 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of cancer with Dr. Denise, a JLCU of Combo Cancer Foundation in partnership with Plus TV Africa. I want to welcome you all to another exciting conversation on appreciating how radiotherapy influences cancer treatment outcomes. I hope we're going to have a lovely conversation and great to see you all again this week. So let's start the day and let's start a month. First time for most this month is Cancer Survivors Month. So for us to be able to make sure you get the message, I'm going to stay follows on our social media platforms as we share various activities from various organizations. So it's not just about us across Nigeria. Just check out Combo Cancer Foundation and we'll tell you what's going on. So good afternoon everyone and today we're going to be having a lovely lovely conversation with two very special guests of mine. Mrs. Anima Shaung. Hello miss. Hello ma'am. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. We can hear you and I can see you nice and clear. Looking very bright. And Mrs. Joy. But I'm going to call her Joy throughout the program. Hello Joy. Hello ma'am. Thank you for having me ma'am. Thank you for agreeing to do this because you know most cancer patients do not want to talk about cancer if everybody's like it's a so let's go. Fourth of June is the National Cancer Survivors Day in 2023 and it's an international event to raise awareness of cancer sufferers and survivors. The event is held on the fourth and Sunday the fourth of June 2023 this year but normally it's always the first Sunday in every year in June. So I want to welcome you to a nice conversation we're going to be having and let me give you some facts about it. According to the National Cancer Institute an individual is considered a cancer survivor from the time of diagnosis the balance of his life or hers of our life. Every survivorship experience is unique as they may face challenges during and after treatment with survivorship research adverse effects will be controlled treated and prevented. So today we're going to be having a very very interesting conversation with two very very important people to me one of them is a survivor like myself and so you see what I like to celebrate us and then I've got a very special lady in this house who has now told me my nickname I gave her is now trending so that's very nice Auntie Moji good afternoon. So who are my guests let me let me introduce them to you so first one is Mrs Moji Animashaw who is a radiation therapist and hospital administrator with with over 40 years of experience working in this cancer space this includes treating patients teaching HRP students and mentoring he's the past vice chairman of the radiation of radiographers in Nigeria of Nigeria and a trustee of association radiation therapist of Nigeria Moji is also a board member of the registration registration board of Nigeria wow thank you Auntie Moji for joining us this afternoon and I've also got my healer like myself the cancer survivor who is Mrs Joy a budae who had cancer of this saliva glands that's a very rare cancer I think but I'll find out as we go along Joy started her journey in 2008 when she discovered a painful tumor under the left side of her chin after two consecutive years of surgery she was diagnosed with cancer of the left saliva glands she went through 30 days of chemotherapy and six cycles of chemotherapy 30 days of radiotherapy and six cycles of chemotherapy and we thank god today she's also got a second chance as I would always say we always have chances for every day we have so we got questions going now aren't we so are we going to start these questions let's look at the topic very carefully appreciating how radiotherapy influences cancer treatment outcomes oh lastly let me first take this opportunity to thank Dr Tviatika who are going to be partnering with us throughout the month to celebrate cancer survivors across the across Nigeria friends families and the support love the times you laugh with us the times you cry with us and to those who have lost already on the journey may everyone so rest in peace question one nice to meet you both Joy can you share us quickly your cancer journey yes my journey started 2008 but at the time I adopted two years of consecutive surgeries I was diagnosed with cancer of this saliva glands and immediately the result came I was asked to go for radiotherapy because the tumor is the type that grows very fast they call it grade A adenoid carcinoma so the doctor already does to quickly go for radiations to shrink the tumor and to kill the cancer cell so we should really run to make money you know cut a treatment of cancer is very expensive but the time go for itself at that particular time so we're able to raise the money it was easy almost 100,000 as at that time that was early 2011 so I started the radiotherapy the therapy is always given to us every blessed day is a kind of machine treatment with the kind of rails that are directed to that particular site so I went through it for 30 good days and each day is just for a few minutes at that time machines in Nigeria let me put that way they're down radiotherapy machines so the only one that was working was at a co-hospital in Keja so I have to leave my house very early in the morning at early as 3am in order to beat the crowd so I went through that journey for 30 days it was it easy but I turned go that I was able to skate through it and there's a side effects that go with it but I turned go that at least I'm here to share my story today so I don't know if I should go home I want to thank you because I've never really heard of I don't know that word so please just understand that might be doctor I'm an educationist and I don't know medical terms and somehow I have decided to have it a brain blank on medical words that I did here you said something and Casenoma don't worry we've got a doctor we've got a specialist in the house so we've got who is Mrs. Anima, she's a specialist in this one so maybe she will help us to educate the public on what you are trying to say and her will continue so um anti moji because that's what I'm going to call you for the entire program as I said I named you that name and so I'm going to probably be the one that tells everybody anti moji go and speak to her all right let's go what is a radiation therapist and why is a radio a radio therapist important in treating cancer radiation therapist is the technician who treats the patient you have an oncologist who is the medical doctor who's specialized in treatment of cancers and that's the specialist who looks after the patient is in charge of the patient management but the radiation therapist is actually the person who does the treatment after it has been planned the radiotherapy after it has been planned um a radiation therapist you it's um in Nigeria for instance it's a bachelor's program you have to do a lot of physics a lot of math a lot of anatomy pathology physiology and I'm saying this because a lot of people don't realize that they just think that we