How I beat pelvic cancer, gave birth to triplets

“My name is Faith Mutsoli. I am 32.  I was born and raised in Kakamega County as the fourth child in a family of seven.

I wasn’t lucky to enjoy the love of my parents as I was orphaned at the age of 10, but my elder sister funded my education and so I graduated with a degree in journalism and mass communication in 2014, though I am currently unemployed.

In 2021, I was diagnosed with stage two osteosarcoma, a deadly form of bone cancer.

The late Dr Daniel Alushula, who was an orthopaedic doctor at Kakamega County General Hospital, and his team had finally given me the answers I had been seeking for a very long time.

After three misdiagnoses, he told me that my pelvic bones were immensely affected and this happened just after I had given birth to my first-born in 2019, a year after getting married.

It started as a burning sensation that got worse whenever I walked for long. I thought it was just normal and whenever I dipped my legs in cold water, I could get the much relief that I needed.

The burning sensation would come again whenever I took a walk. And as if that wasn’t enough, I started experiencing random sharp pains especially at night mostly around the chest. They could last between five to 10 minutes.

Since 2014, when I started falling ill, I had been hopping from one hospital to another. I got misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis.

At first a doctor told me I had arthritis and so I was put on arthritis drugs and advised not to eat certain foods that seemly accelerated the pains.

I opted for another hospital along Thika Road in Nairobi, where I was told I had typhoid “that had made its way to my legs.”

Malaria diagnosis

While at yet another hospital in Nairobi, I was told I had malaria, which later another doctor proved to be non-existent.  I found it interesting that whenever I inquired from the facility which kind of malaria this was,  I was told that in some people malaria doesn’t necessarily show even when you are sick and so for almost three years; I was subjected to malaria drugs, which I religiously took until one day when a friend suggested I go for an X-ray at a clinic in Ongata Rongai. Here, a keen specialist advised me  to act with immense speed as he had found a growth budding  in my pelvis.

For a young couple, this was devastating. After the X-ray results, I immediately went to a Nairobi hospital for a CT scan, which confirmed that indeed I had a tumour in the left pelvic bone.

They proposed to admit me for surgery but before it all happened, my sister, who was to fund my treatment, got involved in a road accident and lost her right hand.

I had no option but to be transferred to Kenyatta National Hospital  (KNH), where the surgery was  scheduled to be done.

I continued visiting KNH in vain as the procedure kept on being postponed every now and then and to date, they have never refunded the Sh40,000 I paid for the surgery that never happened.

Because I could not afford to live in Nairobi due to my ill health and joblessness, I decided to move to my home county, where I met Dr Alushula, who would change my life.

The doctor started by recommending some drugs, which I would take for a whole month though having been subjected to so many drugs initially,  I at first turned down his advice and boldly told him I had had enough with taking drugs and that  all I wanted was for him to perform the surgery as earlier recommended.

The doctor was stern and strict. Thank goodness he whipped me back into line and opened my eyes to what I was actually dealing with.

From him I learnt that osteosarcoma is a type of bone cancer that usually develops in the osteoblast cells that form bones and happens most often in children, adolescents, and young adults. 

It most commonly happens in the long bones around the knee and other sites include the upper leg, or thighbone, the lower leg, upper arm bone, or any bone in the body including those in the pelvis, shoulder, and skull.

Dr Alushula told me osteosarcoma may grow into nearby tissues such as tendons or muscles and may also spread, or metastasise, through the bloodstream to other organs or bones in the body.

I further learnt that the exact cause of osteosarcoma is not known, but it is believed to be due to DNA mutations inside bone cells—either inherited or acquired after birth.

The common symptoms of osteosarcoma, though each individual may experience symptoms differently, include pain in the affected bone, swelling around the affected site, increased pain with activity or lifting, limping and decreased movement of the affected limb.

Dr Alushula was very clear that the symptoms of osteosarcoma may resemble other medical conditions and so it is always advisable to go to your doctor or a health facility for a diagnosis.

