CHILDREN WITH CANCER IN NIGERIA

 We’re going through hell, children with cancer cry out

It is frightening! It virtually kills the parent when those words, “Your child has cancer” drops from the mouth of a medical doctor. They are words no parent wants to hear. But when reality of such sets in, there is nothing to be done other than accept what fate has dished into your plates. 

The news of malaria, typhoid, body aches or even tuberculosis is the common types of ailments parents are familiar with. So, it is understandable to see a parent, who just heard that his/her child has been diagnosed with cancer in any part of the body system to be devastated.

For Nneka Nwobbi, a medical doctor and founder of Children Living With Cancer (CLWCF), she practically resurrected from the dead after her experience. It had better remain an imagination. She recalled a nightmare the day she went to check on her son, who is in a boarding school and to her dismay, saw a bulge at the left side of her son’s mouth. She decided to take the boy to her hospital – Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), where tests on different ailments were ran on him.

According to her, there was a team of about seven doctors, all checking and prescribing one test or the other. “At a point, we all got confused and concluded that it was cancer. I lost all the energy left in me as that was the last news I ever wished to hear in my life,” she said. Nwobbi added that she couldn’t even stand up from the chair she sat on. Everybody and every other thing in front of her started swirling around. “I lost consciousness of everything around me. Luckily, my colleagues got up to support me.”

Two hours later, when the doctors converged to deliberate on the next line of action, a dentist casually asked the age of the boy and asked if the boy had finished his milk teeth stage. “It was at that point it occurred to us that he was trying to grow another teeth while the former one was yet to fall off totally.

Then I was relieved and thanked God that it wasn’t cancer after all,” she said. Nwobbi may have been lucky to escape being a parent of a child cancer victim. She may also have escaped the trauma and the attendant experiences of witnessing her child wriggle in pains of cancer grip. Some parents out there are not that lucky!

But that is not to say Dr. Nwobbi didn’t empathise with the families of those suffering from it. However, for the parents whose children are suffering from one form of cancer to the other, they have no option but to accept what fate has brought to them.

They can’t help it, they can’t reject it nor do they have control over it, but they have accepted their fate, looking up to God for a possible miracle and pleading for government’s support in terms of hospital facilities, charges and drugs etc. This is exactly what Aliyat Sowetan’s mother, Remi, is experiencing at LUTH. Aliyat is suffering from Non Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Having spent four months in the hospital and taken 10 pints of blood, the 10-year-old girl still has four more weeks to undergo chemotherapy treatment in the hospital. The chemo treatment, according to the mother, costs N30,000 each, three times a week. She recalled how the sickness started with the young girl.

She narrated that it started last year with a painful throat. They were thinking it was ordinary sore throat; hence, she took her to Igando General hospital, where the girl was treated for cough because she was coughing. But a few weeks after the treatment, the girl couldn’t breathe properly because of chest blockage. For her to breathe, the mother said she had to struggle hard. She returned the girl to the hospital and they were referred to LUTH.

At LUTH, a surgery was carried out on her chest. “The surgery included drawing out water from the left side of her chest. But the more they drew out water, so also was pus coming out of the area, thereby blocking the passage. For that treatment alone, it takes N40,000, three times a day.

“As it is now, we have passed through different stages of treatment, but we still have four more courses of chemo treatment to take, to go along with blood donation which costs N8,000 and N7, 500 for screening. I have turned a beggar overnight as I no longer have the capacity to carry on with the treatment of my child,” she lamented. Aliyat’s mother was before this problem, a popcorn seller, while her husband is a cobbler. She called on well-meaning Nigerians to come to the aid of her child. Risikatu Oshagbemi is the mother of another boy, Joshua, suffering from cancer of the kidney – metastasised to the lungs.

It started with him from age six. His mother said it started in 2013 he started vomiting any little food that went into his stomach. After series of diagnosis and medication, one of the boy’s kidneys was removed with series of radiotherapy (18 courses) in UCH Ibadan.

