TRUE-LIFE STORIES WITH FUNMILOLA SOTUMINU
AS a result of the need to ensure that my wife’s early pregnancy complications did not degenerate into an unmanageable condition, I insisted that she had no business in the hospital, even when she argued that she wanted to be going at least thrice a week.
I did not take the stand because of her endless trouble at the hospital, but for the safety of our unborn child. Reluctantly, she agreed, especially when I called in my aunt and my mother-in-law to talk to her.
She registered for ante-natal care at the state teaching hospital, and on two occasions, when she had to be admitted for monitoring, she was admitted there and not in our hospital. On one occasion, while she was on bed rest at the hospital, she got close to the matron, who introduced her to another professional nurse.
Before I knew what was happening, my wife had insisted that the nurse should take over her duties at the hospital, since she could not be going there in her condition. I did not understand what that meant or why she would want someone to stand in for her when there were capable hands in the hospital. But she made so much noise about my resistance that I began to wonder why she wanted the lady there at all costs.
To let sleeping dogs lie, my friend advised that I should let her have her way, since she had also agreed not to stress herself by going to the hospital to work in her state. So, I allowed her have her way and the lady resumed one week after as the matron.
Yes, she had the right qualifications and seemed passionate about the job; just that I did not see the sense in paying the salary of an additional worker when the office of the matron, since I married my wife, had been more ceremonial than professional.
My worst fears were confirmed when, one month after the matron was employed, my wife began to give me a minute-by-minute account of everything that happened in the hospital. She started moving against the most senior nurse, the one who acted as matron in her absence, and would not let me breathe.
There was a particular day I returned home and my wife asked me what that nurse was doing in my office for close to one hour, just after an emergency operation. She said she knew that the nurse in question followed me from the theatre into my office and did not come out until after one hour. I asked her who was feeding her with all she was saying and all she could say was that if I thought it was the matron she hired, then I had missed it totally.
A few days after that, that nurse fell very ill and could not come to work. There were other nurses and doctors on duty but her absence was very glaring as we had an unusually heavy traffic of outpatients. I told the nurses to call her to find out why she did not come to work or even take excuse and they found that she was very ill.
According to them, it was her mother who answered the call. Days rolled into weeks and she had still not resumed. So, I instructed the new matron and one other nurse to visit her at home and bring her to the hospital for treatment.
I wondered why she did not also seek for medical attention in our hospital since she was a staff. But the story they came back to tell me was appalling. They said she could not sit down and could not even recognise them.
I did not understand the kind of ailment that could do that to her in less than two weeks. So, I decided to pay her a visit myself and was confronted with the shock of my life. She was as skinny as a bone; I could hardly recognise her.
I called her name and she just nodded in a way that suggested that she actually did not know who was calling her. I decided immediately to take her to the general hospital for proper care and also called on some fellow consultants to brainstorm on what the matter could be. We ran series of tests, but they did not point at suspected conditions.
All the while, my wife was giving me serious trouble at home, saying that I was restless because I was having an affair with the lady. She also said I should be careful not to “carry another person’s load on my head, while holding mine in my hands.”
At this point, I quarrelled with her because I did not expect a sane human being to be that insensitive to another’s plight. I knew and could swear with the bible that I had nothing at all with the lady.
She was just a very hard working lady that I thought should not be allowed to die because of poverty, only to find out that her problem could be more spiritual than medical. Her relatives later decided to take her away from the hospital after eight weeks and said they were taking her to church for prayers. I did not know how my wife found out about this because the matron was not aware of that decision.
But immediately I got home, she warned me never to step my feet in any spiritual home or church the lady’s people might be planning to take her to. She said she (the nurse) would eventually die, anyway, because she had dared to ‘drag’ her husband with her.
As if it was a decree, news came in that the lady died just when her relatives were processing the necessary papers to discharge her. Her death shook me, such that everyone around me knew that something was terribly amiss. I began to recall my wife’s hatred for her; her endless complaints and monitoring; her confessions, which came to pass, including the fact that she would eventually die. I became uneasy and began to be afraid of the woman I married.
I confided in my aunt, but she dismissed my fear, saying my wife was just the troublesome type. She said if she truly had anything to do with the nurse’s death, she would never have behaved as if she even knew that she was ill.
She told me that she was saying all she was saying because someone from the hospital was feeding her. I had my reservations but I chose to believe my aunt, especially because my baby was around the corner.
About six weeks after the death of the nurse, my wife gave birth to a baby girl. I was very happy to be a father and named her after the mother I never knew. Strangely, two weeks after she was born, my daughter became seriously anaemic. I could not explain it. This strange ailment led to so many inexplicable things that happened too fast…
To be continued…
