I have lived with cancer for 8 years

MASAKA. Living in uncertainty, agony accompanied with poverty, a 50-year-old woman has managed to live with breast cancer since 2008.
Ester Kabugho Mubunga who lives in her sister’s house in Ibanda Town board, Bugoye Sub-county in Kasese District, still has a smile on her face despite the pain she bares everyday.
While lying on her chair in the sitting room, Ms Kabugho is in a rather jovial mood as she narrates her ordeal, giving credit to God for keeping her alive all these years.
“I thank God for having protected me for this long. I have lost both of my breasts to this killer disease and it has now spread to my head since last year,” Ms Kabugho says.
However, she remains hopeful that she still has some years to live.

The discovery
Kabugho who had collapsed in the last three weeks says she developed cancer in 2008.
“I had some lumps in my breast which felt like small, painless balls or swellings. One time as I was checking my breast, I squeezed it and out came breast milk mixed with blood,” she recalls.
She told her sister who in turn advised her to see a medical doctor but she was reluctant to see a doctor because she had no money by then and she was not feeling any pain at all.
Ms Kabugho said two weeks later, the wife to the retired Bishop of South Rwenzori Diocese, Ms Stella Masereka, visited Ibanda Church of Uganda where she advised women to seek cancer screening.
“I was in that fellowship when Maama Stella told us of a strange disease that targeted women and girls’ breasts and she had tested positive for the same. After hearing that message I rushed to Kagando hospital where samples were taken from me and taken to Kampala for more investigations. One week after testing, I received a phone call that I had breast cancer and my breast was to be cut,” she says with a sad face.
Ms Kabugho says she accepted to lose her breast before the cancer spread to other parts of the body even though she was not feeling any pains.
“I was operated on from Kagando hospital and later referred to Mulago hospital for radiography where I was requested to pay shs300,000 and instructed to go there every after three months which I did,” she says.
But in the process she was reportedly told that she had to be started on a daily dose of drugs for five years.
Kabugho revealed that the tablets were expensive since thirty tablets cost Shs 140,000 every month and the drugs could only be got at Mulago hospital cancer institute.

Failing along the way
She started buying the medicine every month but as time went on, she failed to raise the money until she lost her second breast last year in an operation that was done at Mulago hospital.
After her second operation, for which she was admitted for 10 months in Mulago, she was required to camp at the hospital for treatment.
‘I wish I had the money. My second breast would not have been affected. I have developed a swelling on my head which was put in the radiography too for some months but since last year I have been feeling more pain than ever,” she says before lying down as she says she feels a lot of pain in her spinal cord and ribs and this gives her sleepless nights.
Due to lack of funds, Ms Kabugho has failed to return to the cancer institute for checkup and she hopes she can make it back for review later this month.

Mother of two
Ms Kabugho, a mother of two says she has been housed by her sister through her life since the fathers to her children abandoned her without land or a house to stay.
Ms Kabugho spends not less than shs500,000 every month in transport fares to Mulago hospital for treatment which is costly for her and she fears that this will cost her life.

Call for help
She appeals for financial help so that she can get treatment and a piece of land to set up a home for her children in case she dies.
At Kamaiba Health Centre IV, Mr Alfred Pimawa the cervical cancer focal person says the most commonly received cancer cases are cervical, breast and prostate cancer though the facility has majored in cervical cancer with the help of Marie Stopes.

The numbers
Shs140,000
The amount Kabugho spends on drugs every month. She has to travel to Mulago Cancer Institute to access those drugs.

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