Desert Island Discs: Beyond losing everything

Beyond What You’ve Heard

My journey through the past episodes of Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 continues, and I am just into December 2013. I once took notes on the music and choices made by people who have left footprints in the sands of time. Even some guests who appeared up to two decades ago are now centenarians; I guess I just keep looking up the people and their stories.

“Now whenever I finish something I take some photographs and say 'goodbye'. When you lose everything, you realise that the only thing you have is what's in your head.” Barbara Hulanicki

She is known for being the co-founder of the London fashion store Biba in the 1960s. A bit of trivia: Anna Wintour became an employee of Biba at the age of 15. However, the latter part of the quote resonated with me.

Amazing Spirit Power

When I lost everything, I had more than just what was in my head in terms of knowledge and experience; I had memories, but most of all, I had hope.

Hope, however, may not be sustainable when it is just in the head, a part of your mind and emotions. I believe, as a matter of faith, that I am sustained by my spirit, and that hope is enlivened by the spirit, giving life to the things you imagine.

The spirit of a man sustains him in sickness, but as for a broken spirit, who can bear it? [Bible Hub: Proverbs 18:14 (Amplified)]

I have encountered much adversity, illness, and misfortune that ordinarily I could never have endured, let alone survived. My spirit, however, like a dynamo, keeps going, giving strength to my soul and body.

That is the story I get to tell. Losing everything is not the end of living; rather, from the inner reaches of your spirit, you find the seeds of new growth: the hope and imagination that create the experience of a new life, purpose, and reasons to be thankful and full of gratitude for the gift of life and the people you get to share it with.

Thought Picnic: Just trying to be human

Usually totally misread

The way it creeps upon you is strange and unsettling; I try to keep constant what I can control, while letting go of the things that seem expendable, as much as possible. I suppose people see in me a disposition that never suggests I could be as vulnerable, so when I do feel it, it is often read as something else.

I was shocked when I was asked if I had an idea to end it all; though I’ve faced overwhelming situations, I have opposed them firmly with positivity and hope. What I want to be remembered for is quite different from what that might suggest. Put that under the rubric of concern, I was advised.

I am aware that I always want to tell a better story. Those who think they know me rarely sense that sometimes I’m not feeling social or wanting to go out. Usually, when I am alone, I am more of a loner, an introvert, even if I express myself too candidly with words, generally well put together.

What I really feel

Yet, to the question about how I do feel in myself, I can never be negative, even if I do not feel the way I want to feel. It’s an intrusive but understandable question, yet even in my relationships, you’d hardly see past the surface; genuine closeness and physical intimacy are needed to see beneath.

By pressing on, I have avoided exposing my vulnerability, lack of desire, or disinterest. That feels like a luxury I can ill afford, given the demands placed on me to respond, engage, reach out, contribute, be present, and consider others' perspectives, often at the expense of myself.

There was a time I could shut myself away completely — curtains drawn, indoors for days, like Miss Havisham, who’s never stopped her clocks — but no one truly understands that need for occasional hibernation. Yes, I do value solitude and being alone.

I have lost my weakness

Much of this stems from repeated experiences of abandonment across different stages of life, including during illness, where my coping mechanism masks deeper suffering. Even my way of recovering downplays the seriousness of what I face; what people see and what is real are often different.

Heck, Akin, you had a malignant cancer diagnosis just over a year ago, and during those critical moments — from diagnosis, decisions, to treatment while working every day — you faced it largely alone.

I didn’t take a break until a month after radiotherapy, as I realised I had exhausted much resilience and needed someone to lean on, despite many challenges and the feeling that seeking help was somehow wrong.

We are never depressed

There’s so much I want to say, but I can’t put it into words. I have weaknesses easily overlooked because of the 'firstborn syndrome' and the idea that I am a pillar of strength. It’s a constant struggle to live up to that myth, as if I’m superhuman, when I am simply human.

We are never truly depressed — this would be an incomplete reflection, and I don’t want to be scrutinised or given poor advice based on assumptions. We don’t all fit preconceptions or boxes, but others rarely understand when someone’s difference doesn’t match their frame of reference.

How many allowances can be made for others? In the depths of the night, I hear a cry: “Please, don’t forget me.” Just as I want to reply, “Hold yourself together,” I realise I have to cater to these pleas — and it’s a pipe dream to think I’ll always be looked after.

I am tired, not of living, but of constantly meeting others’ expectations, which strains my mental resources, making me want to retreat into my own cocoon. Obligations, responsibilities, duties, commitments, demands — all of it. Yes, that sense of depression can creep in strange and unsettling ways.

Lest I forget, Africans are never depressed when you have the weight of expectations pressing down on you.

Adopting a healthy work regime after illness

Managing oneself back to work

My return to work after extended sick leave, was not structured or phased, because I did not plunge straight back into the work activities before my leave. Considering I worked through my radiotherapy treatment and for a month afterwards, despite the fatigue and sometimes-overwhelming side effects, I put in the hours, the time, and the effort to meet my obligations.

However, there was a point when I needed more support beyond living alone at home, along with a proper rest period to really recover. This led me to undertake the long journey to Cape Town for the care Brian could provide that was beneficial for my recovery.

