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n December of 2010, I visited Nigeria and on Christmas day attended morning service at my church in my hometown. Service had already started when we arrived at the church grounds. As I hurriedly made my way towards the building entrance, my eyes momentarily settled on a man that was standing on the far end of the steps that led up to the foyer under the bell tower. My eyes were about to wander away from him when it dawned on me that something about him seemed familiar. It took casting a steady gaze on him for a few more seconds for me to realize that he was an elementary school classmate of mine that I saw last more than 30 years earlier. For the sake of privacy, I will call him Chuma. I walked up to him and as soon as he recognized me, he smiled and stuck out his hand in greeting. I shook his hand. “Unu anatalu?”, - “did you guys return?” he asked smiling. Yes I said sizing him up. I was surprised that he grew taller and bigger than I would have imagined when we were all playing soccer and climbing all imaginable trees in my neighborhood many years earlier. After exchange of pleasantries, I left him and went into the church.The thought of meeting him after so many years did not leave my mind but there was something unusual about the meeting. His smile seemed forced and even somewhat pained. I had expected a more boisterous greeting on both sides and was poised to set the pace but when I sensed that he seemed reserved, I pulled back and settled with the hand shake he seemed to prefer. I eventually concluded that his reserved disposition was the result of the fact that after many years of not seeing each other, we had in so many ways become strangers to one another. Our interests had diverged so much that we did not have much to discuss except to ask about our families.
A few weeks later, I was back in the States after the Christmas vacation. The reader can imagine my shock when I later heard, I am not exactly sure how long later, that he had passed away! “What happened?,” I had asked in bewilderment when I was told of his passing. “I just saw this guy the Christmas of 2010”, I had said to the guy breaking the bad news to me. “He started having constant pain around his waist”, the man had told me, “and when he visited the doctor, he was told that the waist pain was attributable to the fact that as transporter, he was always sitting in the car and embarking on long distance drives”. Of course he had other symptoms but the waist pain was said to be more pronounced and lingered. Later he fell sicker and sicker and that was when they discovered that he had prostate cancer before he eventually passed away. I could not believe what I was hearing. Apparently, he was already experiencing the many symptoms of the disease when I saw him at church and it could have been the reason for his seeming “pained” smile and reserved disposition. I was very sad that a young man had been taken away at the prime of his existence.
It was with this in mind that I read the interview where Professor Wole Soyinka revealed that he had become a prostate cancer survivor. He followed his revelation with an admonition to the federal government to establish cancer-screening clinics in Nigeria. In line with Soyinka’s classy way of doing things, instead of hiding his diagnosis as many Nigerians would do, he spoke up about it and used his clout to ask the government to do something about it. I was hoping that many more prominent Nigerians will join his call but of course since it does not involve sharing of money, they will not speak up in support of Soyinka’s prescription.
Chuma’s case is not the first time I have had to contend with the news of someone I know suffering from the ailment or even dying. Infact, the number of people I know that are living with the disease is so staggering that one is tempted to believe that it has become one of the most common but deadly diseases in Nigeria for men. When I visited Nigeria in 2007, a friend told me the story of his contemporary that had undergone prostate cancer surgery in the country. The surgery had gone wrong and all manners of complications had developed. I was almost moved to tears as the story was narrated of what a once boisterous and ebullient man was going through including loss of appetite for existence. I began to wonder if the doctor that performed the operation was even trained to do so or whether he even fully understood how the disease worked before embarking on the operation. Up to this date, I have not mastered the gumption to ask how things eventually turned out for the man. I am always hoping and praying silently that the day I ever toughen up to ask, I will be told that he beat the disease. Now, just a few weeks ago, I got the sad news that a relative had passed away as a result of the disease. I am still trying to process the news of my relative’s passing.
In all, prostate cancer is real. It is said to be the number four killer of men worldwide. It can be deadly if not detected early but the good news is that early detection has proven to be the key to survival. If detected early, it can be cured fully through a combination of surgery and therapy and the patient will live a full and productive life. Just here in the United States, high profile personalities like John Kerry and Colin Powel are good examples of survivors that are living normal lives because their cases were detected early and treated.
I will never forget what happened in my doctor’s office when I turned 50 and visited my doctor for routine yearly physical. After conducting the rest of the physicals, my doctor said, “now that you have turned 50, there are two screening tests that you will now be subjected to every year you show up for your physical. The goal of the test is to ensure that your prostate is working well” “It is recommended for every male 50 years and over”, he continued, “but could start earlier for those with genetic disposition for prostate cancer”. I knew what the test was from stories of older contemporaries and had long dreaded being subjected to it but at this moment, I had to do what my doctor said; I had no choice. “It is a two part test”, he continued, “one of the tests will be done here in the office and the other will be done using your blood in the lab”. “Ok”, I answered, already feeling embarrassed but trying to hide my emotions. “I will caution you”, he said further while scribbling some notes on a pad in front of him, “that the one that will be done here can be uncomfortable”. With that, he asked that I turn around! The bottom line is that I did not like having someone probe my rear yet it was a life-saving necessary evil. The screening is a procedure that would tell the doctor whether the prostate has started enlarging beyond normal levels or if lumps of any sort had developed that would warrant attention. Any reader that wants more information on how the office screening is done could google it.
This test was followed up in the lab with a blood test called PSA or prostate specific antigen. The presence of the antigen in the blood in certain amounts provide indication of whether the prostate had become diseased especially with cancer. Most survivors of prostate cancer are men that their doctors became alerted of the disease through a combination of this test and the rear “body cavity” probing. Of course some had already developed symptoms like constant and burning urination and the sorts but the bottom line is that early detection made the difference between survival and death.
My classmate Chuma may not have died had his disease been detected early. He only went to a doctor when the symptoms had started manifesting. Yet, most probably, the disease developed and progressed years before he became symptomatic with waist pain, constant urination and the rest. It is possible that yearly physicals capped with PSA blood tests would have detected the disease early and his life saved but that is water under the bridge now for Chuma. A young man with children that depended on him not just for subsistence but for guidance, has passed away, leaving broken hopes and shattered dreams. He also left a young widow to fend for the children. The living must now learn from that experience and begin to take control of their health through proactive yearly physicals that must include these tests.
Nigeria must heed Wole Soyinka’s admonition and begin to establish, as a priority, more cancer screening clinics and testing labs all over. Also, there has to be a regulatory body that oversees what these testing labs do as it is my considered opinion that some are not fit to be in business. I have seen situations where lab test results seem to vary depending on where they were done. Sometimes, false positives or false negatives result, confusing doctors into making the wrong diagnoses. Furthermore, there has to be a way to bring down the costs of these tests to a level that the common Nigerian can afford. Everything costs in the thousands in the country and such situations may be contributing to the aversion of some people to going to the labs or seeing doctors regularly.
When I saw Wole Soyinka’s interview, I decided to write about this with the hope that the average Nigerian reading this will become more sensitized to take action now. As the Igbo would say, “tata bu gboo” “today is early”.
May God Help Us
HERE I STAND!
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
  | Alfred Obiora Uzokwe, P.E |
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