My Leg Pain For 27 Years Led To My Drive To Build A Future That Includes All Nigerian Kids
Tunde Onakoya
Founder of Chess in Slums Africa, Tunde Onakoya has jumped on Twitter to share his experience after undergoing a surgery to correct an issue which began 27 years ago due to a bad injection administered by a nurse.
He recently had his say via his social media page, and Nigerians have been reacting.
According to him, the surgery which could fundamentally change everything is an important first step towards recovery, so he is glad he went through with it.
He added that the pain point is actually why he seems almost delusional about his dreams and vision to build a future that includes the Nigerian child.
His words, “Yesterday, I finally found the courage to confront a pain I’ve lived with all my life. This could fundamentally change everything but it’s an important first step towards recovery. It all started 27 years ago.”
“One of the things we don’t talk about is the fear of confronting what may be a worsening health condition. We ignore the pain and tension building up in our bodies because we’re afraid of what we might find. Instead, we opt for blissful ignorance and hope for the best.”
“I have done this more times than i care to admit… For 27 years, i have lived with excruciating pain in my right leg. I wasn’t born this way but something happened that changed the trajectory of my life.”
“Shortly after I was born in 1994( i was 9 months old), I got really sick. My mom described it as a chronic case of measles. This came at a time when my parents struggled to even put food on the table. My Dad’s car spare parts shop in Eko had just been demolished by the government.”
“There was no money to take me to the hospital and as my condition worsened, my mum had to take me to a local nurse who gave me a bad injection without proper diagnosis. First mistake. With time I got better but my mum noticed something odd after the first few weeks of recovery.”
“I had started walking as a baby before I fell sick but after recovery, I stopped walking. This was strange as I was a very active baby. My parents were worried but weren’t sure what to do anymore as they had spent their entire live savings on paying the nurse for the treatment.”
“My Dad’s elder sister stepped in and took me to Igbobi hospital where they did an xray and discovered that some damage had been done partly due to measles and the bad injection from the nurse. I was immediately admitted and booked for surgery. I spent the next 3 months in Igbobi.”
“I still couldn’t walk properly after igbobi. My mom told me at the time that she used to hawk sachet water at oshodi underbridge with her twin sister, she would carry me on her back for several hours in the sun before we could eat. Now you know why oshodi.”
“With time, I started walking again and had a pretty normal childhood until I was about 10 years old. This was when i started feeling extreme pain in my right leg, it was really bad. I couldn’t sleep on most nights and my poor mother could only help massage with Robb and aboniki.”
“Things had gone from bad to worse for my parents and going to the hospital wasn’t even an option. We never went to the hospital in my entire childhood/ teenage years. It didn’t matter how sick we were, it was always local herbs. This is the reality for most families in Nigeria.”
“The pain got worse because no one paid attention to what was wrong. I had to find a way to live with it. I have lived with this pain ever since then and I have come to embrace it as a part of my reality. There were nights when I was crippled with pain and contemplated suicide.”
“Deep down it hurts because now I know that if my parents were Educated or wealthy, maybe they would have handled things differently. They did what they thought was best because they didn’t know any better. Time passed and I became a victim of a tragedy I knew nothing about.”
“This pain point is why I seem almost delusional about my dreams and vision for every child-to build a future includes all of them. Poverty has dire consequences,and when they say 120 million Nigerians live in Multidimensional poverty, it’s not just some random survey…”
“These are actual lives and the ones that bear the most brunt of this are the children who become victims of a dysfunctional health and educational system.”
“Maybe I’ll need to take a gap year to focus on the surgery, write a book, take on more speaking engagements, share my story. I don’t know. Nothing is certain,but I trust God completely. The God who gives purpose that suits the nature of a man. He’ll hold my hands through this.”
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