I eventually spoke with an occupational health professional, who suggested we adjust the work schedule on the parameters of volume, pace, and complexity. I was comfortable with handling complexity; I was ready for that challenge. However, managing volume and pace was something I had to learn through engagement.

Handling pressure before feeling overwhelmed

Implicit in this approach was a sense of pressure; the way urgencies, priorities, and dependencies demanded more from me to meet deadlines, often without the usual flexibility that would involve discussing the reasonableness with relevant stakeholders.

There was one occasion when an architect, discovering that a crucial piece of work—on which the entire deployment depended—had fallen through the cracks, suddenly created a lot of pressure on me, with the message that everything would pause if I didn't find a solution.

At that moment, I felt like a giant had stepped on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Recognising this reaction, I pushed back at once, saying that we would proceed methodically, and I would not shoulder the pressure caused by this oversight.

At that time, I informed my line manager, not seeking support, but making him aware that the whole issue could escalate because of my resistance to quick fixes.

This architect then committed a clear faux pas by suggesting he entertain my concerns because he didn't want me to cut corners. That was a stance I was never going to let slip. I don’t cut corners; I am a 37-year IT professional. No one at the conference dared intervene; the message was crystal clear.

Maintaining control on your own terms

With the space and time, I was able to find the right elements needed to resolve the problem, and we implemented a solution within 90 minutes. Exercising autonomy without letting pace be dictated by either my own failings or others’ is essential.

Despite modulating elements of my return to work, I find myself in the office for 9 to 12 hours, sometimes more. I tend to get absorbed in a situation, aiming to resolve, manage, or finish the task before I leave for home.

This occurs alongside lingering side effects such as urinary incontinence, bowel urgency, and nightly insomnia. The insomnia, I manage by sleeping as much as I can on weekends. Things are not perfect, but I am finding better ways to cope than before.

In terms of occupational health, I simply wanted awareness about side effects, fatigue, and hospital appointments. Beyond that, I believe I am meeting and surpassing my aims and goals, but I also need to be smart about it.

Sam: Most impactful in lowly endeavour

Beyond the strength we have

Understanding and appreciating frailty after illness or treatment for disease can be a difficult thing. We strive as much as possible to get back to normalcy even if our bodies suggest we are nowhere near the capacity for the abilities we once had.

The bodily stresses of fatigue, lethargy, weakness, or tiredness are signals requiring action from rest to additional medical attention towards some sort of resolution. The life and circumstances we live in harshly dictate the reality of there being no pills for the bills.

Even where we have a cushion of support to banish the concern of livelihood, we need some sort of activity to take our minds off infirmity and adversity. Having lived through this sort of thing, I am quite acquainted with the issues involved.

Escaping illness for work

Attending the office this morning, I was met with some rather sad news, the lady who maintains and cleans the office, with whom I have had a good rapport had passed on. I saw her barely 3 weeks ago, it was my first time back in the office since before I commenced radiotherapy in September.

We had a few conversations, a big catchup from the end of June when she had been in hospital for an extended period and though she was back at work, she looked rather gaunt and frail, we were both glad to see each other. It never occurred to me that it would be the last time.

The shock of learning of her demise was quite unsettling, someone would suggest she returned to work much earlier than necessary, but how do you gauge the right time to return to work if all your life you have espoused dignity in labour? Call some of us old-fashioned, we’d rather work than get by on handouts or welfare.

The value in everyone

For those who can game the system to exist in indolence, there can be no praise or adulation. I guess it belies the flaws in the system. To live a purposeful life is what matters. Sam, as I remember her was forthright, clear-minded, tough, and engaging. I remember my father not wanting me to converse with the help, but how could we be in proximity and not engage?

Sam’s work kept the office environment clean, conducive, clear, and comfortable. She was as much a member of our team as anyone else, if not one of the most important of us all for what she did, for without her contributions, no one would consider the office a place to work.

As I have always taken my time to chat to everyone most especially the cleaners, she would be sorely missed. May her gentle soul rest in peace. Her light has gone but her memory remains.

Celebrating a return from illness

Many happy returns

One of the hallmarks of recovery is the blessing of returning to doing the things you used to do. After my treatment for cancer in 2010 and the regaining of strength, I travelled from Amsterdam to Antwerp. It was my first international travel in over half a year; I used to travel internationally, at least once a month.

Illness comes with privations, first obviously with health and then another pressing issue is one of means, your resources seem to not stretch as much as they used to, whether you are earning or not. The way I view things, living is wonderful and living well comes with grace and favour, for which I give thanks and praise.

Daring for strength

While going to Cape Town in November looked like returning to normalcy after cancer treatment, I was far from able, I was quite frail. Embarking on a 22-hour journey from door to door in my condition was both determined and daring, however, it was for the care and support I needed in a time of vulnerability.

It was no holiday, and it did me much good. It was also a time to be with Brian, who doted over me at every step and cautioned me about trying to make a holiday of my recuperation, much as I desired not to have our time together left to the travails of just being nursed. It stretched our resources, but needs must.

