Another doctor also met me in one of the check-ups and after pleasantries said to me “You better take care of your heart ooo lest if fails. Because if you should have a heart attack, if you are lucky, we might resuscitate you, but it will still fail again and it will take around five years. If it should fail again, you are gone”. But I just smiled at him and walked away.

During the check-up days, there were times I will be called by the nurses to check my vital signs and once I stand to go meet them, I would hear people murmuring that I was too young to suffer from heart disease (as that particular clinic only holds on Wednesdays for heart disease patients who were mostly the elderly). This got me depressed, but I had to encourage myself.

It wasn’t any better at the pharmacies? Sometimes when I go to collect the drugs I paid for (which were not less than 20,000 – 24,000 and some drugs are changed on each appointment), once they asked who is taking the drugs so they can tell the person how to take them and I indicated they were mine, immediately their countenance would change and you would see the expression of shock on their faces coupled with murmuring. All these almost killed me, but I kept being strong because I trusted our able God.

My family did not only go as far as borrowing, even until now, they are still paying up some debts incurred, they also never relented in prayers nor gave up on me. My case was mentioned in almost all prayer requests.

Once it got dark, I would start panicking for fear of the unknown as things seemed to get worse at night. Severe difficulty in breathing. I would shout, run around, call for help. The seizures I had on both legs when they started, I wouldn’t feel my legs anymore and I my complexion would instantly start changing, I would get darker and so did I get weaker too, but in all these, grace kept me because death starred me in the face but God triumphed over it.

Almost every midnight I was rushed to the hospital as an emergency case.

Then the worst came, my blood pressure was not going down but was on 150/120 sometimes 140/120.
My pulse was below 50 and I suffered dizziness. I was becoming more of bones than flesh because no food substance could go down my chest even liquid substances. Anything I ate could hardly go down, food obstructed the little airflow and this made eating a nightmare.

Things got worse, and I started vomiting and stooling blood. It was a frightening experience for everyone. I was rushed back to the hospital and a different test was done but it was all related to the heart.
At that point, I gave up on my faith and begged death to come.
I told everyone that cared to hear that I was tired of living, that I needed to go and rest but my family rejected it and kept calling on God to intervene.

Days were rolling into weeks and weeks into months but all efforts seemed to be wasted, even the doctors begged me to help them by being cheerful because it seemed that their efforts were not good enough.
But how could I have been happy in that state?