• Entrepreneur ignored a small mass in his pelvic area until pain became unbearable
• He has undergone 16 chemotherapy sessions and his cancer is now in recession
Dressed in a black t-shirt inscribed with the words, “Positive Vibes Only” during our interview, Mwiti N Mwiti says he has no room for negative energy.
For two years, the Mombasa entrepreneur, 36, refused to entertain the thought that he could ever suffer from cancer.
The word ‘cancer’ scared the hell out of Mwiti, the business development manager at Oligro Group Limited.
“I had always told myself that if ever I get cancer, I would never spend a fortune trying to treat the illness, because after all, no one ever survives cancer,” he says.
Most of the people he knew who had been diagnosed with cancer, including former Safaricom boss Bob Collymore and former Kibra MP Ken Okoth, succumbed to the disease, despite being treated in the world's best hospitals.
“As painful as it can get, I would never sell my car, land or ask any person to sell their property to help me treat cancer, because at the end of the day, I would never survive,” he says.
Mwiti, whose company Oligro is buys and sells land in Mariakani for less than Sh500,000, says his cancer story began in 2017.
Before venturing into real estate, he was working in his first company, Newskin Media, which deals with branding, marketing, graphic designing and website development.
In 2016, his business was getting so many inquiries from all over the country, especially Nairobi, he decided they should also open a shop in the capital city.
However, before the dream could be realised, something terrible happened.
One Sunday in March 2017, Mwiti says, after church services, he and his wife Brenda Adhiambo went to Barka Restaurant for lunch.
After the sumptuous lunch of biryani, the couple decided to pass by their office, which was then located on Moi Avenue, Mombasa.
“Our office was located upstairs. I started frog jumping from the lower stairs to the upper one, and on the last jump, I felt a sharp pain on my pelvic area,” Mwiti says.
They went into the office and he sat quietly on his chair as the pain intensified. He stayed for a while but did not take it seriously.
However, between March and August of that year, he had a perennial pain, which kept on coming.
WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TREAT
On August 13, which was their wedding anniversary, Mwiti took his wife Brenda to Sarova Whitesands hotel for breakfast to celebrate their day.
While at the hotel having breakfast, an idea for a seafood dinner struck his mind.
He says Brenda always craved for seafood. Therefore, he left Whitesands and decided to go to Old Town’s Forodhani restaurant to place an order for two.
However, as he was driving towards town, he heard some noise coming from below his car.
“I parked by the roadside and came out of the car, but suddenly I slid and my legs spread as I tried to support myself,” he says.
At the same exact spot, the pelvic area, where he had hurt himself in March, he felt a very sharp pain. For about an hour, he sat down in excruciating pain.
He later on dragged himself back to the car, but he could not drive well. He was driving at a very low speed of about five kilometres per hour.
He informed his wife about the incident and they met at a local clinic in Mikindani area and had some X-rays done.
The X-rays found there was a mass at the lower pelvic. The doctor advised him to go for a further Computerised Tomography (CT) scan.
“After two days, I went for the CT scan. The results showed there was something in my pelvic area. The doctors suggested a biopsy should be done to reveal what was ailing me,” he says.
The then 33-year-old young man never bothered to follow up.
However, as time went by, he noticed that he had started limping and he could no longer jog or run.
The following year, 2018, his wife grew concerned and started pushing him to go for further medical examinations, but Mwiti was still hesitant.
“By July 2018, I noticed things were not improving. I grew fatigued every now and then, and it began to worry me,” he says.
In August, his condition was moving from bad to worse. In October, he joined his long-time friend and confidant Anthony Mureithi to go to Vipingo, Kilifi county, in search of properties to buy and sell.
While they were coming back to Mombasa, the pain on Mwiti’s back and lower spine became unbearable.
“We met another friend in Mtwapa for lunch, but while we were eating, I was choked. I let out a cough, and I felt my entire spine collapse and the pain was so intense,” he says.
He went back to Mikindani Medical Centre, where he had done the first X-ray tests.
“I underwent some tests but nothing was found apart from blood infection. However, one week later, I felt the same excruciating pain in the lower back,” he says.
During the first CT scan, the results showed he had a small mass in the lower pelvic area.
However, in October of 2018, after doing two further CT scans on the pelvic and vertebral column, they showed that he had a 12cm tumour on the left pelvic and his vertebrae had cracked.
He was asked to go and see an orthopaedic. However, he did not bother to go immediately.
LIFE CHANGES COMPLETELY
One early morning, a week to November, while going to the washroom, Mwiti felt a sharp pain on his back and he fell on the floor.
“My body collapsed on me. This marked the beginning of me walking on crutches. For the next one year, I never slept on the bed because I could not lay straight on my back,” he vividly narrates.
The life of the ambitious young entrepreneur was taking a drastic turn. One day, he could walk, the next, he could not. The other time he could frog-jump, now he could not lie on his back.
“Every time I coughed or got a sneeze, I felt a sharp pain down my spine," he says.
After that awful experience, Mwiti decided to go for a biopsy test.
