The elegant athletic-built business mogul politician and now Prostrate Cancer Survivor, Chief Sergeant Chidi Awuse, Rivers State Ikwerre-born governorship aspirant in 1999 and 2003 and beyond has remained popular in Rivers state politics and that of Nigeria. He has held national positions such as Chairman of the Governing Council of Kaduna Polytechnic and other multinational-businesses such as Nigerian Agip Company –NAOC is currently operating from his Visa Karena Hotels in Port Harcourt after his tenure at Shell Petroleum Development Company –SPDC East in 1993. He was in charge of the Risopalm Estate Palm Oil Industry some times ago as administrator having been trained as a Chartered Accountant.
Here, City People Magazine’s Bureau Chief, EMEKA AMAEFULA (08111813069), spoke with him at World CANCER DAY Celebration 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, Rumuche, in Emohua Rivers State South-South Nigeria. Below is the revelation of his ordeal during treating Prostate Cancer. Read On
“I welcome all of you this afternoon here. I welcome particularly the team of Oncologists especially led by Dr. Emordu, has been helping us and Dr. Justice who 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, your immediate family will be the ones who will be the first people to know what has happened to you. So, my story from day one started 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 away that you have Cancer …In my own case, they told me in 2015 that they discovered a very small tumour. They didn’t tell me exactly what they saw from that message they passed to me. To continue, if I go the whole hog of telling you everything, we will not leave here until 4 0’clock. So, I will abridge 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 that I know by looking at the Graph. I continued until 2017 that was two years and I kept it to myself apart from her (my wife), my boys and my top son Joseph were 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 Programm, 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 staying a little bit’ and I said, 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 quickly because I am here waiting for you. So, I left from Emohua and came to Port Harcourt and 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 could take my hotel. She wrote the report and based on that 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 travelled. And I told her everything as I invited her to my office which, at that time, 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 is …but I nodded to all she said because I had 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 says ‘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 story starting from one test to the other till I did 18 Biopsy tests. Others did 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, let’s go the whole hog 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 wanted 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 that by tomorrow morning, I 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 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 that 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 bother 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”.