come out of the research you have come out of the room and press the button but for us to be able to press that button because it is millions of votes being put in the patient you have to know exactly what you're doing so it's a highly specialized um area and profession in in in the um cancer in the cancer space so that's what the radiation therapist does so the doctor prescribes the medical physicists or the symmetries do the treatment planning how the patient is going to be treated and the radiation therapy therapist treats the patient so that's that's the team in a radiotherapy department I think um that's that should make is is clear enough I think that is um it's very interesting because uh like you're talking about the radiotherapy a lot of people have different experiences because if you if I think about um Joy who's sitting next on this on this program with us if you look at Joy now and think about the process of her treatment as a salivary gland then I think of my treatment using the gamma knife yeah can you can you explain both of them so I think the first one you've explained will be the generic no can you explain both of them okay the the radiation therapy like um Joy had said earlier is focused exactly on the area that you want to treat unlike like the not like the chemo which treats all the the whole part of the body anywhere there's blood the chemo will get to but with radiation therapy it's specific high dose radiation ionizing radiation to the to the area and the importance of radiation therapy is because it's meant to quickly kill the cells so they don't have a chance of survival number one and then they don't have a chance to go to other parts of the body which is what will happen if it's not treated so again Joy had mentioned that they said that it's a fast growing tumor some tumors are slow like prostate some are fast like the um salivary gland like she talked about so the important thing is to quickly treat them for Joy for instance she probably would have had to have a mask something to hold her head down to keep it steady and while she's having the treatment it'll be specific to the area and because of the area that they're treating you have to treat the cancer cells but then you don't want to damage the normal cells because to get to the cancer cells you have to have some effect on the normal cells which is why there are side effects thank you ladies for your contribution for the guidance and the information you're given with us and we look forward to continuing in a few minutes once after this break thank you stay tuned welcome back everyone as I'm continuing this conversation with Mrs Anima Shao and Joy Ibude I think we're having a fantastic conversation and I hope you're able to pick out questions and thoughts about the experiences of cancer patients as they go through radiotherapy um even though I've had it I didn't really realize this is what how it was and listening to Joy she had a very different experience so it's just that you know our experiences are always going to be different but the bottom line is we should thrive to be able to get through it so I'm going to go to the next question now Mrs Anima Shao based on the two the conversations that Joy and I or the experiences Joy and I have explained would you say that um what would you say are the key takeaway points that you want our viewers to make sure they understand because a lot of people do not take cancer treatment because they are afraid of like what Joy has explained or what I've explained but the truth is that both of us are still sitting here Joy is sitting here since 2011 is that when you said Joy right doesn't have my radio yeah and mine is 2016 so really we're still here and that should be able to get through to people why they shouldn't run away from it yes and I I totally agree with you your last point that you are still here um as human beings we we should be able to put in our best whether we're here or not is not really up to us our responsibility is to look after our body and if one gets cancer radiotherapy is one of the basic treatments most of the time unless it's a it's a radio resistant uh tumor that doesn't respond to radiotherapy but radiotherapy surgery and chemotherapy are the three and and and none of them is without pain none of them is without discomfort but at the end of the day the result is what we're seeing with both of you being here so the important thing is to work with the patients I feel that a lot of counseling needs to go into treatment um and I'm glad that Joy said that she was lots of things were explained to her before she actually started the treatment so when she got she got to that point she could understand the reason why um she had the pain in her throat why she had the swallowing and that it would you would cross that bridge and come out to the other end with nothing if you look at Joy's neck now you would never know that she is she has gone through radiotherapy I mean you look at I mean you probably had your hair cut and then Dr. Denise but nobody would know that now it's only a period of time it's even something as simple as malaria when you have malaria you feel uncomfortable but when you start taking pills I actually feel worse at some point first before you start feeling better it's only the that period for cancer treatment for the radiotherapy lasts longer than it would for malaria but any any any drugs has some kind of effect on people so there would be a a time when things look as if you feel worse and then you start feeling better so people have to understand that it is important when they say go for radiotherapy Joy is stand sitting here today because they said you have to go for radiotherapy quickly because the cancer grows very quickly and she listened if you if you sometimes the taboo and that's the sad part for me the taboo for patients maybe somebody who couldn't afford the treatment but they can't they don't want to go out and tell people oh please help me because I need to have treatment I need to have radiotherapy they feel that it's something they did wrong that causes cancer it's not so you have to be quick about getting your treatment it's absolutely important the diagnosis needs to be quick the treatments needs to be fast because every day those cells are growing they grow in the organ and then when the organ doesn't contain them they start going to the lymph nodes to the blood cells to different organs so it's very important that you have that radiotherapy to arrest it if that's the first thing that they ask you to do or if it's chemotherapy whatever treatment mode of treatment but today we're talking about radiotherapy in particular but you have to it arrests the cancer it stops cells from growing and you want to do that as quickly as possible so it's very important for people to remember that the doctor who's asking you to do this they know what they are talking about especially if you go to an oncologist and that's also another important thing that you have to when you come don't I mean you can pray pray as hard as you can Muslim