In early 2019, in every other hospital they went to in the country to try and get a diagnosis, the doctors were pointing towards cancer.
Mwiti was in denial. He could not have cancer. However, one doctor said he might be suffering from the tuberculosis of the spine.
“I held my hope, this could be true,” he says.
One day, he went to see an orthopaedic in one of Mombasa’s clinics. The doctor suggested they should operate on him to take a sample of the tumour for further tests.
It was a Thursday and they booked the surgery for Tuesday. That was around April 2019.
However, four people questioned that doctor’s experience because most of his patients were not surviving or ended up confined in wheelchairs for life.
Mwiti never went back to that doctor’s clinic.
In May, his long-time friend Mureithi told him they had decided to raise funds for his treatment.
He went to Nairobi for further tests to establish what could be ailing him. After two tests in Nairobi, he told his friends they should try to find help outside the country.
He tried to search for information online about different cancer hospitals in India, and he came across one that was offering cyber knife surgery.
“Eventually, we got in touch with that hospital and their budget came to approximately Sh2 million. My friends and I said we can go ahead with the plan,” he says.
INDIA TRIP BEGINS
On August 2, 2019, a final harambee was done and they were able to raise Sh1.2 million. They booked the hospital for August 7.
On August 6, Mwiti and his wife took a flight from Moi International Airport Mombasa at 3am and went to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) for an international flight to India.
In Mumbai, they got a connecting flight to Bangalore, where HCG Cancer Hospital was located.
By the time they were arriving in India, Mwiti’s blood level was at 5.3 and his kidneys were nearly dying as they were functioning at only 25 per cent capacity.
“At that time, I was not fully aware of how bad my health was,” Mwiti says.
On the day of admission, Mwiti says, he was first taken to the haematology department and booked for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan, and they went back to their hotel room after samples were taken for tests.
However, as they were trying to settle in their hotel room, the hospital raised an alarm that Mwiti was a high-risk patient and an ambulance was dispatched immediately to go for him.
“We cannot release you, we’ll have to admit you because after closer observation, the tests revealed that your blood level is at 5.3,” the hospital said.
Whereas they only had Sh1.2 million with them, some bad news awaited them: all general and semi-private wards had been booked.
The private wards, which were charging Sh18,000 per day, were the only ones available. Mwiti and his wife were scared that the money they had would be depleted before they even got a diagnosis.
Having no other alternative, they agreed to be admitted in the private wing. This was the first time Mwiti was being admitted in a hospital in his life.
Mwiti was assigned a ‘battalion’ of doctors: an oncologist, a neurologist and a haematologist, with the assistance of general doctors and nurses.
On August 10, the lead doctor, an oncologist, said they would require to take bone marrow samples for a biopsy test.
The bone marrow had to be taken from the spine.
“The bone marrow aspiration is the most painful procedure I have ever undergone. The doctors drilled six times to get a sample for the test in my spine,” he adds.
CANCER DIAGNOSIS CONFIRMED
The following Monday, the oncologist said the results were out and he was positive for multiple myeloma cancer, stage three.
“For two years, I had fought with all my strength the thought of ever suffering from cancer. Now the doctors confirmed the worst news,” he says.
He was given a choice: to either sign to get into a treatment plan, which included chemotherapy, or to be discharged from hospital to come back home and seek medical attention elsewhere.
“This day marked one of the most important days in my life. Doctors gave me a choice between life and death. If I had ever fought any battles in life, this was the mother of all the battles,” Mwiti says.
He says that night, he looked for all reasons to live and he never saw any.
He went to YouTube and started listening to music and some inspirational talks. Maybe for once he could get something to inspire him to live.
A song by international gospel artiste Travis Greene, ‘Made a way’, a Swahili gospel song, ‘Sitabaki nilivyo’, and Sauti Sol’s ‘Live and Die in Africa’ inspired him.
A video by comedian Jalang’o, when he appeared on the Engage Programme and shared his life story, was the last video he watched that gave him purpose to live.
“By the following morning, I had made the decision I would not die. I woke up ready to fight,” he says.
At 2pm on August 12, Mwiti started his first chemotherapy. On the first day of his admission to the hospital, he had been undergoing daily blood transfusion until his haemoglobin levels reached 10.0.from the initial 5.3.
What was meant to be a one-week medical trip to India became a six-week stay in a foreign land with little resources.
Mwiti lost 10kg in three days. He was 56 on the day he was starting chemotherapy and on the third day, he was weighing 46 kilos.
The Indian doctors said he was supposed to undergo 16 chemotherapy sessions. However, after four sessions, he was allowed to come back to Kenya and continue with the treatment locally.
He came back to Kenya and finished the 12 other chemotherapy sessions at Mombasa Hospital.
By December last year, he was through with his chemotherapy sessions.
Doctors said he doing well because his cancer is now at recession stage, which is when signs and symptoms of cancer have lessened or are undetectable.
Next January, Mwiti is expected to go for further medical review.
Edited by T Jalio