Table 2.

Themes and their sources from the inductive thematic analysis

Theme	Contributing excepts	Participants
“I am carrying this [cancer] alone”	“It’s so traumatizing. I am carrying this [cancer] all alone. With the little money I have, I cannot even ask for help because if I say it to them, honestly, they will be dead before I die.”	Mafa (FG2)
“Living my life”	“At first, it was overwhelming, but after you just have to accept, it is what it is, you just have to accept and believe that everything will change soon. So, I have been living my life.”	Dhaki (FG1)
“‘God’ helped me”	“When I came… [hospital], they said it has gone to stage III. The fear for me was the money…but God helped me, I was able to do it [cancer treatment] on my own	Onasanyaa (FG2)
“A very painful journey”	“It’s been a very painful journey, most especially when the veins collapse… I suffer a lot, maybe because I’m big… about nine pricks before I take chemo[therapy]”	Mafa (FG2)