The story
tells of the grace of God and the
endurance of love between a man
and a woman. I was privileged to
witness both aspects as it played
out in Garki Hospital, Abuja.
Death Number One
Mr. Ikechukwu Obiora was rushed
to the hospital after he collapsed.
He was unconscious, desperate and
dying. He had suffered a stroke and
had rivers of blood inside his brain.
After the emergency brain scan, we
rushed him into the theatre and put
two drains in his head to remove
blood clots. This released the
massive pressure on his brain.
However, he remained unconscious,
dead to the world and had to be
transferred to the intensive care
unit for a machine to breathe for
him. We intubated him by passing a
tube through the mouth, the neck,
his throat and into the lungs. This
helped him breathe and so
sustained his life.
Death Number Two
After about 10 days in the intensive
unit, we decided to drill a hole
directly in his throat (tracheostomy)
to help him breathe. This helps us
in cleaning the chest and reduces
the work of breathing in patients
who cannot breathe well by
themselves. On removing the tube
at what we thought was a safe
period, he deteriorated immediately
and died in his bed. He could not
breathe, as his throat had swollen
shut and cut off air going into the
lungs. We rushed to resuscitate
him, keep him alive and then
secured the tube back into his
lungs with great difficulty. Luckily,
he rallied round and survived this
second ordeal.
Death Number Three
Part of the management of this
type of stroke is to shrink the
brain, thus reducing the pressure
inside the skull. We use a drug
called Mannitol. This is a type of
sugar which draws water out of the
brain to reduce swelling. The same
drug is removed through the
kidneys, and in large doses can
damage the kidneys. Well, that is
exactly what happened!
His kidneys packed up and stopped
removing dirty, poisonous waste
from his body. The waste was
killing him, again! He became
swollen like the famous Michelin
man, full of water and waste that
the body could not get rid of.
Thus, we had another major
problem to fix. This required
dialysis. Dialysis is the means of
using machines to clean the blood
and remove the poisonous waste
products from our body. Ikechukwu
had dialysis every week for months
till his kidneys recovered sufficiently
to do the job themselves.
Yet he lives!
It was obvious that God has a
major plan for Mr. Obiora. He
survived death on three occasions
and today lives to tell the tale. Well,
not really. He does not remember
these most trying times. The single
rock of support and his historian
(the person who knows what he
went through) is his wife. She
stood by him through thick and
thin till today. She supported him
day and night and suffered through
the agonies, his trials and
tribulations, deaths and life! That is
everlasting love. The kind of love
you and I pray for.