Naadia will not let cancer defeat her
Random doctor's checkup turned to be life changing for Naadia Vazeer.
Craighall Park resident Naadia Vazeer was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer five years ago but her determination to live and help others in the same situation has given her purpose.
The 51-year-old single parent of four children was diagnosed with the disease in 2016. “I went for a random checkup and was diagnosed by a gynaecologist who immediately referred me to Dr Carol Ann Benn who is at Breast Care Centre of Excellence in Milpark.”
It came as a shock to her because she had no symptoms such as a lump in her breast.
“Say I didn’t go to the gynae that day, I wouldn’t be here today. Because early detection means saving lives,” she said.
After overcoming the shock, she said the hardest thing for her as a single parent was to tell her children that she had cancer. Her biggest worry was that if she died, her children would have no guardian.
Things took a turn for the worse in 2017 when her cancer progressed to stage 4 (terminal) and she was told she had only five years to live. But this made Vazeer more determined to overcome her situation, and in 2019, she formed a cancer support group on Facebook called Thrivers Private Breast Cancer Support Group.Knowing how lonely the cancer journey could be, she founded a foundation, Naadia Be Cancer Foundation, in 2020. The foundation aims to visit people who have cancer and walk the journey with them.
“A lot of women I befriended from those visits have passed away recently and it’s broken me because there was a bond formed between us.”
Vazeer has defied the odds and is still active six years after being told that her cancer was terminal.
With the support of her children, her positivity continues to shine through and she said she was no longer frightened but very optimistic about life.
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