Christian traditional pray use the doctor but also make sure that you go to a specialist don't treat cancer through a general practitioner don't treat cancer through somebody who is not an oncologist it doesn't give you the best fighting chance because they are the ones who are trained to be in charge of oncology patients just as well as don't treat don't get treated in radiation radiotherapy without a radiation therapist we have to educate ourselves so we can ask the right questions and people in other parts of the world that is not Nigeria and they ask they will ask you are you a licensed you didn't even ask because your license is meant to be there are you a licensed radiation therapist are you practicing you know do you have a current license are you an oncologist they will ask these questions it's your right to ask these questions so that at the end of the day you give yourself a fighting chance and once we do that that is really our own responsibility to give ourselves a fighting chance when one has a cancer diagnosis so radiotherapy an important part of it thank you thank you thank you thank you um miss Anima because i think that's one of i think that's one thing that is very that's a very key message that people need to understand if we're going to make a difference going forward and one thing i was going to talk about which i think joy has nicely covered was most people think is very painful um yes it is very painful we're not going to lie about it joy i think we're going to agree on this but it's not painful it's okay for me it was painful at the time of doing it so for that six hour period but within by the end of 48 hours i was back on my working around as if nothing had happened and like joy said she went for 10 days and before she realized that there was something going on and managed for the rest of the treatment only to go back and start to heal so we do heal from radio radiotherapy which is what i'm trying to get to the general public now i'm going to ask everybody all of us are going to answer this question because as i round up this is the key takeaways what would you say joy to the government if you are sitting in front of our new president today and he asked you what do you want him to do for you as a cancer patient what would you say to him oh i would say to our president if i'm given the chance to speak to him is to kind of set a scheme to assist our patients cancer patients out there those that have been diagnosed of it majority of them don't have the money to cope with the treatment treatment is expensive the food aspect area is also expensive because we kind of change our lifestyle as a cancer patient we can't eat everything anymore so we are kind of selective make majorly eating balanced diet every day and it's not easy so if there's a way the government can assist both the ones going through the treatment and those that have gone over the treatment at the time they assist them financially to meet up with any liabilities they are facing then i really appreciate that thank you very much so you see yours is very straight and easy you see so one of the key things that has been found globally is that cancer cancer is a very expensive treatment and it affects every single person across the world so anywhere in the world that anybody has cancer cancer by funding is actually a cause for concern and it's something that is being raised globally for all of us because i think all of us are going through it now i would say for my own it would be mental health and our psycho social needs why would i come from that point because a lot of people do not realize that as a cancer patient we go through mental health challenges only because we don't know what tomorrow what tomorrow holds and a lot of us may either have family or people that are dependent on us and we can't even fund ourselves fund our treatment to even start to think and that is why a lot of people fall off the bus because of the funding um Mrs. Anemarsha can you give us your singular thing that you want i mean if you were speaking to his excellency today can you give him a message for us yes if i was speaking with mr president today what i would say to him is that um he should the NGOs should be empowered and the mental counseling that you talked about the the the financial support these are all things that can be taken taken up by the NGOs and get it to the people to the point of contact in terms of maintenance in terms of addressing it to the right place at the right time i think NGOs should be especially especially in cancer care because of the the cost and all the things involved in it NGOs should be empowered to the degree that they are more like a support system for the for the for the government in in building all these fancy hospitals and NGOs should be empowered to ensure that people who need the treatment are able to get the treatment that's what i would say to him i want to say a very very big thank you to you ladies for joining me this after the today and working through or rather discussing this the radio therapy aspect of the cancer journey because a lot of the time um words that are said are based on not knowledge but what people say they think we're going through or how they think um we should be um living this experience so i want to thank you both very much for joining me this afternoon this afternoon this morning wherever you are thank you thank you thank you i really appreciate you and to all our viewers thank you for joining me and listening and participating and we're hoping that you will help us spread the message whatever sequence it is um mrs lamina shown said she said very clearly she said seek the right person to speak seek the right person there is your doctor there is your oncologist there is your radio radiologist there are all of them are there there is the psycho people there is that's why i call them please don't be upset they're medical people but no medical medical words are very very big but become a so i want to thank you all for joining me this afternoon this today together we fight together we win you can follow common cancer foundation on our social media candles um subscribe share and this uh videos will be on our common cancer foundation youtube channel for you to watch um mrs lamina shown um is also an NGO owner and i would like you to say the name of your NGO please sensorial cancer treatment foundation thank you very much so if you are around that area you need help you need advice you want to donate or you want to support that charity please look reach out for them reach out to them and meet and and see what you can do i want to thank you all for watching us i want to thank plus tv especially for giving us this space and for your continued support in creating cancer awareness and our cancer awareness program we believe together we fight together we win we'll see you soon and um have a lovely cancer survivors month all survivors let's all enjoy at least we get into this month and let's celebrate each other ladies thank you for joining me and thank you all have a lovely