Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, yesterday, gave a shocking revelation of how he contracted prostate cancer last December and got cured of it in October 2014.
Soyinka disclosed this at the June 12 Cultural Centre, Kuto, Abeokuta, while addressing journalists at a press conference tagged 'Beyond Ebola and Beyond reign of the Silent Killer,' which was meant to create awareness on cancer.
He said he decided to make his health status public to encourage cancer patients to go for treatment and not to take the disease as a death sentence.
"In December last year, I discovered that I had cancer, we were making sure that, that was what it was before going for other tests. And once it was established that I did have cancer and I was sure because in my family we had an uncle, at the time he died, we did not have all the sophisticated ways of knowing how he died.
"What killed him was attributed to a lot of things. From the little things I know about cancer, I came to a conclusion that he died of cancer, maybe we have it in our family." he said.
Soyinka said as a private person he would have been silent on it, but he decided to make it public being a member of the Africa Cancer Centre.
He said, "For me, it is not a decision that I am happy with, but I felt I have an obligation being a member of the Africa Cancer Centre and also having donated during the festival of fund raising for cancer, I felt I owe people an obligation to make it known and also to demystify cancer, many people feel it's death sentence. Family, friends and colleagues begin to look at you as if you are a ghost, just because you have cancer."
Encouraging cancer patients, Soyinka said that they should know that cancer affliction should not be seen as a death sentence.
"No, cancer is not a death sentence, it is curable and I have undergone treatment and I am able to tell you that I even have a medal to show for it," he said.
Soyinka, however, appealed to the Federal Government to release the fund already budgeted for cancer treatment and construction of research centres in the country.
He said: "The important thing is that we have enough funds to build all the necessary cancer centres including research that this nation requires. It is very capital intensive, some of it. There are many ways of treating cancer just like there are different types of cancer. Even, diet forms an important part of cancer, diet is critical, the most difficult in the middle of treatment of cancer in fact, was a diet which was prescribed. I have to drink a lot of water. The most painful part of it is that water and I are not friends at least on inside (stomach), no."
Asked how he felt when he was battling with prostate cancer, he said, "To tell you the truth, I do not recollect what I felt. What a nuisance, we deal with nuisances! Whatever it takes, just look at the best way of getting rid of this unwanted squatter in our body."
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