The toll of return

I was last in the office the day before I commenced radiotherapy, as I left my workplace, I indicated I might be away for a while and did not know when I would be attending again. My return to the office last Wednesday was postponed to yesterday because of the inclement weather. We have a monthly gathering of Manchester-located members of my team who meet with the head honcho.

My managers were concerned about my facility, ability, and strength to attend, but I had missed my team, the last gathering I attended was in August.

I was up quite early and altered my route to avoid carrying my trolley case up and down steps. It was still dark when I left home, we are in the winter months, and I returned home in the dark too.

Striving over wilting

The day was successful, I had forms to fill in and return on my phased return to work. My voice was hardly in fine form, it exhibited tiredness and fatigue, but I never shirked from conversation or repartee. Everyone seemed pleased to see me, they came to my desk to ascertain how well I was doing, and every serious situation quickly dampened with humour.

By the middle of the day, I was beginning to wilt. Drinking decaffeinated tea is not an elixir by any stretch of the imagination; I just had to push through.

I was not inclined to engage in a harebrained scheme that involved messy activity, but it percolated in my absence as someone still wanted it realised. I gave my candid verdict, and a discussion tomorrow might help shape expectations.

Taking things easy

What yesterday taught me was that while I have every inclination to believe that I can fully return to work, the reality is that I need to pace myself as my strength and body are not yet operating at optimum capacity.

On getting home, I undressed and was already dozing off as I spoke to Brian about my day. I was exhausted, but for the day, I made great progress. I am grateful for that. As for my next return to the office, I cannot tell, it is working from home for the near future.

Thought Picnic: Sometimes forgetting cancer is tough living

Misreading activity in illness

Sometimes, it takes another to bring a clear perspective to situations and things that you are in the middle of, leaving you blindsided to realities around you or impairing your objectivity and sense of judgment.

It is something you really cannot put your finger on, that you lack the mode of expression to convey. Worse still, when you find yourself writing about these issues, people might conclude everything is going well, if you can still write.

This recalls the period in late September into early October 2009, I was gravely ill and admitted to hospital and yet from my hospital bed, I was blogging, my brother assumed, if I was still blogging, I was fine. Little did anyone know that at prognosis, the worst-case scenario was I only had 5 weeks to live.

Looking on the bright side

In my two encounters with cancer, that we have taken the more positive view of a life-threatening situation does not change the fact that life hangs in the balance. Maybe the biggest battle is in the head rather than with cancer, the question being what your outlook is about a cancer diagnosis and what you hope for.

Then, even when people lose their battles with cancer, that does not mean they have not had great positivity through their ordeal, the cancer simply overwhelmed their bodies. I still aver that those of us who survive cancer have been fortunate to still be around to tell our stories, it gives us all some hope amid shifting odds.

It was quite serious

I am still grappling with the notion that in late June last year, after the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the prostate, I found in the doctors’ notes to each other that it was malignant. That information was never shared with me, and it took days for me to share the information with Brian. It came with a blank stare into an abyss, I did not know what to expect. I took each day as it came.

There was foreboding that anything could be the last time it was being done, but I had to put that kind of thinking away. The battle raging in my mind needed tools to see the better of things and I worked on bolstering my Christian faith by listening to sermons on faith, healing, and living well. I had to see myself getting better while a killer lurked in my reproductive system.

Just a mechanical switch

Gosh! Thanks to Wikipedia, it all makes sense now, “The prostate is an accessory gland of the male reproductive system and a muscle-driven mechanical switch between urination and ejaculation. It is found in all male mammals.” [Wikipedia: Prostate] The simplicity of a mechanical switch and the trouble I have seen, I am thankful for every great and small mercy.

I chose radiotherapy over surgery because I felt the prognosis and time to regaining the mechanical switching function having possibly lost the ejaculatory part and having little or no control of the urinary part would be long, arduous, and debilitating. Radiation would target the cancer regions, retain the switching mechanism, with varying side effects affecting bowel, bladder, and sexual function managed with medication and some lifestyle changes.

Strength even in illness and recovery

Much as I seemed to power through this experience, very few people saw the real effects and consequences of tackling this cancer apart from my partner, my closest friends, my neighbours, my colleagues as my natural voice became strained - a fatigue-laden expression, and some limited social encounters.

What I have to appreciate for myself is recovery and recuperation will take time, willing myself to do much more to regain a new sense of normalcy, I shy away from the expression, “out of the woods”, I am not in a forest of doom and despair, rather, I find myself on a journey to a wonderland of beauty, strength, and success , all obstacles giving way to a superior vehicle, the power of human faith to thrive in the midst of adversity.

While cancer is a rotten disease and the process of treatment and recovery can be debilitating, energy-sapping, and incapacitating, whatever strength one has can give one the impetus to look ahead, not because one is not ill, but there is much more to look forward to. I will not be defined by cancer; it is just part of a bigger story.

It took one friend to highlight how the last two years have been rather tough when another friend was too absorbed in himself to notice. Another story.

Men's things - XX

Insist and be insistent

Some encounters with the medical establishment can be unbelievably sublime and others exhibit inertia and obduracy, you might find pulling teeth a greater pleasure to enjoy. Here I was trying to get a sick note that I was told was easily obtainable and assured would be ready on Monday only to meet with a bureaucratic reluctance to fulfil what clearly everyone concerned knows is needed.

