THE NATION
Victoria Adesanya and two of her siblings were born with albinism. They always stood out among their peers and in their community because of their very bright complexion.
As time went on, between 2011 and 2012 to be precise, one of the siblings started feeling unwell. After some unsuccessful attempts at treating the sickness, Victoria said, they decided to spiritualise the matter and called it an arrow from the enemies.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “we lost her to cancer in 2012. We didn’t have any knowledge about cancer in people with albinism then.”
Not quite long after she lost her immediate sister, her brother came up with similar challenges. “This time around,” she said, “the children searched the internet and found that there was a support he could access at Albino Foundation, Abuja.
“To enable him get the support, I went to Mrs. Josephine Omolola at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), who is the head of our cluster. She even gave me a letter for my brother.
“Before we could complete the process, it was too late for him. He also passed on.”
After her brother’s demise, she said, “I started attending the meeting of people with albinism. There I discovered that it was cancer that killed my siblings and not any arrow. I learnt that the sun is our enemy and not salt as people used to say.”
Victoria herself was not spared by the menace. Four years after losing her sister, she was also diagnosed with skin cancer. But unlike her siblings, knowledge and improvement in healthcare saved her life.
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