‘I just wanted my life to have meaning’

 If it weren’t for Ameera Hafez’s persistence, a 17-year-old Emirati woman would not have known early that she had breast cancer.

Ameera has been a volunteer nurse educator with the Pink Caravan Ride — the pan-UAE breast cancer awareness and screening drive — for the past five years.

“I can still remember her name, her face,” Ameera, 27, recalls. “Hers is a case I wouldn’t forget.”

Ameera was at a Pink Caravan stand inviting people to get themselves screened at that time. She was tasked to teach people how to do self-examination of their breasts and other cancer-related information. The teenager approached the stand out of curiosity.

“I explained to her what breast cancer is about. But she said she didn’t feel like going for screening. She kept saying, ‘I’m too young for it. It’s forbidden …’ I told her any lady should go for it, what would she lose?” the Egyptian expatriate said

After a lot of persuasion, the teen agreed to be screened.

Her test results revealed later on that she had stage 1 breast cancer.

“She promised me she would teach the people around her to do their breast self-examination regularly and that they shouldn’t think they’re too young for it,” Ameera said.

Several other patients she screened had turned out to have breast cancer. Often the most unlikely person would end up with the disease.

To work as a volunteer nurse and team coordinator for Pink Caravan, Ameera has been using almost half of her annual leave, around 11 to 13 days, every year to spread the important message of early screening across the country.

“Sometimes I take time from my off-days, I take time from my annual leave, so I would be determined and committed to the cause,” Ameera said.

She even went as far as to volunteer to be a real-life breast simulator model because the occasion called for it then, to teach people that preserving life is more important that social perceptions.

Asked why she does it, she said: “I needed something to give my life meaning.”

“I want to feel inspired that I’m doing something different, something worthwhile. That at the end of life when we go to heaven, I can tell God I helped people to understand and overcome that disease

source : gulfnews