Jesusegun Alagbe
Maryam Alexander sat calmly with a bowed head, hugging her two-year-old son, David, to her chest. She paused and shed tears intermittently as she told the story of pain she had been going through since her son was diagnosed with retinoblastoma in August 2017.
According to the American Cancer Society, retinoblastoma (or simply Rb), is a rare malignant form of cancer that rapidly develops from the immature cells of a retina, the light-detecting tissue of the eye. It is the most common primary malignant intraocular cancer in children, and it is almost exclusively found in young children.
Though most children survive this cancer, they may lose their vision in the affected eye(s) or need to have the eye removed, a possibility that has been making Maryam, a widow, to be sad if her son couldn’t get treatment on time.
“This cross is too heavy for me to bear; I wish it would pass over me. I’ve been having sleepless nights because of David since January 2017,” she said, with teary eyes.
January 2017 was when Mariam noticed her son scratching his left eye consistently, and when the poor boy wouldn’t stop, she took him to the Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, Benue State, where he was given eye drops.
But the eye drops didn’t stop the itching; instead, a tumour started growing on David’s left eye. He was taken back to the hospital, but there was nothing much the doctors there could do for him.
Maryam said, “My husband died in 2016, and he was our breadwinner. When I told my late husband’s brother, Moses, who lives in Lagos of my son’s plight, he said I should bring him to Lagos, saying there were better health care facilities here.
“When we got here, we took him to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, where we were asked to go and do a series of tests on his left eye.”
A brain magnetic resonance imaging scan eventually done at the Union Diagnostic & Clinical Services Plc, Victoria Island, Lagos on February 17, 2018 showed that David was suffering from “disseminated left retinoblastoma.”
The report stated, “Plain and post intravenous contrast medium 6mm axial, coronal and sagittal sections of the brain and orbits, acquired with T1-weighted and T2-weighted sequences are reviewed.
“There is a huge solid tissue mass occupying and expanding the entire left orbit. It displaced exteriorly a distorted left eyeball which overhangs the face with accompanying swelling of palpebral and facial soft tissues. The infraorbital mass would appear well encapsulated.
“Another huge mass is shown in the subcutaneous layer of the left temple, extending down to the upper neck and jaw. There is no evidence of intracranial contiguous or metastatic extension. The sella turica is normal. All the cerebral lobes, brainstem and cerebellum are normal. The ventricular system is normal.
“MRI features are highly suggestive of left orbital retinoblastoma with large orbital and subcutaneous lymphadenopathy.”
However, to treat David before it is too late, Maryam said he had been referred to the Fortis Hospital in Bangalore, India, where he would undergo a surgery.
According to a statement from the Fortis Hospital, David’s treatment would also involve chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and he is expected to spend three months and three days in India, all expected to cost $17,000 (N6.1m).
Sobbing, Maryam said there was no way she could raise the money for her son’s treatment.
“Even if my husband was alive, there is no way we could raise even a tenth of the amount. I plead with kind-hearted Nigerians to come to my aid so that my son could amount to somebody in life. Please help my son not to go blind,” she pleaded.
In the meantime, kind-hearted Nigerians can make their donations to Alexander David, with Union Bank account number 0077934533.
The family can also be reached on 09074348819.
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