By RAWLINGS OTIENO
For many young girls, the onset of growing breasts although natural is met with a mixture of embarrassment, confusion and finally acceptance.
And like any girl her age, Lilian Achieng, an orphan who resides in Siaya County, was amazed by the tiny bumps starting to develop on her chest three years ago.
But, several months later the now 14 year old girl, was a wreck after she noticed that her left breast was growing abnormally fast.
"I first started itching and within a short time, my left breast started swelling," says Achieng who is a pupil at Nyarwara Primary School in Siaya County.
According tests conducted at to Nairobi Women’s Hospital, the class seven pupil suffers from a rare disease called breast fibreadenoma — a condition that causes growth of tumour on the breast.
Benign tumour is a group of cells that support other kinds of cells in the breast and are made of fibrous and glandular tissues.
When Achieng noticed her breast was increasingly becoming bigger, she informed her grandmother who on examining her declared that her daughter had been bewitched.
Achieng was taken to several herbalists who gave her an assortment of concoctions but this neither deterred the growth, nor the pain she was feeling.
Lilian Achieng ponders over her dilemma [Photo/ Collins Kweyu/ Standard] |
"At school, the pupils started to mock me, while back at home the villagers claimed someone had cast a spell on me that is why my breasts were growing disproportionately," says the tormented teenager.
Recently, her sick breast begun discharging a whitish substance causing her excruciating pain, that at night she lies awake as others sleep.
Her cousin, Peterson Juma who resides in Kibera, Nairobi used to send her some money for her treatment but it is a drop in the ocean, for the amount required for a proper medical exam let alone an X-ray.
Achieng received a major blow in July last year, when her only surviving grandmother passed on after an illness.
Following the death of her grandmother her cousin Juma brought her to Nairobi in order to get proper treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital.
But, for over three months effort to get treatment at KNH has borne no fruits.
"They kept booking appointments with us but not even diagnosis was ever done on her," says Juma.
Juma then decided to take her to Nairobi Women’s Hospital, Hurlingham, where she was diagnosed with Juvenile fibroadenoma — a rare variant form of fibroadenoma usually seen in adolescents and young women.
She was given medication to relieve the pain and stop the rapid growth of the benign tumour. If left untreated, the tumour may distort the breast.
Dr Gladwell Kiarie, an Oncologist at KNH) says that breast fibreadenoma is the most common form of benign breast tumour,
She said it is usually observed in the first three decades of life and usually appears in teens and young women.
Kiarie allays fear that breast friboadenoma does not cause any pain.
But Achieng, is living in utter agony as the pain has lately intensified and the weight of the breast is overwhelming.
Last week, the girl was rushed to a health facility near Kibera screaming in pain.
Dr Kiarie says the tumour can be removed using a simple operation known as lumpectomy — a surgery designed to remove a discrete lump or a benign tumour.
The life of Achieng whose parents died in the Mid 1990s has turned to a living hell, as her cousin meagre wages is hardly enough to feed his family and also meet her growing cost of treatment.
For Achieng to have the lifesaving operation she will require to raise about Sh200,000.
"I took a loan of Sh24,000 from a friend, to pay for Achieng’s diagnosis and as we speak, I have not even repaid it. I cannot even sustain my family," Juma says.
Achieng is now appealing for help from well wishers to assist her raise about Sh200,000 for an operation to remove the tumour and save her life.