I have always considered myself unique; I always had this sense that I was somehow extraordinary and memorable. Perhaps this conviction makes me not give anything my best shot.
As contradicting as the statement above is, it is true.
I grew up in a family of six—allow me to rephrase that: I am the fourth child of six children. I was the last born for four years before my sister came along and ruined the fun.
Well, not for long. Then came along my other sister and ruined her fun, too. Talk about karma.
Well, I am still the last-born boy, so yeah, that is still a win. My dad passed away when I was nine years old, leaving my mom pregnant with a child and five children to cater for by herself. Then, my uncle came along and whisked me away to live with him and my cousins.
Now you understand why I rephrased the second paragraph.
This essay is not a story of my childhood but rather a story of 120 days of fear, rejection, and fear that my body will reject me and leave me high and dry.
In almost three decades, I have met many people, none of whom have come close to my level of strangeness.
Like everyone else from an educated African family, the way of life has always been: go to school, get a job, do your family dues, get married, raise a bunch of kids, retire, and if you’re lucky enough to get to this level, die.
It’s sad, I know! But that’s the life most of us will live.
I was lucky enough that my father's siblings decided to take up my schooling, so I got to go to a higher institution, a university of higher learning, as they say.
Did I learn anything? Well, you will have to find out.
I had dreams; when I was younger, I thought the town I grew up in was the whole world, that nothing existed outside it, and I was at peace with that. In my childhood mind, my father, mother, and siblings were all that mattered to me.
Then the worst happened—I grew up.
After secondary school, what Americans call high school, gaining admission to a university wasn’t easy. I lowered my standards with each passing year till I eventually settled to study a course I wouldn’t typically have studied if everything had worked out according to plan.
A couple of months after my secondary school education, my mother had a stroke attack. I cannot begin to tell you how this event affected me and my whole family; it was a heartbreaking experience to see how someone so filled with life turned into a vegetable overnight in an African country where healthcare is almost non-existent, a country where superstitious beliefs are the order of the day.
Trust me, you wouldn’t want to be in such a situation.
I returned to live with my mother after spending three years with my uncle. I was nine when I left and returned when I was twelve, still pretty young. It took a while for my sisters to realize I was their brother, not some stranger who came to live with them; I didn’t blame them. They were both six and three years old.
After secondary school, the next phase is to apply to a higher institution. You write many exams, and if you pass them, you move on to a supposedly better future and feel good about yourself. If you fail the exams, you get to feel terrible about yourself and try again the following year.
Now pair this phase with having a sick mother, and you get a not-so-good scenario. Eventually, you enter a university after compromising on your standards and settling for less. Turns out the university is not what it’s cracked up to be.
You spend most of your time being broke and going through your contacts to see who you can ask for money. If you are lucky, you see someone who might show compassion toward you and send you something. Suppose you are not, well! Better luck next time!
The festivities come, Christmas and the New Year celebrations, and you travel home to celebrate with your family because, let’s face it, the year wasn’t easy, but we overcame it.
Then, one day, while you are all gathered under the moonlight and sipping elixirs made from the oldest plants in the world and communicating with the gods, your brother mentions securing a loan and all that blah, blah, blah.
You move on from the conversation, but you hold on to that possibility in your mind: the possibility of you getting a loan. And you did; you got the loan.
After Christmas and New Year celebrations, everybody moves back to their respective houses and realities, and the uncertainties that you left behind are patiently waiting for you, looking forward to giving you a warm, unwanted hug. Hate it all you want, but you will get that unwanted hug.
So you get the hug, and one night, after feeling sad for yourself, you chat up your brother and remind him about the loan you all talked about back home, and you apply for it, and after a couple of months of back and forth, you got the loan; good for you!
You got the loan and every headache that comes with a loan; what if I default?
So yeah! I got the loan and started working on a business idea. Well, it turns out the loan wasn’t as rosy as I had earlier thought. However, I proceeded, rented a shop, did a bunch of renovations, bought machines for the business, printed business cards, printed banners, and set to open the business in a month.
One night, after a business consultation, I got on a motorcycle to head back home, shades on, earpiece in both ears, my mind thinking about my business working capital. The time was around 9:30 pm, and then it happened; I was on the floor, dazed, bleeding, and couldn’t move my right leg.
A car had knocked down the motorcycle I was on, and I landed on my right knee, slid on my left rib, bruising it, and broke my right knee joint into two parts, but I didn’t know this immediately.
