Cancer, nursing cerebral palsy child deal widower heavy blow

Today Mr Robert Rotich is not only widowed but also grappling with taking care of their three-year-old child, Ezra Kiprotich, who has cerebral palsy.

His other child, five-year-old Cynthia Cherotich, has been taken in by relatives as they try to ease his pain.

CHEST PAIN

“My wife used to complain of chronic chest pain, she was in and out of hospitals before she was diagnosed with bone cancer. I watched her life waste away. I nursed her for a year before she breathed her last,” Mr Rotich said Friday.

Charlotte was diagnosed with cancer while pregnant with her second child.

She was taken in and out of hospitals but doctors could not do much, revealing to the family that the disease ravaging her body was in stage four.

She passed away last June and was buried at their home in Siwot village, Longisa ward, Bomet County.

Initially, he said, people used to run away from his son Kiprotich when he experienced seizures but they had become used to him. “I cannot leave the child’s side, I have to take care of him — bathing him, cooking and feeding him, changing his diapers and clothes, washing his clothes, taking him to the hospital and ensuring he basks in the sun,” he said.

“Had I delegated the responsibility of taking care of my son to someone else, he would be dead by now.”

POVERTY

Mr Rotich fetches water from the local river mostly at night when the child is asleep and collects firewood from nearby bushes.

The abject poverty in which he lives makes it difficult for him to provide the child with basic needs such as food and clothing, so he relies on relatives and well-wishers for most of his meals.

“I sold everything I had — cows and chickens — to pay for the treatment of my late wife and our son. I have nothing left. I cannot afford a decent meal, I am penniless,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks.

He cannot undertake any farming or commercial activity as he has to be by the boy’s side every day.

Throughout the interview, Mr Rotich held his child and kept turning him from left to right, checking whether he needed a change of diapers, and wiped his face clean.

“The clothes and diapers were donated by well-wishers who visited me recently after reading my tribulations on social media. They gave us food and built a house for us. I am forever grateful to them,” he said.

DEPLORABLE STATE

His previous grass-thatched house was in a deplorable state. Well-wishers fundraised and bought iron sheets, timber and nails while villagers volunteered to build the new house.

“It is so difficult going through this, I have endured a lot of pain and suffering. But I think God has a purpose for all this. I have to live a day at a time because of my children. I am grateful to my relatives for taking care of my daughter,” he said.

His daughter, he said, was so traumatised when her mother died that she could not be left alone even for a minute.

“She hung onto my coat tail, she would wail loudly whenever I left her side. It was so traumatising to all of us,” he said.

He said the reason he has not remarried is that he believes another woman cannot take care of his sick son and love him the way his wife did.