Vincent Gakuhi, a cancer survivor who scored an A in KCSE despite writing his exam in pain, during an interview at their home in Ruaka, Nairobi.
On the morning the first Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) paper was due to begin in November 2025, Vincent Gakuhi barely spoke.
He returned to Alliance High School before dawn, escorted by his mother, carrying a body that had already endured more than most adults face in a lifetime.
When the bell rang, he walked into the examination room hungry, in pain and unsure whether the effort still made sense.
Weeks later, the results would reveal an A of 82 points, placing him among the country’s top candidates in 2025.
At their family home in Ruai, Nairobi, the remnants of that season sit quietly together: medical files beside school books, hospital discharge notes tucked into old revision folders.
Vincent Gakuhi with his mother Lucy Gathoni at their home in Ruaka, Nairobi.
Vincent speaks calmly now, but his account traces a life repeatedly interrupted—classrooms exchanged for hospital wards, lessons absorbed between appointments—by a fast-growing cancer that first appeared as an ordinary toothache.
Trouble began in 2020 during his final term of primary school.
Vincent complained of persistent pain around his wisdom teeth. His mother, Lucy Gathoni Ngugi, a nurse, treated what appeared to be a routine infection and the pain eased. Vincent sat his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and scored 391 marks.
It was only later, as secondary school placements were being released, that the pain returned with force.
At Thika, a maxillofacial surgeon delivered the diagnosis: high-grade right maxillary sarcoma. Treatment began almost immediately at Nairobi West Hospital.
What followed was punishing. Vincent underwent 21 sessions of radiotherapy and four cycles of chemotherapy. His condition deteriorated sharply. Burns appeared on his neck, he lost the ability to eat and walk and for a period, feeding was done through a tube.
“There were moments I thought we had reached the end, not because of school, but because of what the treatment was doing to his body,” Ms Gathoni says, adding that secondary school was no longer an option.
Doctors advised that treatment would take time and by luck, Njiri School, where he had been admitted, agreed to hold his place. For the whole of 2021, Vincent was bedridden.
He eventually joined Form One in May 2022, a year behind his original cohort, carrying the after-effects of radiation and chemotherapy into the classroom.
He was in and out of school, sometimes being collected every two weeks for hospital visits. On one occasion, he was taken straight to Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital.
Seeking a second opinion abroad, Ms Gathoni arranged surgery in India where surgeons reconstructed part of Vincent’s jaw using tissue from his leg. The surgery worked, but recovery was slow and uncertain. Infections recurred and eating remained difficult. At times, school days passed without food.
Transfer to Alliance High
By then, Gathoni had set her sights on Alliance High School. She approached the institution’s leadership with medical records and a request for a chance.
Vincent sat the interviews and passed. He joined Alliance with a reputation for discipline and quiet determination and with a body still negotiating the aftermath of major surgery.
At Alliance, learning became an exercise in improvisation as he carried books to hospital appointments. He revised from home during long absences while classmates shared notes and encouragement.
On their part, teachers adjusted expectations without lowering them and even the kitchen staff paid attention to what he could manage to consume. Still, there were stretches when he went four or five days without eating properly.
“Most of my reading happened around hospital visits. I knew the answers. I just didn’t always have the strength to finish,” Vincent says
By August of his final year, he believed he was academically ready. But physically, he was not, as complications persisted.
On the eve of the KCSE, an altercation with a classmate resulted in a blow to the side of his face where surgery had been done and he was taken to hospital late at night.
The main entrance to Alliance High School.
The following morning, still exhausted and in pain, he handed his mother a note saying he could not continue. He told her he wanted mercy killing, believing that even if he sat the exam, he would still die.
Gathoni pleaded with him to reconsider, reminding him of the support around him and the medical clearance declaring him cancer-free. After a night of reflection, by 4 am he agreed to return to the exam with quiet resolve.
“He felt exhausted by everything. I kept telling him let us just take one more step,” she says.
He sat the English paper without speaking to anyone and remained largely silent throughout the examination period, eating little and often leaving questions unanswered because the pain became overwhelming. During one paper, he even bled.
“I wasn’t doing it for myself anymore. I was doing it for the people who had stood by me,” he says.
When the results were released, Vincent was not surprised. He had expected an A, even if not the near-perfect score he had once imagined. For Gathoni, the grade was less important than the fact that her son had made it through.
“It has been four years of hospitals and uncertainty. Seeing him finish meant more than the letter on the certificate,” she stated.
Victoria Jalenga, a family friend, prayed with Vincent and urged him not to give up when his resolve wavered. Another friend, Redempta Jalenga, described him as disciplined and hardworking, someone who never sought sympathy despite his circumstances.
Now an Alliance alumnus, Vincent speaks with measured confidence about what comes next. He wants to study medicine, specialising in oncology—not out of abstract ambition, but from lived familiarity with the system: the waiting rooms, the procedures, the emotional weight carried by patients and families alike.
“When you spend that much time in hospitals, you stop seeing doctors as titles. You see what their presence means to families," Vincent said.
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