The Sunday Mail
Garikai Mazara
Online Editor
It was a simmering Tuesday afternoon when Loice Bvute was laid to rest at Glen Forest Memorial Park. She had passed on the previous Friday, after an almost decade-long fight against breast cancer.
As fate would have it, she passed on and was buried in the month that the world has set aside to raise awareness on breast cancer.
Displaying the bravery and resolve that characterised her eight-year fight, as she lay on her deathbed, she held her husband’s hand and whispered into his ears her last wishes: that her funeral should not be a period of mourning but rather a breast cancer awareness campaign.
And the four-day funeral turned out to be more than an awareness campaign but also a celebration of her life.
As mourners started gathering at the Bvute homestead that Saturday, the message that greeted them was loud and clear, that, as Loice had requested in her last moments, breast cancer awareness was to be the theme of the funeral.
And speaker after speaker, spoke of the resilience that Loice showed in the face of her fight. Obey Bvute, the husband, chronicled how the couple travelled together the journey, from the day she was diagnosed with breast cancer, right up to her last words when she requested nothing more than an awareness campaign.
“It was around 2013 when my wife noticed that there were lumps growing in her breasts. When we went for a scan, our worst fears were confirmed when the results returned positive. She had breast cancer, stage three.
“But my wife was determined from the word go, that she would fight the disease. That she was in stage three meant she had had the cancer for some time, a period which we are not sure but could have been a year or more,” the husband told the gathered mourners.
“If anything, the diagnosis was to bond us further, we fought the disease together. Her pain was my pain. And there was a time it also became our children’s pain as well. Our elder daughter, Vimbai, had to leave college at one time or the other to be with her mother. It was an emotionally draining time for the whole family.
“But the most important lesson we learnt from Loice was the need to educate each other on cancer, be it breast, cervical or prostate. Or any other cancer for that matter. Incidentally, the incidence of cancers is on the rise and whereas in the developed world the stigma is not as rife as in the developing world, we need to educate each other on the do’s and don’t’s of cancer.”
Mr Bvute talked of the need to regularly screen for cancers, which is the first stage in fighting the disease. “We need to change our health-seeking behaviours, that on every visit we make to the doctor, we should look out for cancer. Probably it is because of the stigma that surrounds the disease that we are afraid to find if we have it or not.
“Maybe, a very big maybe, if my wife has screened earlier for breast cancer, she could have discovered it earlier, thus initiated on treatment earlier or could have had the breast removed before the cancer spread to other parts. Maybe she could have lived a day longer.”
In chronicling the journey that he travelled with his wife as she fought the disease, Mr Bvute bemoaned the lack of cancer treating facilities in the country, or the cost involved where one gets such services.
“We had to routinely travel to South Africa for her treatment. And the advice we got was that we should use the public hospitals as they have better cancer-handling facilities than private hospitals. So we used a public hospital in South Africa. Imagine the amount of money that could be saved if our public health facilities were well-equipped to handle the different types of cancer?”
To help fight the stigma surrounding cancer, Loice visited, counselled and helped other cancer suffers. Narrated an aunt: “She did not want to be known as a cancer victim, she didn’t want that tag. She was always saying cancer is like any other ailment, and that with the right attitude, it could be won. She was always saying that faith comes first if one is to beat any ailment, and that is one of the reasons she lived almost a decade fighting the disease, it was because of her resolve. She didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her.”
Echoing the faith aspect, Mr Bvute said his wife was a firm believer and always prayed for her well-being. “But faith is not limited to prayers alone, faith is broad. It can be herbal treatment, it can be consulting traditional healers, you just need to be in that space, where you need to have that faith, that whatever you are working on, can help you.”
Though breast cancer is more prevalent in women, it also affects a sizeable number of men. Symptoms of breast cancer include a lump in the breast, bloody discharge from the nipple and changes in the shape or texture of the nipple or breast. Its treatment depends on the stage of cancer and may consist of chemotherapy, radiation or surgery.
For men, the most common cancer is prostate cancer. The prostate is a small walnut-sized gland that produces seminal fluid that nourishes and transports sperm. Symptoms of prostate cancer include difficulty with urination, but sometimes there are no symptoms at all.
Some types of prostate cancer grow slowly. In some of these cases, monitoring is recommended. Other types are aggressive and require radiation, surgery, hormone therapy, chemotherapy or other treatments.
As part of its cancer awareness campaigns, diversified media group, Zimpapers (1980) Ltd will hold its fifth annual Cancer Power Walk on November 7 this year. Because of the obtaining coronavirus pandemic, the walk would be virtual as participants can walk or run wherever they will be. Participants will be able to share highlights of their walk or run on the various Zimpapers online platforms.
Under the theme, “I am and I Will”, proceeds from the Power Walk will be donated to Island Hospice cancer palliative care programmes.
