MEDICO

EPISODE FIVE ‘Mum, who called you this time again?’ I finally asked. ‘Oh… Charles, that’s what matters to you now right. What matters to you is if it’s Prophet Jabesh or Prophet Judas that called me?’ Then I burst into laughter. I can’t help but wonder why these prophets must bear names as Judas, Jabesh…if you know, you know. Then she changed it for me straight up. ‘Charles, why exactly are you laughing? You know I get scared anytime you get close to that girl and you know that I am at the risk of having stroke with the way my blood pressure rises in little situations.’ There she goes again. My mum gets little information on health precautions and that’s the end. We hear nothing else save what she has learnt in the house for about at least a month. She subscribes to all sorts of health tips on her network and then tries to confirm her newly found information from me. She has several facts on why eating eba, using an onion bulb that has been cut once and use...

Hi guys!  This is what happens when you have a sister that writes beautifully... We'd be featuring a new series on the blog by Bola Abioye. This is the first episode. Enjoy, leave your comments and don't forget to subscribe! -------------------------------------------------------------------                            EPISODE 1 ‘Dokita! Fatai’s leg is moving.’ The woman exclaimed in wonder. ‘He has not walked ever since I gave birth to him and this is about the third time I’m bringing him to you, his leg moved! It moved!’ I smiled and said nothing. ‘It’s like you don’t understand. I have been taking him to Baba Faniran since he was two when that witch of a nurse who wanted to initiate my only son gave him an injection that took away his malaria but left him unable to walk.’ The woman conti...

                           EPISODE 1 ‘Dokita! Fatai’s leg is moving.’ The woman exclaimed in wonder. ‘He has not walked ever since I gave birth to him and this is about the third time I’m bringing him to you, his leg moved! It moved!’ I smiled and said nothing. ‘It’s like you don’t understand. I have been taking him to Baba Faniran since he was two when that witch of a nurse who wanted to initiate my only son gave him an injection that took away his malaria but left him unable to walk.’ The woman continued with her apparent Yoruba tongue struggling to pronounce the English words at each instance. I changed the electrode placement; still along the course of the sciatic nerve, looked up and smiled and before I could call Jack Robinson, she had started to sing: ‘emi la o ni yosi Emi la o n...

CHAPTER 7 Journal Entry by Karen Delgado- 6/21/2010 'My new picture is of the middle school students, dressed in pink. They are in a 'breast cancer awareness' formation. In another shot, they are in the formation of 2010...the picture was used as the front cover of this year's yearbook.' Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned- Peter Marshall Have you ever felt so indebted to someone that you couldn't say 'thank you', because those two words couldnt adequately capture the magnitude of your indebtedness? Have you ever willed yourself to like something beneath your taste, something otherwise tasteless to you- a bland shirt which you never would have bought if you had enough cash reserve, 'healthy' fish rather than 'unhealthy' chicken- not because you were considering the health implications but simply because you were short on cash? Sometimes, we learn to live in situations and be thankful for them, not beca...

CHAPTER 7 'LABISI: Chronicles of a Breast Cancer Warrior Journal Entry by Karen Delgado- 6/21/2010 'My new picture is of the middle school students, dressed in pink. They are in a 'breast cancer awareness' formation. In another shot, they are in the formation of 2010...the picture was used as the front cover of this year's yearbook.' Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned- Peter Marshall Have you ever felt so indebted to someone that you couldn't say 'thank you', because those two words couldnt adequately capture the magnitude of your indebtedness? Have you ever willed yourself to like something beneath your taste, something otherwise tasteless to you- a bland shirt which you never would have bought if you had enough cash reserve, 'healthy' fish rather than 'unhealthy' chicken- not because you were considering the health implications but simply because you were short on cash? Sometimes, we learn to live...

CHAPTER 4 Journal entry by Karen Delgado-5/7/2010 ‘On my way to school, I was listening to 99.1FM and I heard this song (and yes, it made me cry). I’ll highlight the lyrics that were especially meaningful. Also…last week at my church, the sermon was about healing. It is part of an ongoing series, ‘God, why?’ This message was, ‘God, why are some people healed and not others? (Luke 13:1-5) and it was preached by Jeremy Moore…. I can honestly say that I’m glad to have gone through this journey…I’ve learned so much…and continued to experience just how faithful and trust worthy God is. If a miraculous healing would have happened, I would have lost out on experiencing the truth of God’s word- that he is aware of all that is happening…that He will be there…that He will provide for our every need…that he is a God of Comfort…but I would have also missed out on learning just how wonderful it is to e...

CHAPTER 3 Journal entry by Karen Delgado- 6/1/2010 ‘I had my first opportunity to use a GPS this past weekend…WOW…how comforting to be able to have someone see the ‘big picture’ and point you in the right direction…with such a calm comforting tone. Just enjoy the drive, trust in the technology, and arrive safely at your destination.    As I was thinking it was so nice to have this device- especially when I had no idea of where I was…and absolutely no idea of how to get where I needed to go…I thought about how this was such a good analogy for the kind of trust we need to put in God’s word/His wisdom. Just knowing that God sees the ‘big picture’…He knows the end of our destination…and best of all, He knows how to get us there . ' ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MOTHER went to church. All to...

EPISODE 5. I wasn’t like most 16 year olds you knew. Or they weren’t like me, as I liked to point out. Few of them understood anything about Nigerian Politics- or that of any country for that matter, not to consider the history of economics or anything about Marxism. Most had not even finished reading any of their high school textbooks, and that was even if they could recognize the pages of those books when they were opened. I, on the other hand, had gone over and over again, my Chemistry, Physics and Biology textbooks. I read Literature as well; critiquing Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, moving on to Wole Soyinka’s ‘Ake’ and onto J.P Clark’s book on poetry. I nailed all my exams, of course. It would be unlike me to score anything less than 80% on any test. Not even after a recent sickle cell crisis. They definitely weren’t like me. But I wasn’t like them, either. I walked cautiously. I ate and drank cautiously...

EPISODE 1 My name is Sepuya Ahmed, and I’m a 16 year old sickler. My mother, Miss Tara, said that when I was born, I was a very beautiful and healthy baby. She had even shown me pictures from the past; especially when she wanted to motivate me to eat better and become robust, in her own words. And though a single mother, Miss Tara did everything in her power to ensure that I had a normal life. She worked as a journalist for the Nation’s foremost newspaper and had been denied promotion thrice on account of her inability to ‘leave the comfort of her home base to the field’.  Her retorting statement always revolved around me. ‘If I leave Sepuya alone, who would take care of him?’ My father was a colleague she met in the university, she’d said. She was very young and still naïve in the 1990s ‘when naivete was still a thing!’ She would state with so much indignation. And then her eyes would shine brightly when she descri...