By June 2014, suddenly, there was a bulge by one side of his body, in hand with malaria. She said they did a series of tests with CT scan where he was diagnosed of tumor in the lungs, and then they put him on chemo treatment from then till now. But not too long after, Joshua started stooling blood and that is why they have been in the hospital since then. Like Aliyat, Joshua too still has a few more treatments which will cost about N172,000 for blood donation, screening and chemotherapy and another N153, 000 for hospital bed and discharge bill.

“Luckily, Joshua is responding fairly well to treatment, though he has crisis in-between, we thank God. What I desperately need is God’s miracle for my son and government’s support,” she pleaded. Another child cancer victim is five-year-old Mutairu Osunfowora, suffering from Burkitt’s Lymphoma – cancer of the eyes. It started with bruises around the eyes and a turgid eyelid, which affected his eyeballs. Muatiru’s eyeballs were bulging out when New Telegraph visited. He was lying helplessly on the hospital bench and breathing heavily. Idayat, his mother, said it started with one eyeball, but gradually rolled into the other eye.

Having spent one month in the hospital, she said the charges and medication bills are killing. “One of the drugs that we are yet to use will cost N350,000. Although, some well wishers have taken to the streets to help me raise money,” she said. Idayat, who is an apple seller at Ijora Bus Park and her husband, a retired police officer, are also pleading for government’s support.

Muyiwa Olaonipekun recalled the trauma of learning about his son’s diagnosis four years ago. “My son used to be very active, brilliant and even conducting extra moral lessons for other children of his age. One day, he came down with fever and cold, sweating profusely and coughing. Two days after, he couldn’t get up. He became very sickly that we had to rush him to Abeokuta where he was treated for tuberculosis, but it persisted.

Then, we got referred to LUTH where he was diagnosed of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. He was treated and got well,” Olaonipekun told New Telegraph. But last year November, Timothy had a relapse of the sickness. This time, he had blast cells known as immature cells. After treatment, he had bone marrow aspiration. Again, the fever came up heavily for about five weeks, and he was on antibiotics medications worth N8, 000 per day.

The consequence of the treatment for the boy, according to the father, is that he couldn’t eat and whenever he does, it was with massive pains, which take hours to subside. Later, they did another biopsy from the lymph node that was detected in him- Hodgkin Lymphoma (classical cancer of the lymph node). He was put on chemo drugs, which also resulted to him having no hair on his head and sores in his mouth. He cannot swallow. What Olaonipekun wants, however, is for government to intervene in all ramifications.

“I pray that both our state and federal governments would build children’s cancer department fitted with necessary medical facilities. They should make admission free for children and subsidise the drugs for them,” he pleaded. Unfortunately for Olaonipekun, who lost his wife few years ago, he also lost his job while looking after his child.

According to him, he couldn’t cope with office demands and the emotional trauma of his child’s health. He couldn’t even focus on his personal business that he tried to set up; he couldn’t nurture it to maturity. He called on Nigerians to come to his aid financially as Timothy still has more treatments to undergo. However, there is hope for childhood cancer.

Nwobbi, founder of CLWCF, told New Telegraph that there is, at least, 20 per cent cure chance for cancer children in Nigeria while there is about 80 to 90 per cent cure rate abroad for childhood cancers. “In Nigeria, we have less than 20 per cent chances of cure for them. So, you see that the disparity is too much.

I think the first thing we have to fight in our own environment is ignorance. Fighting that ignorance, letting people know, bringing in the kids on time, because once the child is brought on time and appropriate treatment is given, that child has a higher chance of survival than if the child comes in at the late stage.

If it’s stage one or two, it is still manageable, but when you are talking about stages three, four and five, depending on the kind of cancer, there is not much one can do, but palliative care which is not the best or which is not at its best here in Nigeria. Because palliative care is to keep the person as comfortable as possible right from the time that the person is told that there is cancer in the person, until the person either is healed or dies,” she explained.

By: Oluwatosin Omoniyi

New Telegraph News