By Olukorede Yishau
To many, breast cancer means death. But is this really true? Enquiries show that there are two sides to it. For many, they get over it after medical attention and live normal lives. Others, who develop ‘complications’, groan under its jackboot. It is believed that one of every twelve women, and one of every 100 men, will have breast cancer.
Starting from the first day of next month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and many Non-Governmental Organisations across the world will start creating awareness about breast cancer. October is set aside worldwide as the awareness month for breast cancer. Here, one of those involved in creating the awareness is the wife of Ondo State Governor, Mrs. Betty Akeredolu-Anyanwu.
She is a cancer survivor. She defeated cancer and is teaching other women how they can too through the Breast Cancer Association of Nigeria (BRECAN).
It all started for her one day while taking a shower and she felt what she described as a lump on her left breast.
“All sorts of thoughts came to mind, mostly negative. Immediately, my mind raced to breast cancer. Of all my years of knowing and hearing cancer, I never thought I would become a sufferer. I was terrified,” she said.
She withdrew from all her social activities, lost some weight and did not summon courage to go for a clinical confirmation until she came upon a television show discussing, “How to Change Your Life”.
“I remember they featured the mother to the Baldwin brothers, and showed pictures of her while she was going through cancer. After watching her amazing transformation from a sick woman to the beautiful one on television, I made a promise to myself to be a survivor.”
Diagnosis showed her cancer was at its early stages. She was referred to a surgeon who removed the lump. She felt it was better to have one breast than none at all. That was several years ago and she is alive and kicking.
Also alive and kicking is Oluwakemi Oyegbile, who has shown that breast cancer does not mean death. She said a few years ago when her doctor diagnosed her and told her she had breast cancer, she felt bad. “It was really traumatic. I asked Why me? Is this the end? I felt terrible and worried thinking it was the end of my life. I cried the whole day and wondered what I’ve done wrong to deserve this? I asked God why he allowed this to happen to me. I was distressed and felt very bad.”
In an interview with the UN Radio in New York some years back, she explained that the toughest part of the experience was the mastectomy. She said: “Going through the treatment was another ordeal; the chemotherapy, radiotherapy and all were stressful. I had to spend a lot to undergo the treatment. However, I was happy that my own was in situ, meaning it could be treated. It served as a source of hope that it could be treated.”
Rahama Sani, a social worker at the Bayero University, Kano Teaching Hospital, in 2005, had a successful mastectomy, but four years after, the cancer resurfaced and spread to her vertebrae. She had another round of treatment and so far, she is not showing signs of going down that terrific road again.
While there are survivors, the dreaded disease has also claimed many precious lives.
A survivor, who suffered a relapse, said: “At the moment, I am going through agony words cannot explain. My condition is deteriorating day in, day out. I cannot predict what will happen next. I am dying by instalments.”
She has had to start treatment all over again. The cost can be killing.
The Federal Government needs to establish a comprehensive cancer centre in each of the six geo political zones in the country. With these centres, treatment will be much cheaper and everything needed to treat cancer will be available and subsidised.
It is indeed a shame that Nigerians have to travel abroad to obtain medical treatment. Several patients undergoing treatments have to queue for hours at teaching hospitals, others sleep there, while some arrive early to have radiotherapy treatment. The radiotherapy machines in our government hospitals have gone comatose because of persistent power surge and poor maintenance culture.
It is killing for a patient to travel long distance on our death trap roads to Lagos, Abuja, Benin or Zaria for radiotherapy treatment.
When cancer is detected and treated early, you have a chance of surviving it. But if you leave it for too long, there is really very little or nothing the doctors can do other than offer palliative care. If the breast poses a threat to one’s life, why not remove it so it will not spread to the other breast or the other organs of the body. Losing a breast is traumatic but it is better than losing one’s life. There are prostheses available to regain your self-confidence.
To the men, please encourage the women in your life to go for screening, because when the Big C “hits”, it humbles one and affects everybody. Much as cancer is an individual disease, it is also a family disease in the sense that everybody will be involved in saving the loved one. Everyone’s routine will change.
It is important to go for mammogram as a woman if you are over 40, and back it up with breast ultrasound scan which is not age restricted; also imbibe and inculcate the monthly breast self-examination steps.
My final take: As the breast cancer awareness month nears, women should not wait until they have symptoms before going for yearly routine checks for breast cancer, cervical cancer, including pap smear and ultrasound scan. Post-menopausal women in particular should go for routine self-breast examination, a mammogram test and a pelvic ultrasound scan to check the ovaries.
They should never forget that when breast cancer is discovered early, it can be defeated the way Mrs. Anyanwu-Akeredolu did several years ago and now she is hale and hearty and serving Ondo people to the best of her ability.
• Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author of ‘In The Name of Our Father’and Vaults of Secrets’.