Hello everyone, let me introduce a new writer on my #BlogFeature posts to you guys. His name is Mayowa Ojo and he is a Writer, Script Writer, Baker and Dancer based in Lagos. His stories, be it real or fiction, are always very interesting and captivating.
He also happens to be my kid brother. (Yeah, that's how we roll in my family, lol)
Enjoy. :)
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It was precisely five weeks to Christmas. The air was cool
and thin with the harmattan chill but hazy with the accompanying dust that is
de rigueur of that time of the year. I felt the chill even more because a
little over a week before, I’d asked my friend of ten years to be my girlfriend
and she was yet to say a word in the affirmative or otherwise. Being a baker, I
instinctively turned to work, distracting myself with early-bird festive-cake
orders while being a little antsy about those who would call on the 23rd
of Dec wishing for a miracle, literally.
The day started out like any other except for one seemingly
minute detail – my dad was slightly under the weather. I shrugged it off,
ascribing it to the sudden chill that started over night or maybe “just
malaria” as he suggested. I went about my day’s activities in the bakery while
he went out to purchase drugs for a fever that soon evolved into bouts of
coughing throughout the day.
By the end of the week, my father
had gotten no more than 4 hours of sleep in total, most of which were sudden
power naps that lasted for about 15 or 20 minutes. He was frail, in gross
discomfort, hungry but lacking the will to eat and looked like he had aged 20
years in 5 days. In spite of these, he refused to go to the hospital - swollen
feet and all!
At four weeks to Christmas, his condition deteriorated and
his breathing was now labored. We shipped him off to the family clinic where
the doctor assessed him for 2 days before recommending that we see a
cardiologist.
The bills were piling, opportunities to sleep were far and
in between for mom and I. For the most part, my business had shut down - I
stopped taking orders and ignored all business calls. Christmas was looming but
we barely even noticed.
In addition to the conclusive results of a battery of tests
that were run, the specialist also strongly recommended that we needed to get
him to the teaching hospital late at night. Our car was the ambulance, my dad
the obvious patient, my mom the paramedic and yours truly - the designated
driver. We encouraged my dad to hang in there while I prayed frantically
against any screams from the back seat.
After a few phone calls, we made a detour for the military
hospital since there was “no space” at the University Teaching Hospital, not
even in the private ward that would have cost an arm and a leg for an overnight
stay.
Diagnosis in plain English? His heart was weak and incapable
of pumping blood out as fast as it was pumping it in. This caused excess fluid
to accumulate in different parts of his body, part of which had found its way
into his lungs and caused an infection that irritated his lungs. The irritation
explained the scary coughing fits he had whenever he lay down, it also
explained the hyperventilation and his sleepless nights. Soon after we arrived
at the military hospital, he needed an oxygen mask to breathe.
Prognosis in plain English? There was hope but even the
doctors could not resist the urge to suggest that we pray – never mind that we
had long turned the corner onto that lane.
Watching him sleep for no more than a few minutes at a time,
I constantly had to support his head to keep it from tilting to odd angles
while he slept in the chair. By our third day in the military hospital, he
started to tell me about family history, rehashing family ties and describing
family property in his hometown - all the stuff that people say when they feel
their time has come. I don’t remember the smallest fraction of anything he said
because I wasn’t having any of that. He then started to say “I’m tired. I’m fed up,” repeatedly and I
had to subtly but firmly call him to order. I was not having any of that either
even if I was very shaken within.
By our 2nd week at the military hospital, he’d
received several rounds of antibiotics to clear the infection, and had passed
most of the excess fluid in his body and especially his lungs, nonetheless
sleep continued to elude him. Then one afternoon on the 16th of December
he yawned. For the first time in three weeks, he showed the age old sign of
fatigue and that night he slept like the proverbial baby.
I remember how proud I felt at the sight of that first yawn
and the nap that followed. You would have thought I’d just witnessed my child
take their first baby steps. For him, it was the first step on a 10-week-long
journey to recovery. As though on cue, my friend became my girlfriend on the 17thof
December. Christmas loomed closer and I was finally starting to notice.
Save the prayers and faith, no other sign gave me the hope
that he would make it through his stay in the hospital. That yawn signaled an
end to the battle for his life, and I knew we were on the winning side. Before
he came home on the 22nd of Dec, I was certain that I would sing
“Silent Night” at Christmas remembering the birth of Jesus and not the death of
my father. With that yawn, I knew Christmas had come in early for my family.
We
found our miracle in a yawn!
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