The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.
Nothing hurts the most than your own family abandoning your time of need, and Millicent Kagonga knows this too well.
Despite the saying that blood is thicker than water Kagonga had to learn the hard way that the wise saying did not have her family in mind.
It started with her husband in mid-2010. She was experiencing painless and colourless discharge. Her husband said he could not stay with a woman who cannot control her bladder.
Their marriage went south when the discharged changed to blood. And she was kicked out.
“I moved in with my brother who used to nurse me. Sanitary pads were not working so I used towels and at times I would sit in a basin,” said the 28-year-old.
She was in pain; unimaginable pain. But cancer was the last thing on her mind. She survived on painkillers like Panadol and Maramoja which reduced the pain for some time.
The helplessness of her two children, the eldest being 13 years, made her health deteriorate fast.
With no secondary education and being a mother when still a teenager due to poverty, all she hoped for was to see her children live beyond their dreams. But her sickness clouded the once beautiful dream.
The only option, she thought, was to leave the city and go back to the village in Vihiga County. She wanted to die in peace.
“No one wanted to touch me. No one wanted to approach me. I would groan and groan in pain with no one to help. They said it was not normal for a woman to be on her periods all through,” said Kagonga who is a casual labourer.
Some relatives, she said, resorted to preparing traditional herbs may be to cleanse the curse eating her body but it never worked.
It took an initiative of an aunt who knew a gynecologist in Mbale town. She visited him and tests were done. She had cervical cancer at stage three. That was in 2016.
With a confirmed diagnosis, Kagonga expected more support from her family but that was not the case.
“Imagine mpaka mtu anakuambia eti hiyo ugonjwa haiponangi na ni kisirani kwa boma (Imagine someone tells it on your face that cancer can never be treated and it is a curse if one is found with it)," she said.
She added: Niliambiwa heri ukimwi utameza dawa na uishi lakini cancer utakufa.(That it is better to have HIV/AIDS as one just takes regular medicine is full of health and not cancer that is a death sentence)."
Kagonga was however determined to get better and she gathered everything she had and came to Nairobi for treatment with her mother.
Her first stop was at Kenyatta National Hospital but she found doctors on strike that had stretched to early 2017.
She moved to a private clinic where she had to have blood transfusion due to the excess bleeding. Her next dilemma was the big hospital bill.
A fund raising initiated by one of her loyal clients on Facebook whom she does some cleaning jobs for bore Sh60, 000.
She however was forced to negotiate with the facility and she was left with Sh20, 000 which she started life in Kariobangi by renting a one room house.
“I told the doctor even if I am discharged I have nowhere to go. More so, since I was scheduled to start treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital, I needed somewhere to live as I recuperate,” she said.
Today, Kagonga is cancer free since October 2017 after a series of chemo-therapies and brachytherapy at KNH supported by Lady Hope Wellness Institute that pays National Health Insurance Fund(NHIF) for cancer patients.
“I do still feel some little discomfort but I am fine. I have never gotten in touch with my extended family in the village since i left. They have never seen how well I look and I have no plans of ever letting them know or visiting. I still feel hurt,” said Kagonga.
join