak Chopra — somebody I followed throughout my whole cancer journey. I also read Getting Well Again. The principles in those books helped me to heal and be strong.”
She incorporated meditation, yoga, acupuncture, reflexology, and dietary changes. “I did a whole course of Chinese medicine,” she says. “I believe that a combination of all of those helped me to get over cancer. The books would tell me that once you believe, you can’t let go of that belief — it would help you to heal.”
Music also plays a vital role in her recovery. “If anybody tell you that music is a healer, it really is,” she says with a smile. “I came out of a musical family. My dad was a great musician. I used to play gospel tapes loud in the district and sing. The music helped me along.”
Thirteen years later, she faced another test — colon cancer. “I had the breast cancer in 1992 and the colon cancer came around 2004,” she says. “I told the surgeon, ‘I ain’t taking no chemotherapy this time.’ It was too debilitating. But I’m still here — still living.”
Her faith remains her anchor. “I used to suffer anxiety and depression sometimes, but you just have to believe,” she says. “Faith goes a long, long, long way. In both instances, it’s my belief and my faith.”
Now a grandmother, Jordan says her story is meant to give hope. “I wanted to tell the story ever since,” she says. “I feel that telling the story will make a difference to someone. It’s not a death sentence, but you have to believe, hold on, and live one day at a time. Don’t try to live tomorrow today — it doesn’t work. That’s my philosophy.”
Now, 32 years later, Jordan says she doesn’t feel her age and believes age is just a number — a true testament to the power of the mind in the healing process.
louriannegraham@barbadostoday.bb
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