If you keep up with my blog posts, you would know I didn’t have a very pleasant experience during my youth service. Service ended and a month later, malaria and typhoid hits me, I hate being sick, it’s just annoying to see food and I can’t eat, to see water and dislike it because of the bitter taste it leaves in my mouth after drinking. So month after month, malaria and typhoid kept visiting me, then typhoid vanished, but malaria kept attacking me each month.
People who know well said it’s all the mosquito bites I received during service, some say it’s spiritual and the doctors say it’s because my genotype is AA, they say people with genotype AA are prone to have malaria every month and that is why it’s advisable to treat malaria every month. I took different anti malaria drugs and I think my system got used to them, so my body stopped responding to drugs, I was advised to start taking local herbs and that’s how my journey with the popular Yoruba herb “agbo” started.
So October came and malaria paid a visit, this time, it was painful, my joints ached badly. I was given anti malaria drugs but by the next day, there was no sign of improvement, My parents decided it was time to take me to the hospital. As we drove to the hospital, I sobbed at the back seat; my parents kept saying “I will be fine”. We got to the hospital 30 minutes later, the security person at the entrance points her infrared thermometer to check our temperatures, my parents had normal temperatures but mine was high. My dad turns to her and says “She’s down with malaria”, she smiles and lets us in.
At the reception, my parents gave the hospital attendants my card and they wait to get my file. After my file was found, as usual I was directed to the nurse on duty, whose job is to check my temperature and BP, she wears her gloves and before touching me, asks me “what is wrong with you?”, I reply weakly “I think it’s malaria”. She stands up and says to me “You can’t be inside the hospital, who let you in?”, then tells me in a tone to go outside. At that point, I just wanted to sit down because my joints ached so badly but I listened to her and went outside as instructed. As I walked out, my dad was curious to find out why she didn’t attend to me, she asked him “ did you bring her here?” and my dad says “Yes!, I am her father”, she turns to my parents and say “Ma! Sir! Please follow her, you all will have to wait outside to see the doctor”.
The doctor shows up 25 minutes later, stands at a distance to ask his questions. It was becoming very funny to my parents, My dad then suggested that he checks my file, he will see a history of malaria even before the ebola saga. The doctor excuses himself and doesn’t show up again. I was in a terrible state and started thinking “so everyone who falls sick during this period is an ebola patient, people could actually die because no doctor wants to treat a patient with high fever”. We regretted coming to the hospital but had to wait for the doctor, some minutes later, the same angry nurse who asked me to step out of the hospital shows up and ask us to enter the hospital through a back door. When we got into the hospital, they cleaned the chair I sat on with Jik bleach. Then we waited for some minutes, as we waited, my father entertained us with his jokes, it was funny, the whole experience was funny but I was in serious pain and couldn’t laugh. The doctor shows up again, still maintaining his distance to ask if I had taken any drugs, I said “Yes”, He smiles and says “Just finish the dose, you will be fine”. As we stood up to leave, my parents were so happy that they were not taking us somewhere to be quarantined.
If a private hospital could be so rational, I wondered how patients were treated in government hospitals. Even though the World Health Organization declared us “ebola free”, everyone still acts like WHO lied to us.
Foreign Countries asking Nigeria to teach them how to get rid of ebola should learn to be selfish and love life more than anything. A typical Nigerian loves life, whether life is comfortable or uncomfortable in Nigeria, we stick to Hope, In my own opinion, that is why we were able to get rid of the deadly disease, there was no sympathy for any kind of sickness that shares similar symptoms with ebola.
Happy New Month lovelies, feeling thankful and glad that I am healthy and I have a family that helps me get through good and bad times. Enjoy the rest of November.
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