Dr Alushula would later perform the surgery after I did all he asked. After excision, the tumour was taken to the lab and the histology read benign tumour.

I remember asking him which type of tumour it was and he sarcastically told me, like Jesus, “go home, you have been healed.”

Who wouldn’t have been excited at such news? Sadly, the excitement was short lived as in 2019 pains started streaming again. 

This time very aggressively. I could barely sleep through the night. I was now walking very slowly while limping and my body started swelling one part after the other. The shooting pains around the pelvic bone became the norm. I used to cry throughout the night.

For almost a year, my husband never knew sleep as he would massage me the whole night then wake up and go to work. Since the situation was getting bad, a friend referred us to a KNH doctor, who we saw  at his private clinic in Upper Hill.

After several consultations with him and a number of scans done, he recommended I do another surgery at a Nairobi hospital. We actually did not have the money to pay the doctor’s fee plus the hospital fee. He had quoted Sh70,000 for surgery. Little did we know that that was just the doctor’s fee. So on reaching the hospital we learnt that we were going to pay a whooping Sh140,000 as hospital fee for the few hours I was being attended to and if I were to spend a night there then I would pay much more. 

My husband had now exhausted his savings and there was no way I was going to spend the night at the facility. I had to leave the hospital a few hours after my surgery.

After the surgery the samples were taken to three different labs just to be sure of what we were dealing with but confusion would fill the air when the results came in . Hospital A and B were not sure of what type of cancer I was grappling with while a renowned pathology lab in the city maintained what Dr Alushula had found — osteosarcoma.

The other hurdle now came in when it came to choosing the method of treatment since I had been advised by several doctors that chemotherapy doesn’t work for bone cancers and so the KNH doctor recommended radiotherapy.

However, he was worried that subjecting me to radio would make me barren. At this point of confusion, there came in an option some doctors called the safest —  amputating my leg.

After several consultations, we settled on radiotherapy as a form of treatment but before I started off, I was advised to talk to a gynaecologist who advised me to harvest my eggs before I started treatment on the basis that I might not have been able to conceive thereafter.

As 33 sessions of radiotherapy were warming up for me, doctors still came back to confirm whether I had properly understood that the chances of me ever giving birth again after the radiotherapy sessions were slim to none.

I told them to go ahead. After all, all I needed was life, my consolation then was that at least I had one child I had brought to this Earth early enough before this deadly disease showed up.

The treatment journey wasn’t that easy.  I lost appetite and running stomachs were the order of the day. My skin extremely darkened in the area of treatment. The more sessions I did the more I started feeling some relief and eventually I realised I could sleep at night. Six months after treatment in November 2021, I went for a pet scan and it showed that I had beaten cancer.  

In April last year I missed my periods. Two months down the line I started feeling nauseated and decided to take a pregnancy test. I couldn’t believe my eyes – the results were positive. 

At three months I started the prenatal clinic and as I laid on the hospital bed awaiting a scan I heard the doctor call my name, “Faith do you like surprises,”. For a moment I was taken aback. He  then continued ,“let’s count together… one, two and three . Those are the babies you are carrying. I said a prayer and thanked God.

When the doctors who helped me beat cancer heard of my pregnancy, they were all asking if I had taken any fertility medication but to their surprise, I had conceived naturally and amazingly there’s no history of twins or multiples in our family. 

The pregnancy journey was quite smooth. I did not have any complications throughout. However, my gynaecologist recommended calcium drugs mostly because of the weak pelvis.

At 30 weeks, I welcomed my three bundles of joy with baby Jabali weighing 1.5 kilos, baby Karl 1.4 kilos and baby Archie 1.3 kilos.  

I know that the mention of the word ‘cancer’ feels like a hypodermic needle for many families, but I want to encourage everyone diagnosed with the disease that the earlier they accept the situation the quicker the healing.
 
Have a positive mindset and ignore the noise in your head. You will have many advisors but at the end of the day you have the final say on your life. The cancer treatment journey is rocky and muddy but never give up. Above all keep your family closer to you.    BY DAILY NATION