Yesterday (Monday August 16), a painful video spread across Nigeria’s social media. In it, the daughter of Nollywood actor, Taiwo Hassan, popularky known as Ogogo, cried and pleaded with the public for a desperate cure for her father’s stage four cancer.
She said hospitals in Nigeria were refusing to treat him, and she was appealing for anyone with information — hospital or traditional medicine — that could treat and cure her father.
I am not privileged to any details about Ogogo’s cancer. The daughter only shared it was “stage four.” We do not know if it was brain, bone, prostate, blood, colon, liver, or any other cancer. Whichever it is, we wish him the very best.
Hospitals may stop treatment when cancer has spread beyond what medicine can fix. When it becomes terminal, doctors often recommend comfort and care for the remainder of a patient’s days. That conversation is hard. Families sometimes refuse to accept it.
Let us not be driven by emotion alone.
Let’s be realistic.
It is devastating to be told that the end may be near. But life happens.
Publicly soliciting any type of treatment for a father with stage four cancer adds chaos and confusion to an already painful situation. Ogogo needs calm, not chaos.
Exposing him as a guinea pig to unproven traditional medicine and “holistic treatments” will only hurt him more. He does not need that.
Right now, the family’s space is likely bombarded by late-day spiritualists, untested herbal hawkers, and Holy Spirit talkers saying: “Mr. Lagbaja tried this and it worked. So your daddy should try it,” or “Take him to this Pastor and he will be cured.”
Ogogo does not deserve those chaotic suggestions.
Take your father home. Give him care and comfort. Surround him with peace.
It’s okay to seek a second opinion from a reputable cancer hospital or clinic. But with stage four disease that has spread, the results are often the same.
I understand the desperation and the urgency of the moment. I truly do. But you and I must face our realities with cancer.
I am surviving stage four prostate cancer that spread to my bone. My daughter is surviving stage three breast cancer after a mastectomy.
I know this road.
I wish you and your family calmness, understanding, and hope throughout this terrible period.
** Jebose is a US-based veteran entertainment journalist and stage-4 cancer survivor
