COVID BLUES
By: Jibola Oladiran
Tags: Poverty, Coma, Couples, Hospital, Covid 19

COVID BLUES

Chapter 5: OUTSIDE THE DREAM

“Dele! Dele!!”

Kate held and shook him by the shoulders vigorously.

“Dele! Wake up!”

“Kango…….. Kango……….” His words were slurred, slow, unaware.

“Madam, you need to step aside please. I think he needs some air. You can’t be in his space like that and expect him to breathe”.

“But I’ve been calling you people nau. No-one has taken me serious. He’s waking up, he’s waking up”.

“Madam, please step aside. Let us do our job”.

“Is it because we haven’t paid? Is that why we’re being treated like this?”

“Madam, I’m going to have to ask you to please step out of the room so we can observe him and do our job”.

“I’m not going anywhere. He’s my husband. Since you people abandoned him I’ve been the one watching him. Now, you’re telling me to step out when he might just be waking up. No way”.

The nurse quietly shoved her out of the way and parted Dele’s eyelids to check his pupils.

His pupils followed the light.

“He’s just hallucinating, Madam. He’s still in the coma. We’ll have to wait for him to come around. In the meantime, please don’t suffocate him. Allow him breathe”.

“What do you mean, Nurse? Are you saying I’m strangling him by sitting by his bed? At least if I can’t help him, I can sit by him. Or is there a rule against sitting by one’s patient’s bed again?”

“I’ll soon be back, Madam. I have other patients to check”.

The nurse left the room.

Dele was still hallucinating about Kango.

Three days ago, Kate had received a call from the hospital nearby that her husband had been involved in an accident. She had rushed there to find that he had been abandoned there by a good Samaritan who claimed her husband had been struck by a reckless police officer in a police convoy, she was told. He fell into a gutter and hit his head, sending him unconscious. The good Samaritan had witnessed the event and had put him in his car with the help of other passers-by and taken him to the nearby hospital. He had also paid the admission fee to get him a bed and care for a day. He had not left a name or phone number, just that he would check again to see how the patient was faring.

Kate was devastated. She felt she had pushed him out to the street to look for work, and that that had caused him to get exposed to the unfortunate event. She had been told that the good Samaritan had paid the initial deposit of N12,000. Who does that for a stranger, she kept asking herself. Nigeria does not have such selfless people anymore. Why would someone be so kind as to take N12,000 out of their pocket and pay for the hospital admission of a total stranger, all spontaneously?

Right now though, she had more important fish to fry. She had been informed that she would need to pay for an MRI, CT Scan, Electroencephalography (EEG), Complete Blood Count and Electrolyte Glucose Thyroid Kidney Liver functioning Test as blood work. This was all too much for her. She did not have the slightest clue what each of these were, but by the time the expected bill for the tests came it was well north of N300,000. The weight of having to seek for financial assistance to first get her husband out of the coma, then get him to bounce back to good health was killing her. They did not even have enough to eat at home, now she had to figure out a way to cough out more money than she had ever held at one time.

She looked at him breathing sporadically. He head was heavily bandaged. The private hospital was not as noisy as one would have thought from outside, despite the fact that it wasn’t too far from the main road. There was not TV in this room; they were paying next to nothing, so they could not have a real room in the real sense of the word. She did not care for a TV right now, it wasn’t important. The air was heavy with that disinfectant smell you get in hospitals. She used to hate that smell. She didn’t have a choice now though. She had to be here all day, so………..

Why was God sending these tribulations to her in these uncertain times? And talking about God, she was fast losing faith. The church pastor had said things were tough at church too because the pandemic had forced worship centres to shut down indefinitely. She had begged him to send messages to other church members to come to their aid, but she had not got the best response. She was on her own. The children were at home by themselves and she had tried to cater for them every morning and evening when she went home to check on them. Most of her time was being spent at the hospital.

Dele had been bleeding into the brain for a while and the doctor had said they would have to perform the ‘borehole drainage’ procedure to suction the blood and relieve the pressure on the brain. The pressure was what was keeping him in coma, and if the pressure continued unabated he could go brain-dead soon. She needed to act fast. She had been informed that they were administering intravenous antibiotics before the results of the tests came. At least some of that had been paid for by the good Samaritan. He had also paid for the cleaning and management of the wound. The antibiotics would help fight infections that could come up while they were trying to get a hang of the situation. The situation was grim and she did not have anywhere else to look to. The church had disappointed her, she had no friends, he had no job and he hardly talked about his friends anymore. There was no help coming from anywhere.

