Woman cheats death - Determined to succeed despite health struggles

After nearly losing her life twice, once in a motor vehicle crash and the other after discovering a brain tumour, Saidain Townsend says she now bravely faces each hurdle with strength and faith.

Sitting among relatives at her home in Olympic Gardens, Kingston 11, the 38-year-old said that she willingly shares her experience with anyone who will listen, hoping that her testimony will positively impact those going through difficult situations.

"I am grateful because I am in the land of the living," Townsend said. "There is a God that heals and there is no limitation to what He can do. He will make a way for you. Sometimes I cry and break down but I don't give up."

When Townsend was living the fast life 17 years ago, a motor vehicle crash in Portmore, St Catherine slowed her down and left her in a coma.

"Dem time deh mi out inna di world and a party and a bleach mi skin and a enjoy the world. I had a bar and life was just going good for me. I was travelling in a bus that lick up in a next one and everyone in the vehicle got damage. I couldn't wake up. I was in a coma for 36 hours and, when I woke up, is like I was seeing seven of the same doctor in front of me. I had to go to therapy to learn to walk again," she said.

Then, in 2015, Townsend was jailed in the US after she was held at an airport with fraudulent documents. She said that an acquaintance asked her to deliver an envelope, which supposedly contained a land title, to their relative in the USA. However, when she arrived in Miami, immigration officers told her that the envelope contained three social security cards, three passports and four birth papers.

"Mi say mi pee up myself about three times. The white woman keep on a tell mi that I wanted to work and use the people dem social and I didn't know anything at all," she said. Townsend feared she would get a massive prison sentence. However, despite being a backslider, Townsend fasted and prayed inside the jail cell.

"I was filled with the gift of the Holy Ghost. That same night I was sent back on the next flight to Jamaica without any charges being laid. I was given a five-year ban from the USA, though. It was like a miracle," she said.

But her biggest trial was still to come. She removed her head wrap to show a circular scar, a result of the 2019 surgery to remove a brain tumour. Townsend, who was living and working in Trinidad and Tobago then, suddenly fell ill early one morning.

"I feel like something hit me in my head. After that I wet up and mess up myself and I couldn't talk or walk," she said. The mother of one was diagnosed with a frontal lobe tumour in the right side of the brain and needed immediate surgery. Townsend had to catch the next available flight to Jamaica. The tumour was removed at the University Hospital of the West Indies, along with a segment of her brain plate, which was also infected.

Townsend lost her mobility and speech and endured months of rigorous therapy. She received financial assistance to purchase and install a cranial plate after her story was carried in The Gleaner late last year. Though she still cannot fully use her left arm, she is thankful that the tumour is completely gone.

Currently, Townsend is jobless and doctors believe that she will be unable to get meaningful employment because of the trauma her body has experienced. She still cannot fully use her left arm, but is optimistic that one day she will be able to fully finance herself and her now 18-year-old daughter.

"Doctor say mi nah go can work again but is not what the doctor say enuh, it's what God says. I know I will be fully back on my feet again by the grace of God because He is able," she said.