MEDICO

Week 2 Message to the Pre-Intern: don’t lose hope! Week 2, for me, was 2 months post-induction. This was when the wait began to sink in. You mean I’ve been home for two whole months? By now, I was literally chewing on my fingernails. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t scared of getting a space, but I certainly wasn’t confident about any place anymore. That is when I began to write this book. Today is the 12th of September and I sit at the dining table in my parents’ house, typing at 11:27pm (because well, I have an editing job to finish up, but mostly because I don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow morning). If I don’t want to, I don’t even have to take a bath tomorrow morning because well, I can stay indoors all day! (I most likely will stay indoors, except for those few minutes when I step out to buy hot akara for my akamu). I am spent. You know, I have applied to a couple of places now. Let me start with the first: LS Health Service Commission At the State Health servic...

Week 1 It is neither the beginning nor the end; but rather, it’s the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning. You thought it was over? Nope, it just started. I left medical school! On the 7th of July, 2017; I was inducted into the medical profession with so much finesse. You know that feeling you get when you are finally able to accomplish something, great right? Although the celebration seemed larger than life to me (I mean, who are all these people eating my rice?), I managed to get through it- because my kind of celebration is really in a quiet place, by a beach or you know, some really somber place with chocolate and ice cream, and maybe one or two Netflix series (ah ah). I could smell so many opportunities in the air, you know. I was sure that I would have started housemanship by September- dead sure. In fact, I already had a couple of leads and I was simply waiting to get my ‘papers’ ready- my MDCN documents. Getting space wasn’t something I pondered over; I...

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...

                                                                                  EPISODE FOUR ‘Ose! Where is daddy ?’ Ituah asked, throwing both arms apart. ‘Sister, I wonder why you seem to do everything late these days. Anyways, they’ve left!’ ‘Left; left to where?’ I quickly cut in before Ituah could respond as I had become suspicious from his tone. ‘Well, I think Uncle Stanley mentioned Kaduna.’ Ituah jumped up and sat on the floor; her arms folded assuming the position of someone mourning a loss. ‘Ose, Uncle Stanley? What are you talking about; I seem to be the only one in the dark here. You know you can tell me any...

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 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...