MY CANCER TESTIMONY

Life has a way of throwing at us a couple of surprises.  I woke up in the middle of the night on a cool Saturday morning and felt a slight ache on the left side of my head. I had slept perfectly normal and I didn’t know where it came from. “It’s just a normal headache, take paracetamol and you will be fine” my friend said. I obliged. It kept reoccurring however every midnight at the same time for a week. I was advised to consult a doctor in Ife for diagnosis. He made a similar statement as to it being a normal headache and gave the same paracetamol prescription.

Two weeks later it got worse. It was more than an ordinary headache; it began to affect my left eye which resulted in a blurry vision and impaired eye movement. Then I knew I had to consult a more qualified doctor. I called my mum to explain the whole situation, trust mothers, she was unsettled and lamented on the phone.

The Journey

I travelled to Lagos the next day to see a doctor at LUTH (Lagos University Teaching Hospital). He asked a few questions, conducted a series of tests and referred me to a neurosurgeon who had dealt with a similar issue before. After minutes of tests and questioning, he referred me to the radiotherapy department to do a CT scan, I was placed in a machine, injected 3 times and came out after 40minutes. What looked to me like an ordinary exercise cost #40,000.

The next day, we took the results to the neurosurgeon. After he looked at it with so much confusion written on his face, he said to my mum “madam there seems to be a growth on the left side of the brain”, my mum looked at me with tears almost dropping down her eyes. He referred us to a senior colleague at Abuja general hospital.

The Abuja Nightmare

After staying in Abuja for two weeks with my “unfriendly” family friend who seemed to have more problems than I did, we saw the doctor, he looked at the CT scan results, and carried out series of tests, including HIV test, which was negative. After the tests, He said “madam, a delicate surgical operation has to be carried out on your son and he has a 40% chance of survival, we will open his head, get to the brain, remove the tumor…bla bla bla.” I saw the fear and anxiety on my mum’s face. Being the only child you can imagine what she must have passed through.

The Phone call

We flew back to Lagos the next day to decide the next step to take, the options were to travel to India or America for better health care services, then I remembered my big aunty who had a similar issue, she travelled abroad for the surgery but died in the process. I feared the worst.

 As we were about to conclude our travelling plans, a “phone call of life” came in; that phone call was a life saver. My uncle said on the phone, “I spoke with someone about Seni’s case and he referred me to an ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat) surgeon who performed an extraction on my uncle who had a less complicated situation”.

Naked Head-Washing

Confusion and fear was the order of the day in my house. Ten minutes after the phone call, a “Cherubim and Seraphim” prophet entered and said, “you people are just running up and down, this is the work of the devil, let me take him to a river in Ogun state, we will strip him naked and wash his head”. There comes a point of difficulty in our lives, that any option that “might” lead to a solution is accepted. So we took the option and two days later, I had the “naked head-washing”.

The next morning it got worse, I woke up with an excruciating pain more than I had ever felt, crying and yelling for help. I was taken to the ENT surgeon my uncle referred us to, he looked at the CT scan and said, “the tumor is in a very delicate and unusual place, in my 25 years’ experience, I have never seen this form of tumor”, he referred us to a Professor neurosurgeon at UCH (University College Hospital) in Ibadan.

The 200k MRI Scan

I took the CT scan results to UCH, the old Professor with white beards looked at the results, with a confused look, he referred us back to Lagos to do a more complicated MRI scan that costs us #200,000. The MRI is similar to the CT scan but yields a more detailed result. Bearing in mind that I was missing lectures in school, I vented my anger and frustration, “Why in God’s name did the neurosurgeon tell us to do a CT scan in the first place”.

We took the MRI results to UCH. The Professor and his medical students looked at the result and said “this is a special case”, he gave us two options: to either perform a 14-hr surgery with a slim chance of survival without a brain damage or go back to the ENT surgeon to extract a sample of the tumor and hope it can be destroyed by chemotherapy. We chose the second option.

As we left the building, I saw some very strange sicknesses I had never seen before. There might have been a point in your life, when you were angry and frustrated about something then you saw a more tragic situation than yours and immediately forgot your problems and pitied the other person. That was how I felt.

The 3-day Old Baby

As we waited at the reception to see the ENT surgeon, I saw a 3-day old baby who had cancer of the brain, his head was twice its’ original size, he was operated on, but died in the process. As his parents exited the premises with tears, I had mixed feelings and I reconciled with my maker and told God, “If I am going to die young, please let me at least make it to heaven”.

One hour after the baby’s surgery, we went in to see the sad-faced ENT surgeon, he read the report, took a look at the MRI scan and fixed an appointment with us for the mini-operation.   

Mini-Operation

On that faithful day, we got to the hospital, I was wheeled to the theatre, as my hands left my mum’s hands slowly, I told God again, please don’t let this be the last time I will hold this woman’s hands. I laid down on the surgical bed talking with the doctors and nurses, after 10minutes, I was “gone” thanks to the anesthetics.  After an hour, I heard the surgeon’s voice faintly, “thank God you made it despite the shaking and vomiting of blood”. I rested for some hours. The surgeon showed us a sample of the tumor and said jokingly “there is many more where that came from”. For three days, all I took was ice-cream and cold drinks to heal the wound in my throat.

First Breakthrough

A week later, we took the sample to the professor at UCH, while he was analyzing the sample, I was tensed, 2 hours later, he came out of the lab with a “mini-smile” on his face and said to my mum, “I have good news madam, the surgery won’t be necessary anymore, chemotherapy “should” destroy the tumor”. I sighed and smiled for the first time in a long while. That was my first breakthrough. He referred us to Eko hospital in Lagos for the chemotherapy.

As we got to Eko hospital, the first thing I saw was a pitiful one, patients with more complicated cases, my faith increased. Few minutes later, we went in to the doctor’s office, he looked at the results and reports, being their first ever patient with this “strange illness”, he was astonished and fixed an appointment with me to begin the chemotherapy and gave us some instructions.

Treatment Day

The doctor explained the whole procedure, made some artistic drawings on my face and I entered the machine. After 5minutes, the nurse told me to stand up, I looked at her and asked, “are we done”? She replied “yes we are”. At that moment I was happy the procedure was short and free of pain (so I thought).

After 9 days, the chemotherapy got really intense and painful, I couldn’t swallow anything or have my bath for 40days and 40nights because of the laser beam effect. I just hoped that those 40days of treatment would yield a positive result.

And it Did…

After completing the treatment, I was referred to LUTH for a confirmatory MRI scan, I was very scared and tensed, different thoughts ran through my mind. When we got to LUTH, the nurse couldn’t recognize me. After waiting for few minutes, I took the test and was told to wait for 24 hours.  24 hours filled with fear and anxiety, slowly the hours lapsed and the result was ready.

The Moment of Truth

It was like an “action movie” filled with suspense, 30miutes later, the moment of truth came, the doctor made the statement I had been longing to hear, with a smile on his face he said, “congratulations madam, the result is ready and there is no trace of the tumor, it has disappeared”, I was so happy that I couldn’t utter a word, after about 2minutes with tears in my eyes, I hugged my mum and thanked her. I faced death and conquered, it was a miracle. Aside that, I passed my pre-degree exams and was admitted into O.A.U to study the course I chose.

This one-year experience was a turning point in my life, facing such a challenge and prevailing made me stronger and resilient.

 ----By a close friend