As with these things, I insisted against their prevarication, eventually someone cottoned on the idea that I was here for new excuses or postponements, something had to be done and so they sought out a late shift doctor and somehow found a stache of ‘Statement of Fitness for Work’ forms to be annotated and initialled by the doctor.

Their first attempt was clumsy, signing me totally off activities and the hospital stamp was upside-down. My reaction brought a reconsideration, and they did it properly with the caveats I wanted. It was an easy enough job with the will and opportunity to do it, hardly an encumbrance, this is a hospital, for crying out loud.

Just that spike is all you need

As I was chatting to a doctor, I also felt I could ask about the last two blood tests conducted a fortnight before my first radiotherapy session, my glimpse of the blood form indicated both the Prostate-antigen specific (PSA) and testosterone levels. I could not find the results anywhere as they were not communicated to my GP.

My PSA had fallen to within normal levels and testosterone was reading levels on the low side of the normal range. There must have been some other indicators in earlier blood tests to suggest I did not need hormone therapy before radiotherapy as testosterone has never been in the cachet of tests I have done before.

If I had not unilaterally pursued the need to recalibrate readings from my blood tests in February towards remediation by intervention, we would never have been on this track to discover prostate cancer and it might have been seething and growing undercover, but for that spike in my PSA in March that forced an investigation.

Do the graft on your bloodwork

It is no doubt incumbent that anyone with a modicum of literacy must take immediate interest and seek to understand what the results of blood tests are whether they fall in the normal ranges for your demographic and where they do not, ask questions and be unrelenting until this is explained in the simplest of terms. Err towards interventionism than otherwise, cancer is not something you wait and see grow like a wild weed in your body.

Demand answers and seek a second or even third opinion, speak with experts and learn all you can to be sure you are getting the best treatment towards the most beneficial outcomes. If you must go private and have the means to do so, do not count the cost and end up paying a costlier price.

The goal is the best outcomes

It took 7 months to get from my first request for a blood test to where the prostate cancer is being effectively treated with radiotherapy. I will cover in more detail sometime in the future, why I opted for radical radiotherapy over a radical prostatectomy. It was about the post-treatment quality of life more than anything else.

If anything, and for about 15 years, I have learnt and understood that your biggest advocate for the best outcomes when engaging the medical community is you, your voice, your initiative, your instigation, and your relentlessness. You are the centre of your diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic options. Remember, it is always your body first before it is their Guinea pig, that premise is non-negotiable.

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In Telling: The spirit that sustains

Strength from within

I sometimes think about the effects of illness and how vulnerability and infirmity change your outlook, your inadequacies are exposed in ways you can never have been prepared for, and you are left with just your spirit to sustain you through it all.

In many ways, you cannot account from further than the next tick of the clock, for the pain, you can only have so much medication to dull it without putting you into a stupor because you still need to function in some way.

Then you wonder about the incredible resilience of our being, for whether we survive or not, there is no accounting for the strength that we usually never know we had. It is like you are tested to the limit and then some, if your body can just tolerate what it is put to it, providence and fortune might give you a story to tell.

In the passage of time

I am humbled by my experience and then I think about the fact that when I went for the Spring booster the NHS website failed to provide adequate information for when I was registering, I am not considered in a vulnerable cohort of the immunosuppressed, because my CD4 count is not over double the minimum threshold, though I think my medical history should make me eligible.

Whether it is good or bad news is beside the point, what I cannot afford at any time is to contract the Coronavirus and so, I still wear my face mask in enclosed places, avoid crowded spaces, and take necessary precautions. That is just how life is today.

A story to tell

I was chatting to my best friend last week and he asked that I consider writing about serious illness, how people face it, and how we try to get beneficial outcomes against the onslaught of the medical establishment which may not always be acting in our favour, especially when the experts are too arrogant and self-important to listen to our own perspective of what we are going through and what it is we need.

I am not quite sure of how this would go, but I can only write about my own experience and I hope those who read my story might find something of help or usefulness, I guess that is just what I will do.

Feyike: 5 years on and the memories

My kidulthood was over

You were the reason mummy called me into her bedroom one late evening to have our first adult conversation, she was probably in her second trimester with you when I, totally oblivious and that is strange having been schooled in noticing when girls get pregnant with the whitening of their eyes and their constant spitting, along with the morning sickness. Maybe it was the familiarity, for apart from my immediate sister, I had never really noticed when my mother was expecting, the babies just arrived after a few days away.

Anyway, the conversation went along the lines of, I am an older woman now, as she was just shy of 40 and I 17, exactly a month after her landmark year, well, our birthdays have always been a month apart in and out of leap years. Yes, an older woman having a baby, and this was unexpected, but we now have to pull together and recognise that some responsibilities would fall on us over time.

My deception was complete

Much as she felt that this information should be shared with me, I was not having the best adolescence, my first year at Lagos State College of Science and Technology was going to be an unmitigated disaster doing Chemical Engineering, my performance was woeful, it was not even good enough to be asked to repeat the class.

