Emmah Shares How She Managed Her Son’s Lymphoblastic Leukemia Condition
Meet Emmah Amoni Wambugu whose son was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia last year August.
She has been sharing her son’s journey on both Facebook and Instagram to encourage those in the same situation.
“My son got diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia last year in August. We started treatment immediately. Sadly around March this year, he relapsed and we had to travel for a bone marrow transplant.
“Basically what I have been doing on Facebook and Instagram is sharing my story hoping that I will encourage someone else who is going through a similar situation or just a tough time it was a mountain but we climbed it.
She says her aim is to reach out and encourage those going through the same.
“People are too shy to open up about cancer and their journey through this monstrosity. My family is open to sharing our journey since this is one way of helping those in need,” she said.
She called on Kenyans not to judge Kenyans who are going through hardship saying no one prayed for it to happen.
“Talk but be very careful in making judgment on the right cause to take. My son had chickenpox and we took him to the hospital for a checkup. When he was examined by a pediatric doctor, she insisted on us doing blood tests only to find out that he had severe anemia. So she referred us to a bigger facility for transfusion. While there, they did a lot of tests to establish the cause of the anemia and all of them were negative. Now the only test that was left to do was a bone marrow aspirate test(BMA) We went to a less expensive facility to get this test done and when the results were out, we were told that our son had acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” she said.
Wambugu her son immediately started the journey of chemotherapy.
“A lot of people we opened up to were advising us to go Kienyeji or to go to a pastor mtoto aombewe and just sit back! Buy even for us, faith without action is dead. So we decided to get proper medical treatment for our son and also pray,” she said.
She noted that all was good until March. DJ had finished his chemo cycles and he was supposed to go into maintenance therapy. Usually, before a patient starts maintenance, they do another BMA to check for minimal residual disease (MRD) This came back positive for leukemia. 0.86% which suggested that he had an early relapse. For that reason, we had to start therapy again( salvage therapy) which is very toxic! We were hoping it would work but it did not work. The disease was still growing! Our doctor advised us to do a transplant which is not locally available,” she said
Emmah noted that in 4 weeks they traveled to India, where her son started on targeted therapy and the bone marrow is in remission now the doctors are looking to bring the MRD to undetectable then we can do the transplant.
She advised anyone going through this similar situation that small blessings come to us in ways that are sometimes not so good!
“We’re it not for the chickenpox, we could have never known that our son had cancer!! Also, speak up about your struggles but be very careful to filter what is right and what is not right. Had we gone with the option of Kienyeji medication, maybe we could be talking about a different thing right now! Had we also just prayed and waited for the greatest miracle of healing? The outcomes could have been different,” she advised.
“Cancer also comes with a very big financial burden, so at some point, you depend on family and friends. Sometimes, they might fail, and also, should the whole world go bankrupt supporting you? Don’t get bitter when people fail to support you. Other people always arise. So talk, then that way you could meet your angel,” she added.
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