Lorna Irungu, a woman who taught others what it meant to survive

Death had always stalked Lorna Irungu (pictured) from an early age.

In her early 20s, when others her age were figuring out their lives and her own just taking off, she was diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease.

Her own life was taking off then. Just out of Daystar University, she had made the transition from theatre and settling into a career in media. She was flourishing.

She transformed right in front of the millions who had watched her as she presented Club Kiboko with Jimmy Gathu and later TV game show Omo Pick-a-Box as the disease ravaged her body.

Lupus is difficult to diagnose, and its symptoms are easily mistaken for other illnesses. 

Since 1997 when Lorna was first diagnosed with Lupus and a year later when her kidney failed, she has been wheeled into theatre three times for kidney transplant surgeries, each time trusting her own will to survive and come back to her family to pull through.

Rosemary ‘Wahu’ Kagwi, Lorna Irungu and Tracy Ombajo at Carnivore Grounds on February 10, 2017. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]

"At some point I just wanted it to be over. I was just tired. I was really, really tired of the fighting, of the struggling, of being sick," she said in 2009 when she spent months in India recovering from a transplant.

Having a third transplant is a rarity. Lorna's first kidney was donated by her father, her sister, and finally her younger brother in late 2008.

That she wanted to put her body through yet another surgery was something that surprised even the doctors who operated for her in India, but Lorna said she had a lot to live for.

Living, Lorna told Sunny Bindra in an interview, was her success.

“People define success as making a lot of money and going up the corporate ladder. For me, my success was getting up every day and going to work in spite of how I felt,” she said.

Lorna did it all during her time, she directed and produced, did radio and television broadcast, got into communication

But Lorna refused to be defined by her illness and lived to build her career in media and communication.

She passed away in Nairobi on Monday from complications of the coronavirus, her story cut short by a raging pandemic that has upended thousands of lives. She was cremated in a private ceremony on Wednesday.

Lorna is survived by her widower Edwin Macharia and 12-year-old daughter.

Just days before her death, Lorna had mourned the death of a friend, Robin Njogu, a colleague at Nation FM.

"This is heartbreaking," she said. "We worked together at Nation and he was always such a stand-up guy. Always ready to help out. RIP my friend."

That message has since become the underscore of the kind of person that Lorna was.

“She was a phenomenal woman, an incredible life partner," her husband Macharia said.

Zahra Moi, Lorna Irungu and Gladys Shollei in Nairobi on 7/5/14. [File, Standard]

Some of those who mourned the loss, are World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and actress Lupita Nyong'o.

"I met her as a teenager and was captivated by her drive, her beauty, her warm smile. And how she fought Lupus so openly and fiercely changed my perception of what it means to be a powerful woman," the actress said.

On the day of her death, Juliet Maruru, herself a lupus survivor, said on her Twitter that Lorna's story of survival from Lupus had inspired her to live through the disease. 

"When I was thinking that I wasn't going to make it, mum dug out old magazines of Lorna's Lupus story, made me read them, and stood over my hospital bed and commanded me, "You are going to make it," Maruru said on her handle @Sheblossoms.

For the 24 years that Lorna lived with Lupus, she bore the disease publicly and told her story to encourage others who were facing debilitating illnesses.

Through numerous talks and television interviews, she shared her high and low moments with the world. When she was indisposed, the world rooted for her.

Her death has brought on an outpouring of grief from friends, colleagues, and strangers who resonated with her and even those with who she interacted from her radio and television shows.

She hosted Club Kiboko on KTN for five years between 1994 and 1999 and directed and produced news bulletins.

She also had stints on the radio doing the breakfast show on Kiss FM and later hosted State of The Nation, a radio show at then-Nation FM.

In 2018, Irungu was appointed as the new Gina Din Group Managing Director.