Meanwhile, I had pulled a switch to Yaba College of Technology (YabaTech for short) for Electrical Engineering where the faculty had to be given proof that I was still 16 when we had the admissions interview, the underlying issue that many would call unseriousness and was patently clinical depression, carried along into that stint, I just rarely understood why I was in a class, the new beginnings for mother and child too divergent for concern or consideration.

My situation was dire

What would a nursing mother do with a child who is supposed to be smart but cannot understand anything going on in his lectures? I had never used drugs, that was not the problem, I just had a fog in my head that I could not clear, that religion became the steadying rail for my mental health until things began to clear up was the background in which Feyike arrived.

That week in which Feyike was born was when I moved into the YabaTech hostels, I was a parents’ nightmare, for when my mother was in hospital I had stolen money out of the kitty in her wardrobe and then had to face an inquiry against the conviction that she put aside some money and it had somehow disappeared, indeed, I was a nightmare, everything I could do wrong, I did.

My behaviour was atrocious

For the hostel, I snagged that by writing to the accommodations department that I could not stay with my uncle, even my parents found a copy of that letter when I did not arrive home on time having been on the new students’ jaunt to Badagry and Cotonou. I guess I was excused serious punishment that my father was always ready to mete out when I explained the situation.

I did not attend Feyike’s naming ceremony and for that, I faced the full wrath of my father, this weedy kid against the brute force of an angry and menacing bully, I asked for it and I got a lot, I never escaped being a child. Some encounters with my father in those times have so defined the quality of our relationship since then.

My religion was unhelpful

As I was rarely home, I did not know much about the illness that put my baby sister in hospital many times, and sometimes for weeks. I returned home once to lift her and there must have a dislocation in her arm, we soothed her with lullabies and lulled her to sleep. Many times, I prayed fervent prayers for her healing, hoping for a miracle and much else, but there was a radical change in our family unit.

Medicine only seemed to provide temporary outcomes, my mother’s inclination was she was in deep spiritual warfare for the soul of her first son and the life of her last daughter, she found a prophet that had some answers to whatever ailed all of us and got stuck in. My father with all pretensions of rationality hated religion even if he did the basic church attendance and community group activities, he could be persuaded to do the full fetish rituals, which had the accoutrements of the macabre. I saw a lot and said very little.

My knowledge was deficient

Invariably, I never knew how ill our Feyike became over the years for most of the time I visited home, she was in remission from another hospital visit or bout of illness, everything I know I have learnt mostly after the fact.

When I was told that she had fallen very ill some years before her passing, I made enquiries through some doctor friends of mine on Twitter, they found the medical notes and history that for her apparently chronic illness she had not been adherent to her medical regimes.

Probably, a trait in our family, we hate medical regimes, it took a medical emergency for me to face up to the reality of my own situation, and now, I have been on at least 3 pills a day for over 12 years. It is just part of my life.

My mourning was early

She had end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis thrice-weekly dialysis and consequently needed a kidney transplant for hers had stopped functioning. I saw a medical abyss ahead, and began to mourn, long before we knew much more, the system in Nigeria, I did not think could sustain her dire medical needs and my sisters put everything they had into trying to keep her alive.

We were somewhat in a losing battle, and towards the end, Feyike herself was donating money raised for her own treatment to others. On the morning of the 18^th of October 2016, my middle sister called, Feyike had left us.

My sister was my daughter

The way our story was intertwined seems to be much more around what I was going through than what her own experiences were because I had left home in the second year of her childhood and everything else I know of her is through conversation than observation. Yet, she to me felt more like a daughter than a sister, she would have been the sole beneficiary of my estate, it was her name on the life insurance policy I took out when I bought my apartment in the Netherlands in 2001.

Maybe, I was something like an absent father, one she knew was somewhere out there in the periphery, not intruding but interested, I cannot tell. I know I miss the snatches of conversation we used to have, the hopes and dreams that seeped into the ever-present sense of hopelessness that something might just change for the better.

She lived her life and when she died, it was a great release from lifelong suffering and disease, a baby, a girl, a lady, a woman, a person who touched our lives in immeasurable ways, some difficult to put in words, but time becomes a store of the fondest memories that can never be forgotten, recalled for sombre occasions like this.

 

Oluwafeyikewa, 4^th November 1982 – 18th October 2016.

But for the joy of being an antelope

Hours of waiting and waiting

In 5 weeks of events that was somewhat out of my control dictated by my apparent susceptibility to a water-borne infection, it started with my boyfriend noticing in a conversation that I was not particularly myself.

Against my protestations, he contacted my best friend and then a close friend in Manchester, between them, they decided I needed emergency hospital attention that led to an ambulance being called. We were assured the ambulance would arrive in 2 hours whilst the numbing discomfort like a tyre around my waist left me almost slipping into a kind of delirium without passing out.

Over 5 hours after the call for ambulance services, the medics arrived and after checking my vitals decided I was best attended to in a hospital. A GP had called me to assess my condition and her view was I probably needed to be in a hospital. At the hospital, I was immediately seen to and a cannula inserted to my arm. There was another almost 6-hour wait from a doctor could attend to me. I was up all night, arriving at 11:25PM until just before 6:00AM.

