At the age of 19, the last thing Roel Mo­hammed thought he would be di­ag­nosed with was can­cer. That’s why when his symp­toms first start­ed, he didn’t think too much of it.

“I didn’t take it on as deeply as I should of. I think, al­though we went to doc­tors to get a di­ag­no­sis, it wasn’t any­thing so se­ri­ous to raise any red flags at the time,” he said.

At the time, Mo­hammed was a re­cent grad­u­ate from Na­pari­ma Col­lege, pur­su­ing a de­gree in Chem­i­cal and Process En­gi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), and had a love for fit­ness and mar­tial arts.