Aloooha! Dear friends,
I wake up every day thankful for the gift of each new day. Sometimes I have praise or worship song bubbling in my spirit. Sing with me: What shall I say unto the Lord? All I want to say is thank you Lord…
Each day, I have challenges to overcome and victories to celebrate. The pain in my rib cage – particularly in my sternum – has subsided, making it easier and less painful to get in and out of my hospital bed and cars. But my legs are still swollen (more than twice their normal size) and weaker than usual. I have found out that the weakness is probably due to the loss of calcium in my bones – caused by cancer (multiple myeoloma).
What makes you say so? Asked my oncologist, Dr. S., when I told him I think my legs are weaker.
“As I told you, I was able to dance around the church the Sunday before Easter, but I can’t do that now,” I replied.
He said he would prescribe a drug and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
“Can we wait and see?” I pleaded with the doctor.
“No,” he said firmly, but with a smile.
On my next chemotherapy session, I was started on the first of monthly zoledron injections (Zomerta) to address the calcium problem. That’s in addition to the Velcade (the “V” in the R.V.D protocol the oncologist is following) shots I get for chemotherapy. Why can’t I just eat calcium-rich foods?
My gait is unsteady, and when I leave the house, I walk with a cane. I’m supposed to use a walker, but it aggravates the pain in my sternum. On my next visit to my oncologist, I opened my big mouth again and notified him that my legs were still weak. This time, he followed through with his MRI order and I had been scheduled for two separate 30-minute full-body MRI sessions – I don’t think I can endure an hour session inside the tomb-like MRI machine. Those who’ve had the full-body MRI (first time for me) say it’s not so bad, that they slept off inside the machine. Doctor S. said the MRI would show whether a tumour is ultimately responsible for the weakness in my legs.
As I fight for my own future, news about Boko Haram’s acts of terror caused me to worry about Nigeria’s. I’m forced to take my mind off my own woes momentarily and join the world in agitating for the safe return of our girls. Some mothers would much rather be stricken with cancer than live out their days never knowing what became of their daughters. And Boko Haram, their (and Nigeria’s) nemesis, is like a very aggressive form of metastatic cancer.
I have concluded that Nigeria is already at war! Not again, I cry out to God. Not Nigeria. Nigeria – land of my birth, source of my proud cultural heritage, the repository of my many wonderful memories, the land that is home to many friends, relatives, former colleagues and parapos, the land that so many cool and brilliant people trace their ancestry to!
I’m thankful that the West is offering help, but I wish they would be more circumspect, so they don’t end up doing more harm than good. Some of their media commentaries and analyses on Boko Haram are off base. I have really been impressed with the Nigerian experts on Boko Haram I have seen on Cable News Network (CNN).
I think the acts of terror by Boko Haram are more horrifying than what we experienced on the Biafran side during the Nigerian civil war. I can identify with sleeping in the bush, but large-scale abductions, forced conversion into Islam and threats of slavery hardly featured among the atrocities of the Nigerian civil war.
During the civil war, not all parts of Nigeria were engulfed in the hostilities; so we do not have to wait for more parts of Nigeria to be subjected to Boko Haram’s terrorism before we acknowledge that Nigeria is at war and respond accordingly. If our fellow Nigerians have to live under the fear of annihilation and slavery in this day and age, then all of Nigeria is at war. We are now all from Chibok.
It is heart-warming to note that this sentiment animates Nigerian demonstrators, sympathisers from all over the world and Mrs. Michelle Obama – America’s First Lady.
I hope the release of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) footage of the abducted girls provides some measure of comfort to their parents. While there is life, there is hope. That is also one of my guiding principles as I continue to battle an adversary as ruthless and implacable as Boko Haram.
