In the inaugural episode of the Living Legacy Podcast, host Zaakirah Muhammad introduces herself as a brand‑cultivating strategist, photographer, podcaster, and cancer survivor. She recounts her early life: born premature in Fort Lauderdale, diagnosed with hereditary bilateral retinoblastoma at nine months, and undergoing immediate surgery that removed her right eye, followed by a prosthetic eye and later hearing loss from chemotherapy radiation. Zaakirah shares survival statistics, noting the rarity of retinoblastoma and the current 95% survival rate, while emphasizing the need for continued awareness and reduced incidence. She describes how a Kodak Polaroid camera at age six became her voice, leading to a lifelong passion for photography, travel across ten countries, and a professional career that includes a marketing agency and upcoming book. The narrative also covers the emotional challenges of being perceived as “deaf‑blind,” bullying, and the importance of listening skills honed through speech therapy. Zaakirah’s philosophy—handing over overwhelming moments to God and focusing on self‑care—underpins her advice to listeners: get eye and hearing exams promptly, don’t ignore abnormal signs, and live boldly beyond comfort zones. The episode concludes with a call to action to subscribe, share, and suggest future topics, and directs listeners to her website.
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My name is Zaakirah Muhammad, and you are listening to the Living Legacy Podcast. I am a brand cultivating strategist and photographer. What that means is I help you to make your social media pages look good. At 6 months old, a camera saved my life. At 9 months old, I was officially dubbed a cancer survivor. I have been in 10 countries, including Ghana, West Africa, The Gambia, Senegal, and South Africa. Now it's my turn to teach and inspire you to step outside of your comfort zone. And this podcast will feature women I admire and have met as they share stories about professionalism, entrepreneurship, business, travel, life, marriage, and how we got connected. Lo and behold, I may interview some of my favorite men too. If you have any suggestions on a topic you want discussed, leave them in a comment below. And as always, please be sure to subscribe and download. So, for those of you who don't know, I was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on December 20th, almost 4 weeks early. I was diagnosed with hereditary bilateral retinoblastoma, which is a rare children's eye cancer. So it's a childhood cancer, and hereditary means that there is a gene that could be passed down to my children. Bilateral means that it can affect both eyes. Even though, by the grace of God, my mom took a picture of me when I was 6 months old and spotted a white glow in the image of where there should have been a red glow. So, you know how when the flash goes off, you sometimes see a red, you know, a red glow, and that's how you know there's a lot of blood going in the eye. But instead, my mom saw a white glow. So she ended up taking it to more than one doctor for a diagnosis. But by the time— by this time, I was 9 months old, and the second doctor then said that surgery needed to happen right away. So my right eye was surgically removed. So since then, I have worn a prosthetic eye in my right eye. As a result of radiation from chemotherapy later on, I have also experienced a hearing loss. So my hearing is still declining to this day. And I wear hearing aids in both ears, but it has not stopped me from loving all kinds of music. I am what you would call a music head. So I mean, any genre, you name it, any artist, you name it. But I will say that my favorite artist right now, I really love Ciara. I just, I just love what she's doing. I've been following her since Goodies, since, you know, she was a teenager, and I just love how things have just turned out for her, you know, because she kept the faith. And Chris Brown is what I honestly consider the millennial generation of Michael Jackson and Usher. He's really, really talented. But yeah, so I listen to all kinds of music. And so let's see. The thing about my cancer is that most children rarely live to be 5 years old, at least 5 years old. I mean, I've known People who have survived longer than that, even myself. I shouldn't even be talking to you right now, but I am, by the grace of God. But it took me a long time to understand the fact that I am a survivor. You know, I never really understood it. I never really took the time to connect the dots that you survived. You know, it's a good thing that you survived, you know, because I survived something that difficult, something that's very rare. I mean, back when I was first diagnosed, there were only about 200 annual cases of retinoblastoma. Now, there's about, at most, 9,000 cases a year. So, luckily, the good thing is that now the survival rate is about 95%, but there's still a lot to be done because we shouldn't even— the numbers should not be going up as far as cases. It should be going down. So there's still a lot more work to be done. But fast forward, let's see, I was 6 years old and I was given my first camera, which was a Kodak Polaroid camera. And thanks to my mom, from there on, there was nothing that could stop me from photographing everyone and every place that I went and everything. And so, but for me with the camera, that was my voice. You know, that was— my way to share my vision, the way that I see life through my monocular vision. You know, the fact that I do see with one eye. So, I mean, of course, it's still a blessing to still be able to see the beauty, you know, and all that's surrounding us. And, you know, not to mention all the countries that I've been blessed to be able to go to. So even though with, you know, my first few cameras, I started out with travel and landscape photography because my dad was a— Photographer. CDL, you know, 18-wheeler truck driver. So I would go with him, you know, on my summer trip before I even started school. I would go with him. So I ended up seeing more state than I can recall. But by middle school, I ended up capturing candid moments of close friends and family. So then my mom gave me a birthday present of my first digital camera. And this digital camera was so cute, so cool. It had video capabilities. Of course, everybody by then had You know, high-end digital cameras, but I was just grateful to have a camera. You know, I was so grateful. It was small, but I was still, you know, happy to capture those candid moments. Now, even though in middle school, by the time I did go to middle school, I was considering going to school for psychology or something like that because of my ability to be a good listener and be a good friend. I mean, I'm a Sagittarius, so that's a no-brainer. But being a good listener was definitely a developed skill because I had To go through audiologists. I had to have speech therapy. I had to go through all kinds of teachers, you know, just to be able to be comfortable with listening. I mean, even though to this day I'm still a lip reader, but, you know, it makes a difference, the fact that I can genuinely listen to people. Because, you know, the thing about listening is that you're not really supposed to be listening to respond. You