Man's battle with scrotum that swell up to 30 kilogrammes

Lymphatic Filariasis left Akui carrying a 30kg scrotal swelling for a decade before life-changing surgery restored his health. [iStockphoto]

For ten years, Samuel Wakhwa Akui endured a condition that left him depressed and made his manhood a subject of public discourse.

Akui had lived with a nagging growth on his scrotum that caused the private part to swell, reaching 30 kilogrammes of weight.

The father of three has literally been carrying a scrotum the size of a he-goat or two large-sized building blocks that extended from his genitalia down to below his knees.

In early 2017, he woke up to an itchy scrotum one morning at his Kuvasali village home in Malava, Kakamega County and assumed that the discomfort he suspected to be from a mosquito bite in the night would go away.

Since then, his scrotum has been swelling every day and by 2019, it had swollen to the point of encompassing his entire genitalia.

Apart from difficulty in walking and digging his farm, Akui could only eat his wife’s food at the dinner table but had nothing to offer in the bedroom.

He underwent a surgical procedure to remove the abnormal growth at an Eldoret-based hospital last Thursday after his condition sparked debate on social media.

This was after numerous unsuccessful treatments in different clinics in Kakamega, visits to three different witch doctors and a prayer session conducted by a Nairobi-based prophet.

On Saturday evening, as he recovered from surgery at Rapha Hospital in Eldoret, an elated Akui was full of celebration after a team of three doctors successfully removed the growth and restored his penis and testes, which had disappeared into the growth, making it difficult for him to pass urine and satisfy his wife.

“I woke up one morning in March 2017and my scrotum was itchy. It appeared like I had been bitten by an insect. I suspected a mosquito bite then, but it quickly turned into a growth that couldn’t stop growing,” said Akui after the surgical procedure.

Akui says the itchy scrotum often felt hot as it continued growing, occasioning discomfort.

But treatment of the tumour subjected his family to stress, especially after locals claimed that Akui had been bewitched.

He says he first sought treatment at a facility in Kakamega in 2017 but medics prescribed medication and warned against surgery. However, Akui says, the growth on his scrotum continued.

When he discovered that the growth continued despite medication, Akui turned to witch doctors who milked him dry while selling only false hopes.

“Friends and locals advised me to seek the services of a witch doctor from Tanzania in Kambi ya Mwanza. I visited the traditional medicine man in 2018 but my condition did not improve. He told me that I had been bewitched,” Akui recalls.

He adds: “I was referred to another witch doctor, who I hoped would help me end my problem through magic but was unsuccessful once again.

“In 2021, I was again referred to another witch doctor who is based in Uganda. I crossed the border and stayed there for over a month, taking concoctions administered by the traditional doctor, but I still carried a heavy load down there.”

He sold a quarter of an acre of land to secure money for the Ugandan witch doctor. Before then, he says, he travelled to Nairobi to receive prayers from a religious man but he still didn’t get the healing he needed – the growth to go away.

But one thing hurt Akui more than even the treatment and the loss of property; he could not satisfy the matrimonial needs of his wife, Selpha Wakhwa.

“Missing my private parts was the most disturbing thing in my life. At some point, I was depressed and I almost took my own life,” says Akui.

He goes on to say: “I thank my wife because she persevered for many years after the growth swallowed my manhood. She chose to stand with me despite ridicule by locals.”

Akui’s elder brother, Amos Akui, remembers one of the witch doctors from Kambiri in Kakamega demanding Sh40, 000 and a cow to reverse the condition before vanishing after payment.

Amos says that weeks ago, his brother’s situation went viral on social media and attracted the attention of a philanthropist who organised an online fundraising campaign that raised enough money to take Akui to Eldoret for treatment.

“Doctors in clinics in Kakamega said they had not experienced a case like Agui’s in their practice. It was only weeks ago that we were informed that the condition can be treated through surgery,” Amos said.

Akui’s medical reports at Rapha indicate that he suffered from Lymphatic Filariasis, caused by a mosquito bite that releases filarial worms into the bloodstream, resulting in growth.

Rapha Hospital Chief Executive Officer Sharon Sang said a team of medical personnel, including general surgeons, urologists, a plastic surgeon, anaesthesiologists and theatre nurses, successfully removed the growth in a delicate operation.

“We are hoping to discharge him early next week. We are happy that the surgery was successful,” Sang said on Sunday.

Anaesthetist Etyang Kapule, who participated in the surgical procedure, described the nine-hour operation as complex and requiring a multi-disciplinary team.

“The surgery was to be done on Tuesday last week but it was rescheduled to Thursday because the team had to be assembled. The growth has so much blood but the team was prepared. The operation involved his sex organs and plastic surgery was necessary,” Kapule said.

He said the flesh removed from the tumour weighed about 30 kilogrammes.

When the condition began

March 2017, after a mosquito bite

First time Akui sought medication

2018

First visit to a witch doctor

2018

Visit to a Ugandan witch doctor

2021