When cancer comes back

When Pennina Ndengu (32) was 12 years old, she began experiencing severe headaches that left her in agony.

The pain started on the right side of her forehead, striking several times a day before spreading across her entire head. Soon, her right eye also became painful.

Repeated visits to clinics brought little relief.

“They only gave me eye drops and paracetamol. These only made the pain worse,” Ndengu says.

As the pain intensified, it spread to her teeth and ears, causing her to lose sleep and not be able to go to school.

“I was completely helpless. All I could do was cry as I cuddle my grandmother,” she says.

Despite numerous visits to healthcare facilities, doctors struggled to identify the cause of her symptoms.

At one point, a nurse allegedly told Ndengu’s grandmother she was pretending to be sick.

A breakthrough came after her grandmother took her to Onandjokwe State Hospital, where a relative working as a nurse noticed something was wrong.

“She said my eye looked like that of a dead person,” Ndengu says.

The nurse urged her grandmother to seek urgent medical attention in Windhoek.