It is often said that there is no love like a mother’s love – it is the core from which every child’s dreams, values, goals and aspirations are cut from. It is the intricate fabric from which our lives are formed, nurtured and established. The absence or demise of a mother brings about an unbearable sense of loss and pain that cripples us in depths and ways that are inconsolable and irreparable – an experience that many of us never heal or recover.
To Mama Eddah’s household the feeling wasn’t any different, being a single parent who struggled to single-handedly raise two sons. She ably played the role of father and mother to her fast growing boys. This was no easy task for a business woman forced to juggle skills and resources against life’s unrelenting challenges to ensure that her children lacked nothing.
In her mind, there was no place for sickness or weakness and the idea of falling ill was unbearable and evidenced by the fact that when cancer came knocking the single mother of two chose to keep it to herself. Like most African women, her sense of purpose as well as her maternal instincts over-rode all sense of self-pity or fear. Her love for her family could not allow her to reveal ‘weakness”; to her such acknowledgement would only bring fear and despair as well as rob the hope that was entrenched in her sons’ dreams.
Immediately after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Mama Eddah embarked on what would be the greatest fight of her life against one of the most dangerous killers in the world. With the backdrop of minimal financial resources at her disposal, she would visit an affordable chemist on “Mumbi House”, purchase the chemotherapy drugs and head to Kenyatta National Hospital for treatment. This routine went on for four cycles (four months) before she adhered to the advice of her friends to turn to Chinese herbal medicine.
As fate would have it, the effect of abandoning main stream medicine revealed itself through bouts of hypertension, diabetes and a swollen arm, not to mention that the cancer had been given room to metastasis (spread) like a wild fire it and it did not disappoint. The frequency of hospital visitations abounded as she sought specialized care.
With no steady income, basic daily survival became a challenge. With her health deteriorating rapidly, it meant that someone had to step in and now take care of her. That person was Issaji, her first born son. He would later attest to the fact that watching his mother suffer such excruciating pain with nothing to ease the pain and watching her condition worsen especially during the last days, was one of the most difficult things he had ever experienced. The financial cost involved in just relieving her pain and ensuring that she was comfortable became a logistical nightmare with endless hospital admissions, ongoing loans and ever increasing hospital deposits. It became the order of the day for her son who fought alongside his beloved mother for her life.
Cancer did not relent, bringing a once healthy seventy something kilogram lady to a weakly diaper stage person in full view of her two so. Any attempts to fight back were met by onslaughts of brutal attack over and over again with the cancer rearing its ugly head with no remorse or sympathy. The struggle would go on for seven years, and with each year the once healthy, hardworking mother of two was brought to her knees.
One chilly morning (May 11th, 2012) Mama Eddah slid into what was to be her last coma. With a faint heart beat little could be done, owing to the fact that her cancer had spread into her bones and any attempts to resuscitate her would have added more pain to her already weak body. Right in front of her sons, her curtain fell and Mama Eddah rested.
This would mark a beginning of a platform that Issaji would later describe as a fighting ring to ensure that others would not experience what he went through; that no young person would have to watch their parent or loved one go through such a terrible ordeal, totally helpless and broken. Fuelled with passion and sense of responsibility, EDDAH’S HOPE CANCER FOUNDATION was born to ensure that the fight against cancer would be solidified by creating awareness through fun activities, disseminating valuable health information and offering support – all to bring forth a compassionate cancer free generation.