“MY PROSTRATE CANCER STORY… I AM NOT ASHAMED OF STIGMA FOR HAVING CANCER”– CHIEF SERGEANT AWUSE REVEALS

For the past five years a lot had happened in the life of Rivers state top politician and business mogul-Chief sergeant Chidi Awuse. The elegant athletic built business mogul, politician and now Prostrate Cancer survivor Chief Sergeant Chidi Awuse, Rivers state Ikwerre born Governorship aspirants since 1999 and 2003 and beyond has remained popular on the main stage of Rivers state politics and that of Nigeria where he had held national positions such as Chairman of the Governing Council of Kaduna Polytechnics and other multinational related businesses as Nigerian Agip Company –NAOC is currently operating from his Visa Karena Hotels in Port Harcourt after Shell Petroleum Development Company –SPDC East 1993 lease tenure expired. He was in charge of the Risopalm Estate Palm Oil Industry some time ago as administrator having been trained as a Chartered Accountant.
Here Emeka Amaefula had an encounter with the man Owha Chief Sergeant Chidi Awuse whose political identity “Political Bulldozer” is much more synonymous in Rivers state and in Nigeria in general rolled out his drums to celebrate World CANCER DAY on Tuesday 11th of February, 2020 where he unfolded his plans to float SERGEANT AWUSE CANCER AWARENESS FOUNDATION-SACAF with headquarters located at his home town of Rumuche in Emohua Rivers state South-South Nigeria. Below is his revelation of his ordeal in the treatment of Prostate Cancer. Read On

“I welcome all of you this afternoon here. I welcome particularly team of Oncologist especially that led by Dr. Emordu who has been helping us and Dr. Justice that has been helping us put these things together for today. I must quickly add that we have not officially launched the foundation. I felt that it will be out of place to ignore or to pretend that today is not World CANCER DAY. When you are affected you are immediate family will be the ones that will be the first people to know what has happened to you. So, my story from day one start with my family, my wife particularly …my wife and the boys.
It was in 2015 when I was to travel as usual to United Kingdom for my annual Medical Checks. One funny language Medical Doctors use when you face this kind of problem as they will not come up to tell you straight that you have cancer …in my own case they told me in 2015 that they discovered a very small tumour”.

MY HARLEY STREET LONDON HOSPITAL EXPERIENCE
“They didn’t tell me exactly what they saw from that message they passed to me. To continue if I go the hug of telling you everything we will not leave here until 4 O’clock. So I will bridge it but one message that I will not fail to tell you is as at that time I discovered that my PSA(Prostrate ) had gone beyond the normal limit as I didn’t know what normal limit was until today I know by looking at the Graph. I continued until 2017 that was two years as all were happening and I kept it to myself apart from her (my wife), my boys and my top son Joseph was with me at Harley Street London in United Kingdom when I went to do the first check. Then in November, 2017 I went to London again, it was then that they found out that the PSA has gone up from normal Level of 4 then to 25. And Dr. Emordu from Emohua in Rivers state but residing in London my own General Medicine Practitioner GP said to me ‘“Bro’ we have to do something now”’, and I said Okay and he took me to one of the Doctors somewhere in London who said we have to do open surgery. It is Okay, I told him and he said ‘bro, you can go home, go and think about it but don’t waste time’. So, I left and came home did my normal Empowerment Programme of Widows empowerment and nobody knew what was going on in my mind as we finished the programme by December to January 2018 after the Football Match on the 5th of January, 2018, I went in and told my mum that I was going to London and stay a little bit and she said ‘what do you mean by stay a little bit’ and well, I am going to London and I want to go and check myself that I am not feeling too well. She said well, make sure that you go and come back because I am here waiting for you. So, I left from Emohua and came to Port Harcourt on the 8th of January, 2018 I took off and went to London. Before now I knew this Lady in 1992 she was a member of Senior Team in SHELL Petroleum Development Company who came to look at my Hotel (Visa Karina) so that SHELL will take my hotel she wrote the report and based on her report SHELL took my hotel in 1993 and paid me one year in advance for all the rooms. So, when I got this story about my prostrate I was in touch with her and she told me that I should tell her all the things that were happening to me before I traveled. And I told her everything as I invited her to my office as at that time my office was in this place. She came and sat down and told me everything and when she was telling me she broke down as she explained to me the ups and down about her experiences with cancer. And I have not even started the journey and somebody has told me how difficult the journey was…but I nodded to all she said because I have made up my mind that I was going to get to face whatever that there is there. That is the reason whenever she calls me and say ‘How is your health I will answer and say ‘Stop asking me ‘how is your health?’ my health is good.