Not ill enough to be promptly seen

Sat in the waiting area, we watched the walking wounded arrive and because I seemed to be comfortable sitting down, my situation was not considered an emergency. A patient walked in spilling blood all over the floor and it took over 2 hours before the contract cleaner nonchalantly considered it important to clean up. He ignored the issue concentrating on other mundane things as if he was only going to clean the floor at a scheduled time, regardless of whether the blood on the floor constituted a health hazard.

On seeing the doctor, I was admitted and placed in an assessment room where I was given broad spectrum antibiotics and electrolytes, the prognosis at the time was for a few days of treatment as an in-patient.

Discharged with pills

During my 8-hour admission, I found myself recounting my condition to a doctor, a medical student, and a consultant. Eventually, it was decided I could be discharged with additional antibiotics to be taken 4 times a day, to return on Saturday for a check-up where again, I was put on electrolytes because I had basically lost my strength.

For what seemed a benign condition, the recovery was much longer than I could have anticipated, it took weeks to begin to regain my strength during which I lost about 6 kilograms. My GP ordered new blood tests and an ultrasound scan of my kidneys.

Persistent irritation reviewed again

Meanwhile, what was diagnosed as both an inflammation of my kidneys and a urinary tract infection did not seem to deal with the urinary tract issue. This prompted my visit to a sexual health clinic and another regime of antibiotics for non-specific urethritis, this cleared up the problem whilst no further diagnosis was made.

My recuperation has made considerable progress that for my scheduled ultrasound scan today, I decided to walk up to the hospital, something that would not have been eventful. I walked past a man too engrossed in viewing his mobile phone to concerned about others as he slightly obstructed access to the traffic lights on the pavement. I crossed the road not giving to much thought to it.

A few minutes later, he was in a chase of a thief who had snatched his mobile phone and made away on a bicycle. There was nothing he could do but rue the moment and carry on with the rest of the day, I guess he was a university student.

Steak and kidney not on the menu

I arrived at the hospital early and unusually I was immediately called into the examination room and prepared for the sonographer. The cold gel applied to my stomach gave a slight shock to my system and then I adjusted to the coolness. The sonographer was not giving up anything as I asked whether my kidneys were good enough for a steak and kidney pie. The results of the scan are to come from a consultant rather than the sonographer.

We were done in about 15 minutes before I made for the reception to have the spelling of my surname corrected. In Yoruba, what would normally have translated to ‘being a hero is joy enough’ what the switching of the vowels in the 3^rd and 4^th syllable, became ‘this hero is just an antelope’. That won’t do.

After my hospital appointment, I walked back home on the main road, stopping off at a Starbucks café for about 45 minutes. I guess the results would be back in a couple of weeks, but as the three blood tests, after my admission indicated nothing unusual, I should expect things would be fine in the end. Much of this was made easier to withstand by my friends and I am grateful to them.

Nigeria: Let us include the rite of the autopsy in the burying of the dead

Speculation was rife

The apparently sudden death of Prince Abubakar Audu who was more or less on the cusp of a gubernatorial victory has elicited much commentary on social media.

When the news of his death as we were awaiting the announcement of the electoral results first emerged, I was persuaded to overlook the breaking news and curb my curiosity for the frenzy to dissipate enough for the facts and the truth to emerge.

The only truth that has emerged from this tragic tale is that he is deceased and has been interred according to Islamic rites, everything else with regards to manner of death, cause of death and other extenuating factors has been a matter of accusation, supposition, speculation, conjecture, suggestion, rumour, innuendo and fable. This list is hardly exhaustive.

Nothing really was known

I cannot attribute anything, but in all the reports I have read, there has been mention of cardiac arrest, stroke, poisoning, paranormal activity, voodoo and all sorts of silliness. None of this helps the matter at all.

For all the enlightenment we have acquired, we tend to heighten our superstitious predilections at times of birth, at marriages and at death, even if our general lives are hardly lived in any recognised adherence to faith or religion and the tenets the books require us to espouse to be model examples of our belief systems to our common humanity.

Now, I have no medical training, but the most recent pictures of the man depicted an unhealthy pallor, very much like that of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua when he ailed with nephrological complications that led to his demise.

Besides looking overweight and other deleterious conditions that might evolve from that, it is very likely that there is a clear-cut medical condition that resulted in the man’s death.

Bound to ages gone

Yet, as we live in the 21^st Century, our lives and livelihoods are majorly trumped by belief systems, traditions and cultures that have not evolved for many quincentenaries, that we fail to benefit from the knowledge, logic, reason and developments that have brought humanity to the amazing modernity and comforts of the present times.

One such area we fail to deploy at death is medical examination and autopsies, the advances in modern medicine can in most cases determine the cause of death, not only to put beyond doubt the rife speculations that surround a sudden death, but such knowledge in either a minor or major way can also help the living.

Knowledge from deaths

In cases of cancer, it might cause survivors to check if they might be susceptible to the same  type of cancer especially if there is a genetic predisposition to it. It might aid medical science in know what to look for if anyone presents symptoms that might lead to complications. This is a valuable knowledge that goes beyond the individual and the present tragedy to the greater good of humanity.

