The Weight I Carried

Weight is not just the look on my face when it was hard like hell. It was the internal load that I carried while trying to be a better person. It is also the sad feeling of losing someone who, over time, had become a brother.

This was what I experienced when I got admission into a higher institution. I found it really hard to pay my fees. At some point, I found it hard to feed myself.

One Saturday, I decided to join the transportation business where I rode a keke maruwa, also known as a tricycle, to get my daily bread. I began to hustle, and it was really hard.

Then the Corona pandemic hit, and all universities were on hold. Also, the body of lecturers, ASUU, declared a strike. This strike was almost indefinite. Seizing this opportunity, I decided to focus on my business, and indeed, it turned out well.

Some days, I came back with ten thousand naira; on other days, it was less.

On a Friday evening, I decided to go out and earn just enough to survive for that day. During the first trip — like we call it here in Nigeria — I saw the tricycle I drove make a 180-degree turn. For a while, I went blank. When I woke up, I found out that I had collided with another vehicle. I screamed for help.

In my mind, the thought of “I have broken my leg” popped in…

When rescue came, reality tripped in and I noticed that I had broken my tibia and fibula.

It was fatal...

No ambulance. No emergency service...

Immediately, I boarded a bike. He didn't even collect any money from me; he just took me to the hospital.

At the hospital, a woman with a wheelchair came to my rescue. I was perplexed and confused. A doctor immediately administered antibiotics as well as other injections.

It was really painful! It happened really fast.

After that, the doctor bandaged my legs and also supported them with cardboard.

My parents, on hearing about the accident, rushed in… “Blood of Jesus,” they started praying… They were really scared.

After 24 hours of waiting, an orthopedic nurse came and performed a reduction. Afterward, he told me to get X-rays.

I was really sad because I was trying to lift the heavy burden or weight of school fees, house rent, and many other responsibilities, while falling into another one myself.

The cost of the hospital bill was much. From the first day at the hospital to the last, my parents kept spending.

In the hospital, they had an orthopedic doctor who came once a week to do surgeries, refer patients, or give advice. He was like a consultant.

He came on a Thursday, and the orthopedic nurse gave him my X-ray and presented my case to him.

Immediately, he blurted out, “Surgery now.”

My parents fully accepted it, but after checking the wound, he rejected that approach.

“This is too much! This can get infected. We cannot perform surgery now until the wound is fully healed.”

Ha!!! The weight of those words made me feel like that was the end for me.

I was wheeled to a ward where I met people with similar conditions as mine. Some had broken bones, broken legs, and more.

However, there was this man with a bandaged hand. I asked him, “Sir, what happened to you?” He answered, “It was a long story. What happened to you too?”

“Hmm,” I replied, “it was a long story too.”

We smiled, and that was how he began to narrate his own story. He said that he worked in a company that makes books. In this company there was a cutting machine that was actually bad, or let me say, manageable. He had been using it for quite some time. However, on this day, its spinning blade fell on his hand, and that was how he ended up in the hospital.

Ha! “That was a bit much,” I said out of sympathy… I narrated my own story to him and he sympathised with me.

The orthopedic nurse came in and spoke to my parents about the conventional fixation method using external fixators like POP.

He added that the wound and the bone would be treated simultaneously.

That was a better report. I was glad.

The orthopedic nurse decided to help me, so he told me to wait for three weeks for the wound to partially heal, which I did.

Soon, I was sent home to save on hospital bills. Staying in the hospital is like renting a hotel room. The orthopedic nurse advised us to do so in order to avoid unnecessary expenses.

At home, I could not do anything. I could not walk. I became a burden to my parents. They had to do everything for me. I was trying to pull off my parents' weight, but more came my way.

I began to lose hope, but my mum was there for me. She advised me to stay strong. The nurse came regularly to dress the wounds.

After three weeks, he took me for X-rays and taught me how to use crutches. I did the X-rays, and he performed a reduction after breaking the soft callus. That was really painful.

He again told me to go for an X-ray to confirm the reduction, which I did. The radiologist indicated that there was malalignment and inadequate reduction.

We gave him the reports, and we also handed him the X-ray images. After that, he decided to do an image-guided reduction at the radiography department.

I was given another dose of pain relief, and the reduction was finally done.

Hmm! After three months, I was released from my cast.

The nurse was my physiotherapist. He taught me how to walk again. I was really scared. I saw my dirty legs and feet. Gradually, I crawled, took steps, and improved more and more each day.

Now, the weight is gone, but I don't want to do such a business again because of the trauma it caused me.

Last week, I was really sad when the news of his passing came to me. I cried, I shouted, I wept. They said he sustained an accident along the Lekki-Epe Road.

I didn't believe what I heard. I called him, his number was unreachable. I checked his WhatsApp line. His last seen was days ago. I logged in to my Facebook account to confirm if he had truly died.

Guys! He had truly died… Someone commented about his death just a day after he celebrated his birthday.

Brother Ojo, as I usually call him, left this world. He was a brother because we came from the same origin, Ekiti State.
What was his offense? Why would he die?
Ha! For a while, I said to myself… At some point it was as if I was now asking God.

All the things he had done for me flooded my thoughts. That day I heard of his passing was like a heavy memory of him. I would say to myself, “Bro Omo, the nurse, encouraged me, prayed for me, taught me how to walk, taught me anatomy, taught me bone healing, and taught me to keep fighting.”

There was a day that I kicked him really hard when he was trying to remove the cast.
He was a good man… Ha! I know I will see you in heaven one day. At some point, it was like questioning God.

Sadly, he left the day after his birthday.

He left us.

Thanks for reading.

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