Hairdresser loses right breast to cancer, disease reappears after 3-years

Seated on a waiting chair at the Meena Breast Cancer Foundation’s office is a neatly dressed woman, Afua, with three others.

She has her face buried in her palm as she hams to a song playing on the television set. Her hands and feet look darker than the rest of her body; no, not from skin bleaching but an effect of medical treatment.

Afua Pedenima, 31 years old, has been fighting breast cancer for the past 8 years.

“Somewhere in 2015, I had seen a video of a woman with breast cancer appealing for help on television, so I had told myself to regularly check my breast, on one of those checks I noticed a boil on top of my right breast, I immediately reported to the Madina Pentecost Hospital” she recounted.

The single mother said the pimple-sized boil kept expanding and feeling uneasy.

“I was given some antibiotics but the pain became unbearable, later I started applying ointments but I could not endure the pain anymore so I reported back to the hospital, this time the boil felt hard and darker”.

“After examination, the doctors removed it and I was told it was cancerous” she narrated.

The, then, 24-year-old said she lost consciousness after hearing the diagnosis.

“I collapsed when they told me the boil was cancerous, I couldn’t eat, sleep nor think straight, all I could do was cry because I knew my world was shattered.” She said.

Afua Pedenima was brought to Accra from the Northern Region at age 8 to work as a nanny.

Her family lived in a village close to Bolga where they worked as farmers.

“I have 12 siblings, 4 from mother and I am the firstborn and the breadwinner” she narrated.

The hairdresser apprentice said her meager GHC400 allowance could not foot the bills for her cancer treatment talk less of remitting her family up North.

“So, I gave up and decided not to visit Korle Teaching Hospital for further treatment also because the woman I had seen on television appealing for alms I had learned died after 2 weeks, so there was no point,” she said.

The self-motivated woman said she later decided to give it a try and then her fight with breast cancer began.

After numerous scans, mammograms, and chemotherapy, Afua was 2017 listed to have a mastectomy; a surgery to remove a breast at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

“My right breast was removed” she recounted amid sobbing.

The pains and frequent hospital visitation were finally over for Afua, she could live as a ‘normal’ young adult and plan her life. She has been cancer-free for three years.

“In 2019, I had my daughter, even though I had told the doctors to save her life even at the detriment of mine, they saved us both and it has been my best decision ever,” she said.

The self-driven woman had her life back together, established herself as a dresser in Ashaley Botwe, a suburb of Accra, and rented a single-bedroom self-contain where she raised her child.

Three years of being cancer-free, the canker has reemerged, this time stretched to her bones.

The 31-year-old has begun the fight against cancer all over again and spends GHC1600 every three weeks on treatment.

“I am unable to work as much as I would want to because of the effect of the radiotherapy and so I have had to sell my hairdressing salon, an 8*8 feet container, and other valuables to foot the bills and vacated my room because of the rent” she added.

Afua is squatting in an uncompleted building around Ashaley Botwe with her 4-year-old daughter and mother.

“I have sold everything valuable to fight this disease but it has resurfaced and unfortunately I don’t know how I am going to beat it again,” she said sobbing.

The tri-weekly treatment at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, according to doctors, is subsidized by the government for the first three months; therefore, Afua is likely to pay more than GHC1600 after three months.

“It has not been easy, sometimes when I look at my old pictures I cry, I have lost weight, and hair and started developing sores in my mouth and under my buttocks” she added.

According to her, life has been unbearable.

“I had seen Meena Breast Cancer Foundation on social media and decided to reach out for help and so, I’ll appeal to all benevolent individuals to support me, I don’t want to die,” she said.

The foundation had earlier paid for her last session.

According to the 2020 GLOBOCAN report, Ghana is estimated to record 4,645 new breast cancer cases, more than double the estimated 2,062 new cases in 2012, with nearly 50% dying.

The high mortality rate is attributed to late-stage presentation, and most women affected with breast cancer are below 50 in Ghana.

However, there are no specialized breast cancer hospitals in the country.

“Governments across the world allocate money to HIV/AIDS every year, but AIDS is not as deadly as cancer,” the Executive Director of Meena Breast Cancer Foundation, Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng said in an earlier interview.

The Meena Breast Cancer Foundation was launched on October 6, 2022, in Accra in memory of Mrs. Amina Oppong Kwarteng, who died of breast cancer on July 18, 2022.

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