Part of what has given medicine the tools to treat many ailments has come from the study of the dead and much as it has from observation of the living. It is sad that one only has to leaf through the pages of a Nigerian newspaper to read obituaries of many of died of a brief illness. The brief illness is a catch-all term that covers everything from a fatal asthma attack, through epileptic fits to cancer discovered so late that nothing could be done beyond providing palliative hospice care.

Bringing reason to belief

Whilst there is nothing wrong with being religious, we allow religiosity to becloud both judgement and reason. In the absence of a modicum of reasonableness compounded by grief and loss, we accentuate a fanatical tendency to fatalism, providence and destiny allowing the burning questions to remain unanswered in submission to the primordial where ignorance becomes the cradle of bliss and succour.

Whether, there is a soul or not, once the force that animates and enlivens the body is gone, we have just a body in the process of decay and disintegration. We must respect the memory of the person departed and treat the body of the said departed with dignity, but there is no rule created in anticipation of the modern times that prevents gaining knowledge from an autopsy.

The rite of the autopsy

In times past, there were probably no means of preserving the dead, the Egyptians of old used mummification and embalmment for their pharaohs, other cultures found burial, cremation or some other means of disposing of their dead. Yet, we attach ourselves to age-old customs at our convenience when at other times we desperately avail ourselves of the benefits of medical science.

We need to rethink this clash of options and the time has come to include the autopsy in the burial rites and have civil law demand that where cause of death is inconclusive or death is sudden, internment will not proceed before medical examination, else the body will be exhumed for final determination.

Please oblige me and blog for my decade of blogging

Once again for the joy and the fun of it

I find myself appealing again; probably it is because I am not that good at passively organising people even though I have had the idea in my head for almost two months.

I think 10 years of blogging is a milestone in itself, it is quite possible though I have no proof that in relation to my affinity to Nigeria, I probably have the longest continuously running Nigerian personal blog to date.

To celebrate this from the 8^th of December, I hope I can get friends, well-wishers, acquaintances and anyone else so inclined to write something for my blog, especially if there is something I have written over the last decade that you have found interesting, useful, silly or funny.

It might well be about me too from my eccentricities through the stupid things I do, say or applaud to the rare spasms of wisdom that I cannot maintain for long enough to look like a geek or a nerd.

Please oblige me

Almost two months ago, I wrote this invitation - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging – nothing would please me more that to share this moment with you all.

From the 8^th of December to end of the month, I will put up the blogs and I hope we can do this with the finesse of a seamstress making a good skirt – short enough to keep the interest, whilst long enough to cover the detail.

Please let me know if you are interested into celebrating my decade of blogging, post a comment, a tweet at @forakin or an email to forakin@gmail.com

Thought Picnic: What the gravely ill need

Between myself

There are some traits I recognise about myself that leave me feeling quite strange as if a foreign mind inhabits that encasement of flesh and blood that constitutes my corporeal existence.

Just over four years ago, I watched as this body began to malfunction because of the many choices, good, bad and ugly that I had made before. Some choices in the search of meaning, other choices in search of identity and many choices in search of some satisfaction, pleasure, enjoyment or fulfilment.

I am a driven man, driven to achieve, driven to realise, driven to obtain and sometimes driven to distraction. My simplicity and complexity finds a person caught in the conflicts at the intersection of culture, religion, race, sexuality, and status.

On the verge of crazy

Strangely, I write as an extrovert but in person, I am probably quite introverted though there are settings where I have rationalised that I can maintain a balance between reserved and uninhibited, I am perched on the verge of crazy.

Looking back at how I started this blog and the thoughts that now occupy my mind as I type, I am nowhere near my intended destination, I wanted to write about what the vulnerable need when very ill and in hospital and what this is about?

We have a bed for you, upstairs

I had no idea when I left home in the morning of the 22^nd of September, 2009 what laid ahead of me apart from the fact that I had a serious condition, and I was in excruciating pain to the point of delirium.

My uncommitted and vacillating partner accompanied me to the hospital; got me a wheelchair and wheeled me to the Department of Internal Medicine where wise heads opined about my condition from observation and their experience. Then their chief, a professor of Internal Medicine arrived and decided, there and then; in his words, “We have a bed for you upstairs.”

Everything was set in motion from then on; he, my partner, had to go to work but not before I had given him a list of numbers of who to call and inform that, I was now a resident of a major teaching hospital in the East of Amsterdam.

Eighteen days, I spent there where I learnt I had cancer, it was curable and during my stay, I took the first of seven sessions of chemotherapy.

Visits that lift

As I came to the acceptance of what I had and then beyond that what really mattered, considering there was the possibility that I could be dead in five weeks. I was that diminished in strength and capacity, but I write about the things that brought comfort.

Visits from friends and my neighbour who did everything beyond the call of neighbourliness to help, by running errands, by fixing things and providing great encouragement.

Other concerns

My partner was hardly around apart from when my laptop was delivered the next day, I saw little of him, he hated hospitals and I felt abandoned in a foreign land far away from family and cognisant of the fact that major preparations were in place to celebrate my father’s 70^th birthday in the month of October 2009.

