It was very usual of a South African morning sky to have the sun actively at labour, and the least said about the effects of its rays on human skins and leather the better. It was half past eight in Cape Town, the administrative city of the country, and the city was already up with the refulgency of the sun, bustling and hustling with the cries of conductors of commercial buses traveling on the beautiful and black asphaltic roads. They were either moving to or from Durban to Bellvile and vice versa. And for some minutes long, I kept my gaze at the to and fro movement, from the windows of my room. I watched the pedestrians too. They were either walking or waiting to catch a bus to carry them to anywhere. I was thinking about nothing in particular, my head was comfortably rested at the intersection of my crossed hands on the panels of the glass windows. But not before I could retire to bed for a second time sleep, did Phina, my host, knocked at my door; she had come to ask if I cared to visit the Tyger valley Mall, which She said was the biggest in the country. "Yes please", I responded perfectly well and with much delight in my voice. It was my third day in the country, and I was still curious about everything within.
While in the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror that hanged just above the sink; it wasn’t a reflection of me I saw. It was of another man, whom we only shared resemblances, but not in his distorted mouth; the upper lips had shifted towards right and the lower to the left, and his reddened eye balls looked like one who had just stopped crying over a hurtful loss. I tried to understand that he was as normal as I was, but it was only then, that I realized something was going the wrong way somewhere. Something I couldn’t just fathom, it was strange to me and it appeared that the man in the mirror was more frightened than I was.
I felt total exhaustion after I managed to move my right hand to bath all of my body, which, of course, included my right leg which was refusing to stand properly. What is happening to me? I asked myself, but I knew I had not even the slightest clue on the answer. I still managed to re-enter my room to dress up for the mall, but I was weak and so I bedded. No sooner had I rested than Phina called my attention to the time and also advised that the sun could be terrible in the afternoon so we made it now.
Phina was driving, and I was seated just beside her, and she would, sporadically, converse with me. When she asked me to teach her my local language, I grinned without opening my mouth. Then another, she asked me how we said ‘good morning’ in my local dialect and I dared to speak, and the words just rushed all up at once in my head, each wanting to come out of the contorted mouth, confused as to what to say, I kept quiet. She asked why I was quiet, and I answered; 'ablebla', that was when I realized I couldn’t speak. But ignorant Phina laughed and asked if that was how we said ‘good morning’ in our local dialect, to which I nodded in the affirmation to save myself from further questions. I wondered what was wrong with me, my right hand wouldn’t do as the brain orders, and same with my right leg, and my speech wouldn’t come and I felt very sorry for myself.
When we reached the mall, Phina had a call from her son; she was to pick some items from him at an uncommon ground, so she left me at the car park to window shop while awaiting on her return. I came out of the car very carefully yet unbalanced in my steps and so she asked me whether everything was okay with me, and again, I nodded in response that all was well.
I dragged my feet to the mall; I could only see its magnificence in the white people around, for second I asked myself where the black folks are? I could see items on display but my brain couldn’t communicate with my eyes therefore everything I saw remained in the eyes, and not further to the brain.
Unconsciously, I found myself sitting in a restaurant and a black guy walked up to me with the menu, he welcomed me and asked if I would need the menu. In a deliberate attempt to answer him, I accidentally threw up the saliva I had all the while accumulated in my mouth at him but rather to my surprise, the guy saw that something was wrong with me and so was calm. I tried apologizing and the words wouldn’t just come out of my mouth properly, I kept on throwing my hands in the air, gesturing the words but I made no sense to even myself let alone the waiter. He told not to bother at all, and opened the menu, I was pointing to a particular dish but my right hand wouldn’t obey any orders from the brain or it was the brain who wouldn’t communicate rightly. The waiter then said he would serve me a nice meal. I threw my eyes wildly across the food court and I saw the waiter positioned at a corner and keeping a worried gaze on me.
He realized I found it difficult eating the food. No hand to pick them from the white plate and no mouth to chew. I kept on struggling with the feeding and ended up with the food in my nose and all over the place. One of the customers seated with a lady next to me, said to the girl friend; 'How can ocean basket allow mad men to come here just because they have the money'. The waiter rushed to me, and asked me if I needed assistance in anything, but I insisted I was okay with my left hand. But the waiter was smart to realize I wasn’t okay.
