Photo/FILE Cancer patients wait for treatment at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi in 2010. ?
One morning in 2009, Perus Nuna woke up with a small lump and strange sensation in her left breast. She passed it off as a niggling pain that would go away. But as the days turned into weeks so did the lump increase in size.
Finally worried, she decided to go for a medical check-up at Thika District Hospital.
An operation to remove the lump cost her Sh32,000. After the surgery, a biopsy was done on the mass that had been removed from her breast.
The result confirmed her worst fears ? she had a malignant tumour, which basically means she had cancer of the breast that was very likely to spread to other tissues of the body.
She was referred to an oncologist ? a cancer specialist ? who said she needed to start chemotherapy immediately.
But one thing the 37-year-old Nuna did know when she started treatment mid-2010 was that she was getting into a programme that would leave her penniless.
The cost of treatment started shooting up when she went for her first operation to remove the lump. Now a series of cancer treatment was required.
The cheapest treatment centre was Kenyatta National Hospital, where she registered in the private wing. Here, she went through the initial bone and chest scans, and ultra-sound, which normally precede the chemotherapy treatment. She spent Sh9,000 on these tests.
The next stage was first line chemotherapy, which cost her Sh78,000. On completing this treatment, the doctors said she had to undertake a second operation to completely remove the tumour in her breast.
The procedure cost her Sh40,000. In January, 2011, doctor reviewed her condition and advised her to go for second line chemotherapy.
While waiting to start this treatment, she was attacked by secondary bone cancer, which completely immobilised her.
?Doctors said I had multiple skeletal fractures. I could not walk or sit, my spine felt as if it was on fire,? recalls Nuna, a mother of two.
To manage the pain and restore bone strength, she was immediately put on a two-week radiotherapy programme that cost Sh18,200: Sh300 daily for radiotherapy and Sh1,000 for transport from Gathugu in Githunguri.
The treatment worked wonders and within two months she had regained her bone strength. After another review, she was now ready for her second line chemotherapy treatment.
Like with the first line treatment, she was expected to go through another series of tests including one known as human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).
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