Against all Odds
AGAINST ALL ODDS
How time flies it is three years now since I left medical college. If time really heals hurts, I can’t tell, but sure, I don’t feel as sad as I was thirteen years ago. Coming out of Medical College with one of the best result in my set after almost a decade of a very challenging academic sojourn meant so much to me and it was really a great consolation for me. Though it would have meant more to me if my Parent had attended my valedictory ceremony, but of course they couldn’t have. Growing up without our mother wasn’t so difficult for my sister and I, aside the mother-daughter relationship we missed dad was everything to us. We didn’t know her well, she died when I was five, I still remember her gentle smiles and that thin voice, but at times she looked so frail. Frail mum was a ‘sicklier’ a sickle cell anaemia patient.
Dad had met mum during a seminar he attended in one of the neighbouring countries to us where mum hailed from. It was at a time she was already contemplating of coming to Nigeria. Aside being the only child, her mother was against her decision of relocating considering her health problem. My parents never had it so smooth getting married; dad’s parents were against it, not for any other reason but the fact that mum was a sicklier but sure dad’s mind was made up. This made him more or less an outcast in his family. That rejection was unfair. Is it a crime to be what one did not have a choice about? Mum was very sickly; her being a ‘sicklier’ was not her choice anyway.
I knew what genotype meant quiet early, mum was ‘SS’, dad was ‘AA’, so my sister and I are ‘carriers’ that is ‘AS’ genotype. So I took interest in medicine at a tender age. Today I am a medical doctor and if I have any regret is that dad is not here to see her daughter’s dream fulfilled. Dad died fourteen years ago. It was the most devastating period of my life. I just gain admission into the University. While my sister was also preparing to go in for music in one of the polytechnics, she had always wanted to be an expert in music she is gifted with a sonorous voice like mum’s.
Dad died of cancer. It came so unannounced; his death came like a flash of lightning. He was a very hardworking gentleman, an engineer, he was in fact a workaholic, so healthy and I cannot remember him ever falling ill all those years. I thought life was so unfair and I was so torn apart. I wasn’t surprised I repeated my first year and my aunt (dad’s only sibling) who we were putting up with then thought I wouldn’t be able to cope studying medicine if I started that badly. But when the heart is depressed to progress at that point in time it would take an extra ordinary effort and perhaps a divine intervention.
Sure, I repeated again in my third year, but I still kept on because my mind was up to become a doctor. During my years in school I had a glimpse into what could have been responsible for my father’s sudden death. And it should be a lesson to everyone reading my story. It is a pity that we are in a part of the world where preventive medicine is not popular, rather curative medicine is spent so much fortune on. I wonder how many people check their blood pressure regularly from the age of twenty-five. That may probably sound strange but it’s not out of place. There is a need for a regular check up, just like how cancer can be taken care of if diagnosed early so also are most terminal diseases.
Dad was never sickly nor was at anytime on admission in the hospital except for just that once that led to his death. My father lived with cancer for several years! Prevention is said to be better than cure; it is so good to be informed. In some other parts of the world, the same medical conditions people don’t survive here are survived or well managed over there. I look forward to the time when health issues are taking more seriously.
My sister is happily married with a child now. I will soon tie the nuptial knot with a gentle man of the same genotype with me, ‘AS’, ideally it means we might have an ‘SS’ child, but that can not be a barrier to us, medical science has risen to that challenge, which isn’t new in developed countries. But really should genotype be an issue to deprive one of spending the rest of one’s life with someone one loves and would be happy with if there wasn’t a way round it? Well may be for the sake of the child who might live his or her days in agony.
Whatever the negatives life has handed one, there are surely few positives, celebrate those few, after all without a positive and a negative terminal current wouldn’t flow. If only we know the strength inside us we will dare Herculean tasks. We are stronger than they think we are, more enduring and amazing. What you earnestly desire, ardently pursue will come to you, its only a matter of time.
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