Delayed diagnosis made my breast cancer grow

Her hair was scanty and greyish so she requested that she wears a wig for pictures. She was seated at the veranda in Mulago hospital making handcrafts. She did not seem to have any physical pain but I was wrong. She had the pain of being rejected by the father of her children, who saw her as a burden. The fact that her children are not going to school intensifies that pain.
“I have sold everything that I had for my treatment. Since the start, I have used up to Shs7m yet I still need more; for transport, feeding, treatment and taking care of my children. I wish I could get healed soon so that I can care for my children,” Viola Eyotaru, a breast cancer patient, says.
Fortunately, her breast cancer was detected at stage one, which increases her chances of being healed.

How it started
Eyotaru is a 37-year-old mother of two and a teacher at Arua Hill Primary School in Arua Municipality. She did not know that she had cancer because there was no pain or swelling but there was a lump in her left breast. She thought it was normal because she used to have lumps in both breasts earlier although one of them had disappeared.
“Naturally, I thought the other would also disappear,” she says adding, “But in 2013 when I was still breastfeeding the last born, I got a painful swelling in the same breast but in my home area, there is a belief that if a breastfeeding mother’s breast swells, it can be cured when a left-handed person touches it. My mother-in-law got one and by chance I got well again and continued breastfeeding my now seven-year-old son.” She did not get any scary incidents after that.
In June 2018, there was a health camp in Arua organised by Mulago hospital. Eyotaru went late to the camp and found doctors packing up. She pleaded with them that to screen her when all the people had left. Seeing as she was aggressive, they gave in and screened her.

Seeking medical help
The doctors told her the right breast appeared fine but they had detected small multiple lumps in the left breast and a big one in the nipple area.
“They recommended that I see a surgeon and also do a CT scan. I spent about two weeks trying to get a surgeon in vain. I decided to get a general doctor who said there was no cancer yet, but just a lump that would go away with ampiclox and amoxylin tabs taken for a week,” she recalls.

The lump did not go away but became harder and the other smaller ones seemed to be gathering near the big one. She thus went to see another doctor who also prescribed the same capsules that still did not help.
However, Eyotaru started getting piercing pain in sporadic episodes, which prompted her to visit another doctor who recommended a CT scan. This time she went to Arua Hospital and the doctor there told her it was fibroadenoma (the most common type of benign breast tumour. Most don’t increase one’s risk of breast cancer).
He told her to urgently see a surgeon to have the lump removed and in fact took her there himself.

Surgery goes bad
On October 23, 2018, the lump was removed and the biopsy sample was sent to Mulago. After a week, Eyotaru was called back to Arua Hospital and while in the queue, the doctor told her that she had cancer in front of everyone.

“I felt bad because I think he should have done it in private. I went to the surgeon and asked him what to do next. He recommended that the wound heals first then I go back to him so he can write for me a referral letter so that I can start my cancer treatment at Uganda Cancer Institute, Mulago,” she says.
As the wound healed, she felt like there was something wrong with the part where she had been operated on. She felt itchy and a throbbing pain. But the doctor in Arua Hospital kept telling her there was no problem.
“But after sometime, I felt a gauze-like material at the area where they had operated. I told the doctor again but he told me that maybe it was a part of my breast material that was rotting and almost falling off,” Eyotaru recounts.

The doctor told her the only option was for her to have the whole breast removed and maybe just go to Mulago to start on chemotherapy.
But Eyotaru told the doctor that she was ready to have any further treatment from Mulago because she was not convinced by the explanation he was giving.
But first, she sought the help of another doctor in a private hospital, who asked her for Shs175,000. He operated on her again and found that gauze and cotton wool that had been left inside her breast.

Starting cancer treatment
After the second surgery, it took Eyotaru a month and a week to heal after which she was given a referral letter to Mulago. On February 12, she arrived at the Uganda Cancer Institute and saw a doctor the next day and he started her on tests.
Since then she has been getting chemotherapy. “The first four cycles were very unfriendly but were working miracles. If you are a coward, you may not get this treatment. My nails, skin darkened. My hair fell off. I lost appetite, got nausea and vomited all the time I got a cycle,” she recalls painfully.

She added, “The first time I returned home after the treatment, I looked so strange and my husband called me rotten, useless and a burden to him. I am at the mercy of friends and the teachers of the school where I used to work. My children do not go to school anymore.”
Eyotaru bought all the four cycles of medicine for chemotherapy. A dose would go for Shs90,000 and only her friends contributed to her treatment. Sometimes she would come for a cycle and return home only to sleep on an empty stomach because her husband said he did not want to hear anything from her.
Eyotaru has now completed chemotherapy and is just waiting for the doctor’s assessment to tell her what her next treatment plan will be.