On the morning of Nov. 16, 2023, Saanich resident Jumoke Brown, a 32-year-old education assistant, began his day as usual, heading to work.
A few hours into his shift, he experienced sudden abdominal pain. Excusing himself to the bathroom, Brown discovered he was internally bleeding. A lot.
In the span of a few hours, the young man said he lost about two litres of blood.
Light-headed, dizzy and weakened, Brown drove himself to Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital. In the emergency room, he was joined by his partner, Iman Brown, and a long waiting game began.
Over the next four days, the couple waited for answers, gripped by uncertainty and the absence of a diagnosis. On the fifth day, Jumoke met with a gastrointestinal doctor. After undergoing countless blood tests, CT scans, and IVs, the results appeared increasingly bleak.
“We were just thinking it might be an ulcer, but each visit with the doctors got worse,” said Iman. “It was like a rollercoaster that only went down.”
Following a colonoscopy, medical staff discovered an ulcer in Jumoke’s small intestine. Upon closer examination, they found a significant mass behind it.
A few days later, Jumoke received an email informing him that he had been diagnosed with a rare type of cancer. The news struck like a bombshell.
“No one's thinking, when you're in your early 30s, that it can be cancer,” said Iman. “I remember that night when we first heard the (diagnostic) we were both like, 'What the f*ck?'
“We found out it was a really rare form of cancer called sarcoma. It's rare for people who are over 50 to get it.”
Tucked in a hidden nook, beyond the reach of standard diagnostic methods, doctors finally found the source of the bleeding: a cancer-triggered ulcer had eaten through one of his arteries. In a grim twist of fate, the ulcer became the warning that alerted an unsuspecting Brown to the illness spreading within.
“They said it was probably growing in me for a while,” said Jumoke. “I’ve always been really big on organic food, and I was raised vegetarian. I feel like my body has always been prepared to prevent this, but still got that anyway. It was really shocking.”
Though his healthy lifestyle may have slowed the spread of the disease, doctors told Brown he couldn’t outrun his genetic fate.
“This thing just grew from my DNA,” he said. “I just happen to have two rare markers, one from my mother and one from my father.”
In February 2024, Brown went under the knife, unsure of the operation’s final outcome.
“Even when I was going in, nothing was clear about how much (intestine) they would need to remove… or if I would need to have a colostomy bag afterwards,” he said.
After a few hours, the surgery was deemed a success, with doctors only needing to remove a six-inch section of his 20-foot-long small intestine.
However, despite being cancer-free, the experience left a deep psychological scar.
On top of dealing with his remission, Brown also grieved the loss of both his grandmother and grandfather, who died just months apart as he awaited his operation.
“Everything stopped,” said Jumoke, tears pooling behind his tinted glasses. “When you think you're not gonna be able to be there for your kid, it's really hard. You kind of get stuck in that doom of it all.
“I was really low, devastated, crying all the time and had no motivation to do anything positive. Still, it's a really hard battle just to get myself back to feeling like myself again, just being able to enjoy the things that I like doing.”
Iman, who left her job to support her partner, opened up about the toll it took on her to watch her loved one suffer in the wake of cancer.
“It was really heartbreaking because I've never had my father in my life, so seeing such an involved father was just too heartbreaking to witness,” she said.
Despite being “in the clear,” the young man now focuses on healing and rebuilding, attending therapy, with the goal of eventually returning to his regular life.
“I haven't been able to go to work because of the vulnerability of where I'm at,” said Jumoke. “If I go back to the workplace, that's where I had to run from and go to the emergency.
“It just makes me break down and… it brings back all those horrible memories.”
With bills piling up, insurance coverage ending, and the pressure of rising living costs, the Browns launched an online fundraising page in hopes of securing financial support for their journey.
“The body heals itself, but you have to do the work to heal your mind,” said Jumoke. "This is what I'm struggling with now. I can't just get surgery and then be OK again. You have to slowly rewire your brain, bit by bit, moment by moment and intentionally enjoy things that make you feel good.
“I just want to get back on my feet and live day-to-day again.”
Those who wish to help the Browns can visit shorturl.at/I4SE.
