Which odds do you talk about when you recall or narrate the trials you’ve overcome for your success? Some have been broken while some have been broken by health.
In a bid to keep a child focused on the exam, her parents did not break the news that she had been diagnosed with bone cancer until she had completed her last paper .
The 15-year-old girl in Mombasa beat all odds to become top performer in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) with 415 marks out of the possible 500 despite the fact that she was suffering from cancer.
Mary Kamanthe Mutua sat for the 2018 national exams at Amani Primary School in Mikindani, not knowing the deteriorating health that caused her pain was as a result of bone cancer.
According to Kamathe’s father, Josephat Mwangani Mutua, they took her to the hospital a few weeks before she sat her exams.
This was after she developed a strange swelling in her left leg with persistent pain for several months.
“I took my daughter to Pandya Hospital and it was confirmed that she had bone cancer, which required urgent treatment,” said Kamanthe’s father “The doctors told me it could be done locally which would involve the amputation of her leg or alternatively she could be taken to India for a specialised treatment,” he added.
Pained to see his daughter limping to and from school as she went to sit her exams, Mwanagani took it upon himself and offered to carry her on his back for the three days.
Kamathe’s father said the family needed KSh 3 million for her specialised treatment in India. “I am a businessman but my little earning cannot enable me to cater for my daughter’s treatment expenses,” he added.
According to Kamanthe, she wants to go to India for the specialised treatment so that she can come back on time to join Form One with the rest of her colleagues.
Bone cancer can begin in any bone in the body, but it most commonly affects the pelvis or the long bones in the arms and legs.
Congratulations to Kamanthe Mutua for beating the odds magically through endurance.