I started my treatment proper in 2021. My doctors didn’t mince words at all. They said between the time I’d have had the surgery and completed my treatments, I should expect to spend not less than 50 million naira. They were right because now, a year later, I’ve spent more than their projected amount on treatment.
I was still living in Ajah and the hospital I received my treatments was at Ikeja. My wife and I had to find somewhere in Ikeja close to the hospital so that I could quickly get to the hospital in case of emergencies in subsequent nights.
“My daddy, I shall take very good care of you,” Mrs. Olutola Ateniola promised. She and her husband, Mr Joseph Ateniola, offered to give us shelter in their Magodo Estate home.
My family met the Ateniolas in 2008 when we were privileged to serve as Pastors in the Redeemed Christian Church of Church of God, Mende Maryland, Lagos. That gesture afforded my wife and I to search for an accommodation that is very close to the three main hospitals I would be visiting weekly in the following months within the vicinity of Ikeja.
The entire Joseph Ateniola nuclear family members were very welcoming towards us. Mrs Olutola Ateniola, particularly, made sure she took proper care of my wife and I for the four months we spent with them before we had to move. She painstakingly prepared specialized meals suitable for a kidney-failure patient for me every day. We had a five-star treatment under their roof. She shared the daily burden of taking care of my emaciated body with my wife. She cleaned my vomits on several occasions. She virtually abandoned her business for over two months to nurse me. We pray that God will enlarge the coast of this wonderful family.
Whenever I remember how well we were treated, my heart prays for the angelic family that took care of my wife and I for four months. They had no obligation to take us in but they did it out of the goodness of their hearts. Their actions assured me of the fact that there are still good people in this world.
The dialysis process was mentally and physically harrowing for my family and I. It was starting to take its toll physically on me and it felt like I wasn’t going to get better. The experience was one I wouldn’t wish on anyone, not my enemies and certainly not on my loved ones.
I almost lost my life, twice, to this procedure. I lost lots of weight as well. Before dialysis, I weighed around 118 kilogrammes. By October that same year, I weighed 75 kilogrammes. I felt sick every day. Threw up every day. I lost some friends to kidney disease during this process as well.
A regular patient at the clinic who was also undergoing dialysis just gave up the ghost all of a sudden. It was unexpected. He was laying there, receiving a phone call and he just went silent. That was the end.
Another patient who I used to meet during dialysis suddenly stopped showing up. When I asked why he wasn’t around anymore, I was informed he had died some days prior.
These were people just like me. They also were hoping to find a solution to their problems, but ended up dying along the way. Death felt so real. And so close. I had to fight the morbid feeling that I could die at some point. The dying field felt more real as the days ran into each other.
I needed to hear success stories. I was tired of the discouragements and stories of people who “were diagnosed but died”. All I kept hearing were stories of people who died two years into dialysis or three years into dialysis or people who died few years after their transplant. Even the doctors said the most the transplant could guarantee was seven years extension of life and dialysis could only guarantee five years.
Frankly, the whole situation was scary. I needed, no I craved, to hear success stories.
I searched for success stories and I got them. I learnt of someone who had a transplant 10 years ago and was still alive and well. There was another who had been surviving for almost 15 years after the transplant. I also found somebody who had survived kidney disease for 25 years.
I discovered that there were patients who had been receiving treatments and dialysis for more than 10 years and are alive. They are also coping very well.
These were the rare stories you wouldn’t get if you didn’t actively search for them. They rejuvenated me and increased my faith in the fact that I was going to get better. Whatever I was going through, someone else went through them and was doing okay. They were living their lives normally and by the grace of God, I was going to do the same as well.
In fact, I started telling everyone that I was inviting them to my 80th birthday. I am not turning 80 years soon. It is going to be years later. But just to encourage the people around me, I started telling them I hoped to see them at my 80th birthday. It always spiced up the atmosphere whenever I said it with such cheerfulness and confidence.
Every medical facility I visited, the doctors and the other medical personnel often said I was one of the most cheerful kidney disease patients they had ever seen. Most people end up coming and going for these treatments in perpetual gloom, not wanting to see the “sunny parts” of their situation. But that wasn’t me. I made sure my sessions with the doctors were as lively as possible.
Life is short. It might even be shorter with the sentence of kidney failure hanging on your neck. Why do you need to add misery to the list of your challenges?
Shake it off.
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