After getting knocked down, many people surrounded me, and some asked me, can you stand? Can you lift your legs? Unlock your phone. Can we call someone for you? While all that was going on, another voice was saying, hold your phone, there are thieves here, and then an argument broke out between people saying there are thieves here, and people saying who are you calling a thief?
One of the passersby lifted me and dropped me into the car of the person who hit the motorcycle I was on. We drove to the nearest police station, spent a few minutes there, and then to a medical center.
The upper part of the back of my feet tore when I landed on the floor after getting knocked down by the car, and the nurses on duty sewed it together without giving me anything for the pain; welcome to Nigeria.
They just poured methylated spirit on the surface of the cut, pierced me with a needle and thread, and started sewing away like a fashion apprentice on their first day.
While this was happening, I was twisting and turning on the bed they placed me on, and the only thing the nurse could say was: don’t injure me, don’t hold my hand, leave me alone.
It was hell! And then it was over; well, not entirely.
After stitching the cut on the back of my feet, the nurse moved on to my left ribs, grabbed a bottle of methylated spirit, and poured it on my open bruise. God! It was painful! She dabbed cotton wool in methylated spirit and pressed it on the open bruise. I grabbed her hand, and she freed herself and said: it’s for your good, so it doesn’t get infected.
After all this torture, they discharged me and said I can go home.
Oh! I forgot how they yanked my right leg, and because I could move it, they concluded my leg was fine. How wrong they were.
A friend helped me home, and he carried me inside. Funny, isn’t it? I walked out of my house with my two legs, and here I was, unable to walk.
In the first week, I was hopeful that I would get back on my feet a maximum of two weeks. I used hot water to massage the leg and applied a Neurogesic cream. I couldn’t walk or hop on my left leg due to my bruised left side, so whenever I wanted to use the convenience, my friends would help me.
I would place my right arm on their neck and slowly move to the bathroom; this was difficult with a tall person.
I couldn’t lie on my left because of my bruised left side, and I couldn’t lie on my right because of my injured right leg, so when I’m not sitting down, I am lying on my back.
The swelling in my right leg reduced in the second week, and my bruised left side started to heal. I was happy with this improvement and said, 'By next week, I will be fine to go out and start my business.' I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The third week came, and as I tried walking, a sharp, piercing pain shot through my joints. Despite ignoring it and persisting, I still couldn’t walk. After three weeks of being unable to walk, I decided to go for an X-ray of my right leg.
Now able to hop on my left leg since my left ribs had completely healed, I underwent an X-ray examination of my right knee, completed the procedure, and waited about an hour for the results. Silently praying in my mind, I hoped it was nothing serious.
The radiographer finally gave me the result after a prolonged wait. Tearing open the envelope, I saw multiple joint fractures and associated swelling. Showing the result to my friend who had accompanied me, he exclaimed, 'Fracture! Fracture?'
He was angrier than I was, discussing how we needed to locate the driver whose car hit me and make him cover all the hospital bills. Meanwhile, I was lost and didn’t know where to start.
We got home, and I went on Google to search for orthopedic clinics near me. I found a couple, wrote down their numbers, called the one closest to me, and booked an appointment. Early the next day, I hopped to the bathroom, completed my morning routine, applied hot water, and put Neurogesic cream on the affected leg.
I hoped the doctor would tell me, 'It’s nothing serious; you'll be fine in two weeks.'
We arrived at the doctor’s office and had to wait a few minutes because they were in their morning devotion. After the devotion, I got documented, paid for a card, and covered all the initial registration fees. Finally, I went in to see the doctor.
I handed him my X-ray result, and he looked at it, stared at me, and said, 'I thought you said this wasn’t much?'
He entered his office, took the X-ray film, and placed it under light. After a couple of minutes, he came out with the bad news. Taking out a pen and paper, he drew a human joint, divided the joints into parts, and said, 'Young man, this is the current state of your leg.'
Like that, my hope for a two-week recovery went out the window.
The doctor continued, explaining the three methods of treatment. 'If you are wealthy, you can go for the first method, surgery. The first procedure involves opening up the joint and inserting screws to hold the bones together, costing about $2000. Now, this is a substantial amount in Nigeria. The second method uses an imported cast to immobilize the leg, priced at approximately $300. The last method is utilizing a local cast, which would cost about $200 but comes with many disadvantages.'
Expressing these amounts in dollars might make them seem small, but none of these options were affordable.
