He would be picked for commercial modelling jobs that helped him make some money as he waited to join university.
Life was easy and comfortable for him, until one fateful morning when he woke up and found his gum had swollen.
This would change his life forever. “I vividly remember I woke up and I was brushing my teeth when I realised that my gum was swollen. I went to a hospital in Kitale. They tried to administer an injection but the needle would not go through.”
He was referred to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret, for further testing. He was diagnosed with stage two osteogenic sarcoma – cancer of the bones.
Etemesi had just finished his secondary education in 2014 when he received the unfortunate news.
“My mother and I were both shocked. I had just finished high school and the last thing on my mind was that I would be diagnosed with a life-threatening disease,” he said.
“At the age of 19, things like cancer you just hear from elderly people or see on TV. It never crossed my mind that it could happen to me.”
Started chemotherapy
He immediately started chemotherapy. He would travel from Kitale to Eldoret with his brother, as he had no relatives in Eldoret he could stay with during his treatment.
“I would go with my brother because the medication from the chemotherapy would leave me drowsy. As a young man, I thought the treatment would be some simple thing like when you go for malaria treatment. I was not prepared for the side effects,” Etemesi said.
His hair fell off, his nails turned black and his skin became so sensitive that he said just shaking someone’s hand would hurt.
If the affected bone had been on any other part of his body – for example, his hand or leg – it would have been amputated. But because the affected part was his jaw bone, doctors decided to cut off part of it.
“They cut off the part that was cancerous. I could not feed through my mouth for more than a month, because I needed to allow the jaw to heal. I was fed via a tube that passed through my nose,” he explained.
There is a scar across Etemesi’s face that acts as a constant reminder of his battle with cancer. No recurrence has been detected.
Surgery
After recovering fully from the surgery, he went on to enrol at Kitale Polytechnic to study agriculture technology in 2016.
He contested the title of Mr Kitale Polytechnic and won. The following year, he also went on to compete for Mr Kitale County and won. His good fortunes did not end there. In 2019, he came to Nairobi and tried for Mr and Miss World Kenya.
“I was runner-up for Mr and Miss World Kenya. I took it as a win. Imagine all the people that I was competing against and I still managed to be among the top three,” he said.
“The beauty pageant opened many doors for me. One of my campaigns at the pageant was to create awareness of cancer and how it can affect anyone regardless of age.”
Because of the scar on his face, he now mostly does body art modelling and accessory modelling with a focus on eyewear.
