Friday 15 April 2016

Carol cancer drive raises Shs32m

Kampala. A total of Shs32.2m has so far been collected in a campaign meant to help Ms Carol Atuhirwe, a Uganda Christian University student suffering from throat and lung cancer, get treatment abroad.
According to Justine Nyachwo, one of her friends involved in the media campaign titled, ‘Cancer relief fundraiser for Carol Atuhirwe’, they still need to collect a balance of Shs247.8m.
“Hi everyone, thank you for your care and love for Carol.
However, we’re running out of time, the surgery is supposed to take place this month. Carol has received total donations of about $10,000 (about Shs32, 650,000). Let’s try our best to contact these men and women with power and the funds to save our friend-Together we can. ‪#‎SaveCarol #FightCancer. Thank you and be blessed,” Ms Nyachwo wrote on Carol’s Facebook page.
The money was raised through donations and various activities, including a car wash. She explained that Ms Atuhirwe still feels a lot of pain and barely sleeps.
Ms Atuhirwe needs a total of $80,000 (about Shs264.8) for her treatment abroad.
How it all began
On her blog, carosblogonline.wordpress.com, Ms Atuhirwe writes her journey as a cancer patient. She writes that she stopped speaking long before she got to know she had throat cancer, but never took anything serious until it was a little late.
“It was in the year 2011; I was just in my Second Year, last semester at campus when I started coughing small amounts of blood. I didn’t take things seriously until Third Year when I started losing my voice. I thought it was like any other loss of voice.”

Carol cancer drive raises Shs32m

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Ms Carol Atuhirwe keeps a smile on her face even as she battles cancer at Mulago Cancer Institute. She needs Shs264.8m for specialised treatment abroad. Courtesy PHOTO. 
“So I started taking things that could clear my throat. It took long and I couldn’t answer any more questions in class, school became hard for me, fellow students laughed at me, sometimes talked behind my back; it was a horrible experience but wouldn’t allow all the two years to die for nothing so I hanged in there,” she wrote.When she went for a serious medical checkup with the help of a relative, that was when she found out she had cancer. After getting chemotherapy, radiotherapy and several surgeries for the throat cancer, Ms Atuhirwe said she was screened and doctors at Mulago hospital, where she had been staying for more than a year, found out she had lung cancer as well.

However, the throat cancer healed after the treatment.
After a year of chemotherapy for lung cancer without change, she said she had a surgery last year. According to the post on her blog, her oesophagus (gullet) broke down, the spine got exposed and the trachea moved down.
“I crave tasting food, drinking water, having a normal life like other people, maybe I get a job, then never to cover my neck to hide my pain; those will be my joy scars, my warrior scars, courageous. I wish all this ends. I stop sitting on my bed day-by-day, go out sometimes, visit my friends, take trips. Oh God! Make this last dream come true,” Ms Atuhirwe wrote.
Contribution
How to contribute. To contribute to Carol, send mobile money to 0784 768 178 or 0701 930 750.
Lung cancer. According to a study titled “Trends in the incidence of cancer in Kampala, Uganda 1991-2010”, there was a rise in the incidence of lung cancer among females. Likewise, cancers of the lungs remain relatively rare, although incidences are increasing in women.
jbirungi@ug.nationmedia.com #sofoafrica@gmail.com.

 

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