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The Uwezo Cancer Survivor Support Group consists of Cancer Survivors from Texas Cancer Center who support each other and create awareness by mobilizing the community to go for cancer screening among many other activities

I came to Texas Cancer Centre in 2016 after three years of treatment for cervical cancer, stage four. I was diagnosed in 2014 after months of illnesses which doctors could not really detect. This is because when I first when set foot in hospital, I went in for gynaecological reasons. Unlike previous years when my menstrual cycles were consistent, I began noticing irregular patterns. At times I would bleed for longer or even miss it altogether. This worried me a lot. At the gynae, I was told that the irregularity in my cycle was as a result of menopause, given that I am 61 year, and therefore ought to have been nothing of worry to me. Although I took the medication given through the rest of 2013 I was still worried and I was not responding to the medication given. To top this, I was in excruciating pain unlike my younger years. This scared me and sought a second opinion, since I felt my gynae was not giving me all the answers I sought. In June 2014, I consulted with a friend who took me to a different doctor for the second opinion. In January 2015, a number of tests were done to determine the exact problem. After all the tests, the results were brought to me in the ward and before even seeing the consultant, I read the report on my own. All I can remember reading toward the end of the report was “CA growth” and even though I was a layman, I deduced that it was cancer, which was then confirmed by the consultant doctor who was to see me later that evening. It was in that hospital bed that I met the consultant, Texas Cancer Centre’s Dr Catherine Nyongesa, a pleasant doctor whose re-assurance gave me hope for better years ahead. The doctor not only gave me a shoulder to lean on but immediately put me on treatment. Of course I know about the long queues at Kenyatta and it was a cause of worry for me, until I learnt about Texas Cancer Centre. With the help of NHIF cards, I was able to start my treatment at TCC.

I came from neighbouring Uganda,two years ago. I started having persistent daily headaches whose root cause took me about one-and-a-half-years to discover. So bad were the headaches that a friend advised me to go get a CT scan which showed I had a tumor in the head and was told to go to Kampala from Jinja. In Kampala, doctors decided to do a biopsy which showed that the tumor was cancerous which had not spread. I got a referral to the Kampala Cancer Institute, where I kicked off my first of four sessions of chemotherapy. When I completed my chemo, the doctors recommended radiotherapy which unfortunately I could not get as the machines had broken down, hence being referred to Nairobi. At first, we had opted for a different hospital until friends recommended Texas Cancer Centre to us. From the time I came here, I have seen a lot of improvement and change in my body.