Sitting by his bed she held his hand. She wasn’t confused; she was blank. She had no idea what to do. She had no faith anymore, faith was dead. She didn’t even have the urge to cry. She was just numb, her eyes swollen from worry and lack of sleep. She stared at his face. He was struggling in the coma. He had been saying, “Kango…….Kango……….”. Maybe she should call Kango to inform him. But Dele and Kango had not been in touch for many years now. How do you call your husband’s long lost friend and tell him you need financial assistance from him? That would be awkward. But maybe it was worth a try…… This wasn’t any ordinary call for assistance; this was life and death.

“Hello Madam”.

She turned towards the open door. There was a young lady wearing a loose fitting T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

“May I come in, Ma?”

Kate nodded, unsure who the pretty young lady was.

“My name is Nelly. I work for Channels TV. I was directed here by someone who said he brought in an accident victim a few days ago”.

Kate’s attention was arrested.

“Hope no problem”.

“No Ma, not at all. He told us what happened and said the man needed justice, but that justice could be better served if there was media coverage for the case. We took interest when he said it was done by police in a convoy”.

Kate stared at the lady. She couldn’t have been more than 25 years old, but she seemed to know how to carry herself and make her point.

“Listen Ma, I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, and I’m sorry I had to meet you at such a time and under such circumstances. But we need to create some form of media buzz around this to create awareness and get the perpetrators to book. This is dastardly”.

Kate stared on silently. So many things were fluttering through her mind right now. Her husband lay somewhere between life and death, clinging on for only God-knows-how-long more. She had no way of paying for his treatment or getting help. And here was a young woman, probably unmarried, telling her she wanted to make a story out of something that was killing her from the inside out. What is wrong with these media people? Then something else struck her.

“Where is the man who told you to come here?”

“I really don’t know, Ma. He’s a friend to one of our colleagues”.

“Can I get his contact?”

“I’m sorry Ma, but I can’t do that. I’m not directly connected to him, and I’m only here to do the story…..”

“Then get the person directly connected to him!”

The reporter was taken aback. She took out her phone and dialed.

“Yeah, hi. Can you please get me the number of your friend that told you about the police brutality case? Okay, thank you.”

She hung up.

“Someone is sending me the number, Ma”.

Kate ignored her, her stare icy.

“I sincerely apologise, Ma. I didn’t come here just for the story. Actually, well, I came here for the story, but because it was a compelling one. People have been complaining about how reckless and brutal our police are. This would be a testament to people’s agitation. This behaviour needs to end, and it can end with this crime against you and your family. We are just trying to do our part in stopping the ugly trend”.

Nelly’s phone beeped.

Then she dialed. It rang long.

“Hello Sir. My name is Nelly, a reporter with Channels. How are you, Sir?”

Kate looked up at her.

“I got your number from Ahmed. I was the one put on the case you came to report at our office. I’m here at the hospital now……….. Oh yes Sir. I’m in his room now……….. Well, he seems to be asleep, Sir…..”

“He’s in a coma”, Kate interjected.

“He’s in a coma Sir”, Nelly echoed. “There’s a woman here with him who says she wants to talk with you……. Okay…….. Please hold on for her”.

Kate took the phone.

“Good day, Sir. Thank you for helping my husband o……………….. I’m grateful……………….. No Sir, he’s not better o. He has been in a coma since I met him here. If not because you paid for his admission he would be dead by now. We don’t even have money for his tests, and they’re saying if he doesn’t do tests there’s nothing they can do for him. I’m hopeless right now………………….. No Sir, they’re not doing anything o. They’re just giving him drips. He’s talking in his sleep, and the doctor is saying he can go brain-dead in another 48 hours if we don’t act quickly. I’m helpless right now…………….”

The tears had started running. Nelly tried avoiding eye contact with Kate.

“I should hand the phone to her?…………………… Okay Sir.”

Nelly took the phone.

“Hello……………………….. Not really, but I can ask around……………… I’ll ask the nurses, or better still I’ll look for the doctor on call and ask. …………………. Alright Sir, I’ll call you back in 15 minutes”.

“Madam, who can I talk to concerning the tests and bill for your husband?”

Kate’s mouth dropped open.

Story by: ‘Jibola Oladiran

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