Clara Awino has not known the carefree happiness of childhood. Her 11 years have been full of pain and stress.
A tumour is growing on the back of her head.
The poor parents of the Stanard 3 pupil at Segere Primary School in Siaya can't raise the Sh900,000 required for surgery to remove the tumour.
Her distraught mother Evelyn Akinyi has been to several hospitals with no success.
In 2019, she took her firstborn daughter to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret.
The doctors discovered the girl had a physical malformation on the lower left side of her head.
"I started noticing the swelling when the girl was just three months old. Being the first child, I thought it was due to a wrong sleeping position," she said.
But the growth continued to enlarge. Akinyi visited nearby hospitals in vain.
"Sometimes in October 2019, I took her to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu but I was referred to Eldoret where a CT scan was done and the problem identified," she said.
For two years, the mother of two girls, who ekes a living selling vegetables at Segere market, has made countless trips to the Eldoret-based referral hospital.
"Each time I visit, they ask me to book for a clinical check-up before my daughter can be lined up for surgery," she told the Star at her home in Siaya county on Wednesday.
Her husband is a peasant farmer and with a meager income, even raising fare to travel to the hospital is a challenge.
The family, out of desperation, has visited the homes of local elected leaders for help but nothing tangible has come out of such efforts.
"I went to Governor Cornel Rasanga who gave me Sh3,000 which I used as bus fare the last time I went to Eldoret," she said.
The area MCA Leonard Oriaro said he was willing to help but can only raise Sh20,000.
"I am trying to see how we can raise the required money to enable the family to have the child operated on. Right now what I can manage is like a drop in the ocean," Oriaro said.
With no hope left, the family appears to have left their daughter in the hands of fate.
They are not trying anymore because all avenues appear closed. Little Clara says she is mocked by her classmates and other children in the neighborhood because of her condition.
"I fear going out to play with the other children because they insult me whenever I interact with them," she said.
Clara is suffering from carcinoma, a type of cancer that starts in the cells that make up the skin or the tissue lining organs.
Like other types of cancer, carcinomas are abnormal cells that divide without control. They are able to spread to other parts of the body.
Doctors say this type of skin cancer has a high cure rate. However, if left untreated, basal cell carcinomas can become quite large, cause disfigurement and, in rare cases, spread to other parts of the body and cause death.
Siaya county chief officer of health Dr Eunice Fwaya says basal cell carcinoma is most often treated with surgery to remove all cancer and some of the healthy tissues around it.
Edited by Henry Makori
