‘How a pimple developed into Cancer and killed my father’: Governor Muthomi Njuki opens up

Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki has opened up on how his late father contracted, battled, and eventually died of Cancer - a ending he intimates could have been avoided through early detection.

Speaking on Citizen TV’s ‘The Big Conversation’ on Wednesday night, Governor Njuki recalled how his father, a medical nurse, overlooked a developing pimple near his ear which would later turn out to be his worst nightmare, and cause his demise.

In what he said appeared to be a mere joke, the Governor noted that his deceased father would shun going to Nairobi for a medical check-up for fear that he may be diagnosed with the deadly disease.

“My father was a nurse and even as he was treating other people, he developed a pimple on the neck and I remember him saying, that he did not want to go to hospital in Nairobi because he did not want to be found with Cancer,” recalled the Council of Governors Health Committee Chairperson.

“Eventually that pimple developed into something else and my father got Cancer that affected his ears.”

In the same light, Governor Njuki appealed to the public not to be ignorant, but rather conduct routine health check-ups to avoid being caught off guard.

He regretted that if his family had taken earlier steps to take their father to the hospital, maybe they could have saved his life.

“We spent a lot of money and since that time we did not have advancement in chemotherapy, mostly we used radiotherapy, eventually, we lost him. I remember saying to myself never again because had we taken our dad to hospital in good time, probably early detection would have saved him,” he noted.

The Governor, who cautioned the public against stigmatizing those affected, also said his mother developed stomach problems later on, and later succumbed to Pancreatic Cancer 28 years after his father.