Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has revealed that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Soyinka told BBC Life Clinic’s Charles Mgbolu at his Ogun State home in an interview published on Tuesday that he was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer in 2014 when he went for a routine medical check-up.
“It hadn’t yet gotten to the stage where it was non-reversible and so gave us a number of guidelines. I say us because he wanted to make sure that my wife made sure that I followed it. He sensed that I wasn’t going to be a very good patient. So he spoke to her most of the time rather than me,” he said.
The professor of English used an advanced technology known as proton therapy to treat it. Soyinka queried the reason why people go outside the country “to receive the kind of treatment which is affordable in this nation.”
According to the BBC, 13,000 cases of prostate cancer were reported in Nigeria in 2018. It also said proton therapy is not yet available in Nigeria.
The 85-year-old, however, said that the treatment for him was an ‘easy ride’.
He added:
“I don’t go to the gym and I do not jog. I look at people who are jogging on the streets, some of them should go and jog behind walls. They look ridiculous. But I believe that my normal active life is more than sufficient. At least if I feel sluggish, I take a walk. If I feel very, very sluggish, I take my gun and go in the bush and go hunting.”
Soyinka is an advocate of cancer awareness and is on the board of the African Cancer Centre.
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