Occasional cancer screening is usually recommended especially for cancer risk persons. This is because detecting symptomatic cells as early as possible, is crucial in providing the best chance for successful treatment for cancer patients. It’s important to treat this statement like your life depends on it.
I speak strongly because the cost of taking for granted this information is very expensive. Currently my mum is undergoing treatment for stage four cancer, and how I wish we would have done something about it when she first talked of a plump on her breast 6yrs ago.
At the time, she talked about it casually, then she would go about her normal self. We refused to imagine the worst, because she is one strong woman who took good care of us, her children, and was a very productive and respected member of society. Besides, my mom never fell ill easily. So when we heard about it so casually we painted our white elephant in the room a camouflage that suit its environs. She began using herbal medicine to massage her breast, and over the years she became a huge champion for them, preaching how they were effective. We therefore thought maybe we were just imagining our own stuff, it wasn’t cancer.
Life went on, we buried relatives with cancer, but she stayed with us giving credit to God and her herbal drugs. Surely if it was cancer, she would not survive this long. Five years down the line, we started to notice that mum is losing weight, she also began to complain that she is not feeling well. I remember when I got a call from my sister, she said, “I have seen it, it can almost fit in my palm. We need to convince mum to go to hospital”
That is the first time, it ever hit me that swelling in my mom’s breast could be cancerous. Having lost a few relatives to the disease, the experience sent chills down my spine. Despite mum being sickly, she had refused to seek medical treatment. She insisted that her herbal medicine, have been treating her all these years. She kept saying, “once you disturb the lump on my breast that is when you will kill me. I have seen it with many cancer patients, immediately they start treatment they never go beyond a year.”
It’s a quote I have heard from many others who have lost family members. But despite our fears, we decided to face the demon. We will beat this! Mum has to go to hospital! We vowed. So that holiday, majority of us assembled home, with a mission to convince mum to go to hospital.
It was a huge struggle, and took place deliberately over the two-week period, that we were home. Words were exchanged, feelings were hurt but at the end she agreed to go, but she would do it at her own pace and terms. We are now at the 6th chemotherapy session. The doctors advises that the lump has to reduce in size for the surgery to be performed. Its not easy, there are good days and not so good, but we pray and hope for the best. You don’t have to go through this, listen to your body, go for cancer screening, because it could save your life.