are supposed to listen to genuinely understand what the person is trying to convey. So this was middle school. And then by the time I attended my second technical high school, now we moved around a lot. I think 7 times in 13 years to be exact. So I went to 2 high schools. And by the time I attended my second high school, I chose to study in the commercial photography program. And that's when I really just, you know, my whole world opened up because I was able to learn more about studio. I was able to learn about But also by then, I was able to gift myself with a DSLR camera, a digital single-lens reflex camera. So a Nikon. I'm a Nikon girl. So yeah, it just took a lot of time for me to realize that there's so much more to life than focusing on the negative things. Especially, I was also bullied for being what they thought was four eyes, when in reality it's Yeah. But I was bullied emotionally. It was just a lot to deal with emotionally too. But for me, it wasn't until I started to really tell people my story that, like, okay, I'm a retinoblastoma cancer survivor, that I started to really hear the faith and it started to kick into me, like, you are so inspiring, you're a miracle, you're amazing. Me hearing it from my family and my friends and people who I did tell, for me to believe it in myself. And I mean, it's going to be hard, you know, because I will say that there were times where I was— I felt, you know, denied of access of opportunity because I am considered deafblind. Now, even though I'm not deaf enough or blind enough for certain grants or certain scholarships for school and whatnot, I still, you know, realize that when it's too much, I just hand it over to God, you know. So basically, here's the thing. When I was like 3 years old, my mom told me this story of when I was like, I think 3, maybe 5 years old, I was just adjusting to wearing a prosthesis. So we finally had the oculist who was really good, and we've kept him for so many years. But we had an oculist who made my prosthetic eye to fit perfectly. And but at that time I was still adjusting to it because I'm like, what is this thing in my eye, right? So my mom was, you know, for example, leaving me with a babysitter because she would have to work. My dad was working on the road. She had to work too. So my mom said one day the babysitter called freaking out because I just handed her this eye. I handed her an eye and she didn't know where it came from or what to do with it or anything like that. So my mom freaked out and came home, but But when it happened again, my mom just noticed how nonchalant I was about it, right? So I just— if it bothered me, if it came out, if whatever happened, I just handed it over to whoever was my caregiver that day. And I realized that that's just been my motto. That's just how I am, you know, like just when it's too much, just walk away. When it's too much, it's just, you know, leave it there and hand it over to God, hand it over to your caregiver. Hand it over to whoever it's supposed to go to, and then everything will be all right. So I am a— I am just, you know, so grateful to still be here, to be able to, you know, share this story, you know, because all the challenges that I have been through, whether it's in school, out of school, in the workforce, out of the workforce, in life, you know, with any relationship, has made me a better woman, a stronger, more confident woman, you know? And, but in any of the times that I would just, I would just seen as disabled at first, like even though sometimes I do have my moments of feeling insecure where I would just hide the fact that I do wear hearing aids or the day where my prosthesis would be acting up where, 'cause some days every time it does get changed or cleaned, like I have to take it out. You know, it's just like a contact lens. You have to take it out and clean it. So every time I would take it out and clean it, it would not go back to its form immediately. And sometimes I would kind of feel insecure about that because then I know people would ask, oh, she got lazy eyes, she's cross-eyed, what's this, what's that? So then I just, you know, made it past that to understand that it just made— I just had to make it my goal, a conscious decision to be healthy, to take care of myself. You know, that's— 100%. All part of self-care. So then I just got it. Instead of being feeling intimidated or bullied by what people assume, I just, you know, happily educate them along the way. Like, no, actually, this is not a real eye. So, you know, I— but then, you know, obviously the more I did it, the more I realized that my purpose really is to, you know, educate people and inspire people to share their stories, you know. So my advice to you is really to just get out there and have your own life experiences. Life is too short to be taken too seriously, you know. I mean, look at me today. I am a podcaster, a marketing agency owner, a happily married woman, a world traveler, soon-to-be bestselling author, you know. There's so many things out there and God is not finished with you yet, you know. So that's what I've had to believe, and I'm just grateful for the platform to be able to share my story because there are times where I would look at these trending hashtags on World Cancer Day and Childhood Cancer Day, and I'm just like, okay, what about retinoblastoma? What about us? You know, so I'm just happy to be able to, you know, let you know that if there is Something that you notice going on in an eye and you take a picture. Well, it can be in sunlight, you know, you can see people's pupils or the eye color change color if the sun's, you know, shining right on them. If you don't see something that— if it doesn't look normal to you, don't brush it off. Definitely get it checked out. Get to the eye doctor. You can get free eye exams. Get to the eye doctor and have them check it out. Okay, because it's— yeah, no, I mean, I've heard my doctor one day when I went to go visit, he shared a story about how people now Photoshop. If they don't see a red eye, of course it's easy, natural to Photoshop the red eye out. But if it's a completely different color and you still Photoshop it out, like, and then what? It's like you're putting aside, you know, you're not prioritizing health or whatever's going on. So. Definitely get it checked out if you happen to see someone with any kind of eye issue. Even if they do happen to look like their eyes look in different directions, look like, you know, whatever it is that you think is abnormal with the eye and you don't already have a clear diagnosis about it, get it checked out by a doctor. Same thing with your hearing. If your hearing had been declining, You never know what it could be because there's so much radiation in this world with all the technology that we use that you never know what could be affecting you. So just take care of yourself and get checked out, you know, because you don't want it to be too late because we all got one life to live, right? Thank you for listening to the Living Legacy Podcast. Be sure to subscribe and download so you don't miss the next episode. If you want to learn more, you can visit zaakirahnayar.com. Be sure to share with your friends and suggest any topic that you want to be talked about. Thank you.