I went back the Oncologists will understand the rest of the stories as from one test to the other till I did 18 Biopsy tests others do 4 Biopsy tests but I did 18 tests. It was a full hospital admission for that day in the hospital in London. I asked my Urologist who carried out the Biopsy tests –saying what is all these? He said ‘For me those Biopsies you did in Harley Street I don’t trust them. Since you are prepared to do this treatment lets go the whole huddle to get the whole thing right I am doing 18 Biopsies for you. My mind got strengthened and I said I am already committed lets go ahead. And we did it. But as they brought the result they didn’t give the answer but just piling them up. Until they said that they want to do Bone scan test and I went through the machine. Before I went in to the machine they gave me an injection with instruction that I cannot go near a little child, I cannot go near a pregnant woman, I cannot go near any young person because I was carrying energy (radiation) if I near iron it will spark fire and it will shock me. I remembered that I was with my last Son Goodluck in London and I asked the car to take me to the park close to the house as I stayed there alone. I kept away from people for almost four hours and I went back to the hospital where I went back to the machine and they scanned me from my head to my toes. And they said that I can go home. They said that my body will be producing energy but not too much as by tomorrow morning you will be okay. It took 4 anguishing days for the result to come out. When the result was not forth coming, the Oncologists, the urologist, my GP and the Radiologist, they asked for a conference so that they will now tell me all the result everything that has to do with me. I said Ok we went back to the Park , stayed there waited and that Bone scan result did not come out. And I was frightened because I asked Dr. Emordu saying ‘What do you mean that you are waiting for that bone test result?’ and he said that we should wait the Bone Scan result will determine what type of treatment that I will get. And that if the treatment shows that the thing had escaped to any other part of my body, it will be a problem. I came back to the house and told my wife and she said that I should not border that the thing will stop where it is and that I should not entertain fear…and I said no problem. Finally they gathered all of us and gave out the result but my Urologist said “why is this result delaying …let me call the Laboratory and he called the Lab and I heard a voice from the other end saying we have done the test but we are trying to send by Fax and the man said oh no …no tell me is it Positive or negative? And he said that it is negative. That was when I knew that everything has been controlled by God…And the treatment now commenced in London. It was not easy. But the story that will end the story now is as at 16th December 2019 my PSA has gone back to less 0.01 standard from 27”.

WHY I ESTABLISHED NGO ON CANCER AWARENESS

“This Foundation was borne out of my own personal happiness to God Almighty. I am not doing it for anybody to come and tell me ‘thank you’. It is important for us to know that so many people had called me saying “At your level ……You go dey tell people sey you get cancer”. And I said shut-up you no go mind your own business. You can’t direct my mind. You cannot tell me what to do at this age no! when a man who is highly placed if hide sickness you drive gradually to your grave. Nothing is more anxious than this thing called grave …looking for more people to take. Why should I drive my car to my early grave? If I did not tell her and she advised me and I got prepared, how can I be healed? This foundation is for awareness. We will continue to shout and shout to every nook and cranny of this state and this country. No single individual will run an organization like this but we will trust God Almighty for resources will come to start it. We are not going to do any second class work and there is no second class citizen here. We are going to drive this process to secondary schools as many as they are in Rivers state. People must hear it. We are not ashamed of it. I feel proud to say so. When God has healed you why should you be ashamed by hiding it? Cancer is just one word just like Fever, headache, people worry about stigma what is stigma? For me when I told my wife that I will do this and she said why not and that is the end of the story. One problem I will say here is that the only problem we have in Nigeria is lack of knowledge. Knowledge of Cancer is small. In December 2019 when I went to London and I was discussing with my Oncologist and I told him that I want to run prostrate test and he said, the only problem you have is that you don’t have the personnel. Why? In United Kingdom, the guy who is involved in treating prostrate cancer is not the same man treating Cervical Cancer. They are specialists in their own areas. You cannot know it all. So, I am using this opportunity to call on Government at all levels they must embark on areas of training more Medical doctors to specialize in different aspect of Cancer as Breast Cancer has different diagnoses and different treatment, the same thing with blood cancer, the same thing with skin cancer.”