When I was exiting the mall to the car park, looking around, I found out that the waiter was following me. My right leg was eventually paralyzed, I fell to the floor at the park and suddenly I wept. I was crying because I realized how abruptly but gradually I was transmogrifying into a day old baby, who couldn’t think, walk, touch and worse of all feed. But babies don’t go to shopping malls by themselves. I knew I was still a man.
The waiter came to me and begged me to talk to him; he asked me what he could do for me and I wanted to tell him how I was feeling but each time I opened my mouth, the brain wouldn’t bring out even a word, and that made me cry the more such that the waiter too cried. We sat there in the middle of the car park, and then my brain came back all of a sudden, I remembered that I was with my phone; I gave it to him to call Phina to come for me.
He did and said that Phina was just somewhere around the corner and that she was already on her way to the mall. When Phina saw me on the floor with the waiter, she began to weep. She had a soft heart. Phina was above sixty years. I was hauled to Tyger Valley hospital, which I later learned was the biggest and well equipped teaching hospital in Africa and the third in the world. Indeed a first class hospital it was. I was admitted in the intensive care unit and had about seven doctors around me the whole night.
Just after three days, I could walk but far away from perfect, but I had not restored my speech. I was assigned to a speech therapist, a physiotherapist, a team of cardiovascular doctors and a team of neurological doctors. And above all, a powerful praying team, which included Phina and Noleen. So after a week in the hospital, the doctors felt I was fit to go home and discharged me. The rest of your functions will recover over time, the leader of the cardiovascular team told me.
After some time in Cape town, I was flown back home to Accra, Ghana.
THE WAHALA OF A RECOVERING STROKE PATIENT
Right from kotoka international airport to my current location, I have constantly faced humiliation in one way or the other.
I remember sitting in a taxi with two university girls in Kumasi, they engaged me in a conversation in English about the recklessness of some taxi drivers on the road, when I tried speaking, the words just rushed up in my head and I stammered over them, choosing them one after the other. One of the girls, looked at me, said “You could speak twi” while the other hid her face in the wind to laugh out. I looked at them and only smiled and shook my head.
Another was when I was opening a bank account in Accra, the lady started the conversation in English and when I was responding, I made a mess out of myself; I kept saying ‘eeerrrhhmmmm’, and then she asked me what language I was fluent in, I managed to respond out of shame, I said I spoke Chinese.
One day, I was just walking by the street in my neighbourhood and I later found myself in a trotro (commercial van) without knowing where I was going, the mate (conductor) asked me for my money until I realized it was an accident, and I told him I had no money on me and he was so furious insulting me, I tried explaining but the words came only half way, so the driver angrily dumped me at spanner junction and I walked to Accra mall, went into the wash room and wept my sorrow off. I easily forget, this stroke took away much from me.
In a meeting in Tamale, I recall the secretary asking me to sign the attendance book, and when I did, he looked at me, and told me to buy my first copy book to start writing again. We both laughed. But mine was the kind of laughter which comes from a sad heart. The stroke made my right hand, my writing hand, weak such that it couldn’t hold pen firmly.
While I was in an aircraft to Liberia, I wrote a poem in the clouds, I proof read the poem severally, with each time picking many grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and a whole lot. Each time I read the poem and saw some errors I wouldn’t have made if not the stroke, I would cry. I sent the piece to a friend upon arriving and he asked whether I wrote it, having known me for long, he saw in the poem that all was not well. He called and asked “Cliff, you don’t write like this, I know you. Tell the writer to do a little more of grammar and spellings before starting to write” then I laughed. This time it was a genuine laughter.
And the worse of it was when I am reading, I skip some of the words, which I later see upon re-reading the piece. I would laugh as I read the paragraph again.
But in all these and more, I have never stopped believing in myself; never stopped writing, never stopped reading, never stopped learning a piece by heart to exercise the brain, I have never stopped talking. These days, I have learned to laugh the more rather than cry over my inabilities. And the results are mind blowing. I have also learned not to talk at all when I was angry and my speech now is perfect when I'm much relaxed and speak slowly. That way, I give the brain enough room to process the thoughts slowly but sure.
And God has always, always got my back, that is why I am even able to type this piece in about an hour.
God is healing me, I believe I will be perfectly alright in three years to come, I have learned from a ted video.
0 comments:
Post a Comment