I thanked him, bid him goodbye, and left for home. On the ride home, my friend talked about how we needed to locate the driver responsible for this incident and make him pay all these bills.
Once home, I started calling and informing my brothers and relatives, attempting to raise funds for the casting procedure because the surgery was too expensive.
I had not shared anything with them earlier, believing I would recover quickly.
When I called my uncle, he asked me why I hadn’t informed anyone sooner. You can’t argue with someone you're seeking financial help from, so I apologized and explained how sorry I was for keeping the information from them.
I went to another hospital to get a second opinion, and they were shocked at how I had been moving about for three weeks.
After the medical consultation, I scheduled my cast procedure for the next day. I left the hospital and went home and updated my uncle about what happened in the new hospital, and he said okay and sent me $70 the next day.
I called him and said thanks, and he wished me well. I went for the casting procedure the next day, and the 120 days of feelings, God, and one medical emergency from penury began.
The discomfort of the plaster cast was more painful than the broken bone itself, and most of all, the pain I felt was mainly from the financial implications of the injury.
I had $600 for my business working capital and the $70 my uncle sent me.
However, with no job and facing a long recovery process, financial challenges loomed.
To provide context, I had just finished university with no savings or job.
Some of my siblings had entered the workforce, and the rest were still in school, so they couldn’t support me financially, leaving me with no support except my uncle and the working capital for the business I wanted to start.
The plaster cast extended from my upper thigh to the sole of my feet, forcing me to lie on my back mostly.
Sitting on a chair was impossible, so I sat on the floor whenever my back started aching.
I wore the plaster cast for three months, and those were the longest days and nights of my life. About three friends came over and stayed for a couple of days, which meant extra mouths to feed. I couldn’t exactly say, 'Thanks for coming to check on me, guys; your feeding is on you, folks.'
I had four mouths to feed, including mine, painkillers to buy, medical checkups, X-ray examinations to ensure the bones were coming together nicely, and utility bills — all these expenses came from my business working capital.
I was distressed emotionally, financially, and physically.
With no health insurance to cover my medical bills and no job to keep me afloat, it was a very dark 120 days of my life.
In Nigeria, the positive impacts of governments are non-existent and not felt by the average civilians, but the negative impacts hit us like a hurricane. We fix our bad roads, provide electricity through generators, create jobs for ourselves, make less than $1 per day, and ensure our security through vigilantes.
Our security forces harass and intimidate us while our governments plunder our resources and enrich themselves and their families. We are our government.
My mother was the strongest woman I know; she was a widow who fought for her kids. She knew what to do and when to do it, endured, and never once complained. When she came down with a stroke for the first time, we rallied around, spent her savings, and got her better; she recovered.
Then she had another stroke attack and sadly never recovered from it. After five years of battling with the stroke, years of therapy, and various medicines, she eventually gave up the ghost.
My mother would have recovered from her second stroke attack if she had the necessary help.
We live in a country where you are on your own, a country where you are one medical emergency away from begging in the streets. A country where civilians have given up on the government and simply let them do as they please. A country where our only help is from God.
There were nights I would cry to sleep, there were nights I would yank at the plaster cast and attempt to rip it off, and there were nights I would ask God, how did this happen to me? What sin have I committed?
There were days I would pray to God to heal me, so I would attempt to walk, believing my prayers had miraculously healed my fractured joint.
I was born into a Catholic family, but I never took Christianity or anything that involves God too seriously. I ran and avoided people who mentioned God; to me, they were all delusional.
I knew God existed but didn’t want anything to do with him. I was an Apatheist.
In the period of the 120 days, I faced my hypocrisy and told myself: you pray to God when you are sick and in pain and flee from him when everything is going well for you. You ask God to protect you from the snares of the evil of this world, but don’t give him reverence. You want him to fight your battle, but don’t keep his commandments.
Furthermore, you mock those who open up about their faith and call them all kinds of names. If you had a child that treats you this way, would you still come through for him?
After this dialogue with myself, I decided to be intentional with my spiritual journey, to get closer to God, to keep his commandments, and declare my love for him. I am not there yet, but I will get there by God's grace.
With each day that came by, my working capital depleted till I eventually burned through it.
After three months, I went to the hospital to have the cast removed.
I started working with the leg after three weeks of cast removal. I can walk fully now. I have recovered my range of motion but cannot run on the leg. I hope that will happen in the future.
My mother's medical emergency and mine have taught me a lot of lessons and inspired this story.
Some I would write subsequently. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Thank you!