Part of my cultural heritage is living for the party, though it is not what I have ascribed to as a person, I find the charade alien and vulgar, but this is what Yorubas literally live for, celebration and jollity.

For instance, on hearing of the news of the passing of an uncle, the regret I heard from some corners pertained to life going out of the great December parties the uncle used to host in my hometown.

Encouraging presence

The visits mattered, old work colleagues, friends I had not seen in years, even one who had once battled cancer years before who I could not pluck up the courage to visit when she was ill, but she was at my beside the moment she heard. She is now of blessed memory, may she rest in peace.

For spiritual comfort, the hospital chaplain came to see me and we had a very long talk, and each Sunday I took communion in my bed, but without the wine. I could have done with some support from my local church, but it was not until I left hospital before we engaged.

The joy of good food

The hospital food was bland and tasteless, if it had any nutritional value, it never registered on the tongue nor did it have an inviting aroma. Each time the food was served, I lost my appetite, but I had to eat it to use my pills.

My friends brought tasty meals that I kept for as long as I could. Besides, the drugs pumped into my system altered my taste for dairy, poultry and seafood products that I was left with sickly aftertaste; sometimes it was impossible to keep the food down.

It took another 6 months for me to recover the known good taste of these foods.

My writing

My blog played a vital role, I wrote daily about my condition, typing on my netbook and using the Internet connection on my phone to post my blogs.

However, because I was still blogging, my brother reading my stuff in faraway Nigeria felt I was quite fine, he had no idea, not an inkling of how serious my condition was.

Through my blog I made new friends, a bouquet of brilliant colourful flowers arrived from Sweden on the first day of chemotherapy; others who had once been hospitalised too wrote in to offer strength and encouragement. I began to appreciate the significance of my social media network, many of the people who read my blog then I have eventually gone on to meet in person.

Money matters

When in hospital other worries occupy the mind, because the bills are coming in, and they need to be paid. I did not immediately ask for social security assistance thought I learnt that I was quite entitled to support due to generous contributions I had made into the system for about 9 years.

With that came untold hardship and worry with my credit cards maxed up and then my land telephony line being the first to suffer before I lost Internet access, and there followed a catalogue of other losses.

The hospital intervened when my application for welfare support stalled. I lost two months of entitlements in the process, the monetary gifts I received in the hospital and then over the first few months of recovery was helpful, but I was already back to work within 6 weeks of the last chemotherapy session just because I felt pressured to earn to keep what I had.

Every little helps

All I have to say is every little helps; I am well aware of this because of my experience that visits, food, communication and money can significantly help the recovery process of those who have taken seriously ill.

Between my introversion and my extraversion, I have not developed or cultivated enough relationships to help in my lean times, yet I know the value of such and I cherish the few who have stood with me as the winds beneath my wings when I was frail and with nothing apart from a slither of hope.

Once again, thank you friends.

The Cancer Tales section of my Blog Themes provides links to the blogs I wrote when I was in hospital.

Thought Picnic: The Bloody Tales

Sorry about the title, it is not an attempt at blurting out an expletive.

A medical roll

For the past few months, the highlights of my calendar have mainly been a number of hospital visits, many not having anything to do with seeing a doctor, but handling the consequences of a life-threatening illness four years down the line.

I have seen nurses, psychologists, therapists, social workers and doctors, but the approach to my care has been to attempt to address all other attendant issues beyond check-ups.

I will not attempt to make comparisons between what obtains in England compared to what obtains in the Netherlands, though I felt more catered for in the latter.

Differently tardy

The journey to the hospital did not take as long as I anticipated which meant I arrived on time, but it was not another 50 minutes after my arrival before I got to see the consultant.

None of the preambles of weight measurement or blood pressure readings took place, rather, after leafing through my medical notes we discussed the results of my tests which barely budged towards better compared to the last time I was there.

Lab specimen or drug mule?

Another concern I had which had bothered me for almost a week as I relived the horrors of chemotherapy were put to rest though I was being offered the option of running a hamster cage like a guinea pig for some new Big Pharma idea.

Drug trials can put you in the forefront of avant-garde treatments or completely ruin your life; it could be scary. As you survive or expire, your contribution to humanity is the knowledge gained to help others, more pertinently; the experience helps write the prescription advice and the notes necessary for safe usage.

Whilst there is no need for an intervention, monitoring and assessment are of the essence to ensure there are improvements; where the indicators read differently, we could tackle the issues promptly.

For the first time we discussed costs, not so much of my primary medication but of the supporting drugs that I ended up with a cheaper version and later the pharmacist gave me all the drivel about costs, options and much else for mere calcium boosting mastication tablets.

Drained

As I returned home, overcome with fatigue and a rotten headache, it was as if I was coming down with something, yet, I have two interviews tomorrow that I have to prepare for.

The tale of the bloods read fine though it was not as if I felt any better for the meeting, the atmosphere, the discussion or the future. We scheduled meetings for therapy, social services and the next consultation before we parted not as friendly as meetings I had before in the Netherlands.

In this poker game of life, you can only play the hand you have; the card deck is just a future of possibility, though the smart might well bluff their way to take the pot.

It is well, I am well, and all is well.