Keeping healthy and leading a productive life

By Anyang’ Nyong’o

It is now almost one month since the Africa Cancer Foundation organised a cancer screening weekend at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre here in Nairobi. The Kenyatta National Hospital, the Nairobi Women’s Hospital, Karen Hospital, Medanta Health Services and Family Health Options Kenya participated in the screening exercise. The focus was on cervical, breast and prostate cancers: three of the most common cancers in Kenya and the world.

After two days of screening, over 1,500 people were attended to. Many were turned away on the last day because they arrived too late to be given proper and adequate attention. Some were given appointments to go to the hospitals later for follow up. People travelled from as far as Kitale, Homa Bay, Mombasa and Kirinyaga to be screened. Some arrived with huge swellings on their faces, legs and chests, anxious to know whether these were cancerous tumours or not. Painful stories were shared among those who came as they waited in line to be attended to as they got acquainted with one another. The doctors who examined the patients found out that a major barrier to seeking screening or treatment for cancer is that people believe that it is expensive to do so even in Government hospitals. Since the screening was free, it created a tremendous opportunity for the people to know their health status.

It is therefore evident that a major barrier to accessing health care among our people, particularly the poor, is the cost of health care. We need to remove this barrier by implementing Universal Health Coverage, a proposal that has dodged us since the Narc Government came into power. Given the provisions of Article 43 of our Constitution, the 10th Parliament must not end its life without enacting Universal Health Coverage.

At the screening, the ACF distributed leaflets giving information on various types of cancer such as prostate, breast, cervical, throat, colon, stomach and lung cancers. Two weeks later, with support from the Safaricom Foundation, the ACF released four publications at a colourful ceremony at the Michael Joseph Centre in Safaricom headquarters. These books are on Radiation Therapy, Chemotherapy, Eating Hints and how to Take Time to care for yourself when you have been diagnosed with cancer, or you are under treatment or you are on the way to recovery after treatment. There is now sufficient evidence that eating habits, lifestyle changes, environmental factors and genetic inheritance all may predispose people to cancer at different stages in life. Some diseases, like HIV and Aids also compromise the body to be easily attacked by such cancers like Kaposi Sarcoma.

The book Eating Hints before, during and after cancer treatment is an invaluable handbook that every Kenyan must read. It is not the amount of food you eat that matters but the quality of the food that you eat. There are foods, particularly processed foods that may taste very well in the mouth but have very little food value. Hence proper nutrition means eating foods that are well endowed with vitamins, adequate roughage to help in digestion, minerals, proteins and carbohydrates. Various foods will have various quantities of vitamins, minerals and so on. But fruits, vegetables, tubers and grains are perhaps the best in a nutritious diet. The more coloured they are the better. Hence it is important to have a balanced diet, eat at the right time, in reasonable quantities and drink enough water in between meals. Since one cannot always eat the right amount of food everyday, organic food supplements are recommended. They come in small tablets and capsules and are usually sold in super markets or specialised food stores.

But one should be careful about the synthetic ones; they are not as good as the organic ones.  The book titled Taking Time advises the cancer patient on how to live with cancer from diagnosis and after. Soon after diagnosis, there may be feelings of anger, denial, fear, worry, stress, pain, loss of self esteem, sadness, depression, guilt, loneliness, hope and even gratitude when one learns that there is cure and life at the end of the tunnel. How does one deal with these feelings? What is the role of family, friends, relatives and support groups?

The book tells us that it is important to share and discuss the condition with the family and people who matter to you. This is part of the healing process. It is also helpful not to give in to depression and a sense of hopelessness, but to live each day fully, the way the late Mary Onyango did. In the final analysis prayer, meditation and a strong faith in God will provide one with a solid rock on which to stand. The two last books, Chemotherapy and You and Radiation Therapy and You are very important for those who assume that all cancers are treated in the same way. Chemotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses drugs, orally or intravenously, to destroy cancer cells. It works by stopping or slowing down the growth of such cells but it can also harm healthy cells and must therefore be administered judiciously and only by cancer specialists who know what they are doing. While radiation therapy also destroys cancer cells, it does so in most cases without making any intrusion into the body; it uses high doses of radiation to kill cancer cells and stop them from spreading.

There are two types of radiation therapy: external beam radiation (when a machine outside the body aims radiation rays at cancer cells) and internal radiation (when small radiation seeds are inserted in the body to kill the cancer cells). Radiation Oncologists will always decide what type of radiation to use for what type of cancer and when, for how long and with what sort of intensity. Under normal circumstances a patient undertaking cancer treatment should eat well, sleep well, exercise well and avoid stressful situations. These books are easy to read and are written for a lay readership not necessarily for professionals. They are addressed to you. I was very ignorant about cancer and cancer symptoms before I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. If I had read more before then, I might have sought treatment much earlier. So it is important to seek awareness about your state of wellness so as to take early steps to keep healthy and lead a productive and happy life.