Well! Where do I begin? It’s as if my health battles just don’t want to end.
I’m gonna keep this post relatively short, as I’m just sick and tired of talking about my
ridiculous sequence of health issues.
So after my last posts y’all are not gonna believe what happened next or the insanity I’ve been through for most of this year so far.
About week and a half after my last post, I suddenly started seeing dark viscous floating fluids in my vision, turned out my right eye was hemorrhaging and before you knew it, I’d lost my vision.
Now those of you who’ve been reading my posts know all the other health issues I’d had so far and how I was still somehow able to ‘chest’ each one as they came along with a positive outlook, but I must confess, this one very nearly broke me.
I’ve never been more afraid of anything as I was when I lost my ability to see. I mean, I being alone in this country, with no family or nothing never phased me, but try to imagine an artist who’s no longer able to see. I was all but certain my life was over.
The next day after this happened, I was supposed to meet my cardiologist, so I navigated my way to the hospital with a taxi and sheer willpower. When the doctor saw me, I explained what had happened and she immediately canceled that appointment and got me to see the ophthalmologist at the same hospital.
A brief exam later, I was told to come back to see the specialist in the hope that the whole thing would clear by itself.
A few days later, I returned and saw the doctor who then diagnosed that I had what is called a ‘Vitreous hemorrhage’, which I found out is a quite common occurrence with people with diabetes.
She examined both eyes, which was when I found out that my diabetes had seriously messed up my left eye, and I’d be seeing all this while through my right eye which was the one currently hemorrhaging.
She then proceeded to perform laser surgery on my left eye to kill off the excess blood vessels that had formed there(this would not heal it but it would at least ensure it doesn’t get any worse) while she said I had to wait about 2 months to see if my bleeding eye would self correct before surgery would be required.
I though I was blind when I went to the hospital, but after they’d shone so much light in both eyes and had conducted the laser procedure, I was COMPLETELY blind. As in my vision was just black! The doctor did assure me in advance that the ‘partial vision’ I had would return in a short while and that the blindness was due to all the intense beams of lights my eyes had been subjected to.
To say that at this point I was depressed would be the understatement of the decade! There I was, unable to see, unable to call anyone as I couldn’t see anything on my phone and all by myself, facing the prospect of living in this condition, and then….it happened. The internal voice I often converse with within me spoke, and it went kinda like this:
Voice: This looks really bad, what are you gonna do about it?
Me: I don’t know!(practically in tears)I don’t know what to do!
Voice: Remember who you are, and I don’t mean your father’s son ( I know stubbornness runs in your entire family, but no that’s not what I mean.)
Me: Then what do you mean?
Voice: In order to survive this, you must prove to yourself that you ‘can’ survive this by doing something only ‘The Black Thunder” can!
Me: I see!
So, I took a deep breath, got up and proceeded to make my way home from the hospital, completely blind, relying on the kindness of strangers on the street who helped me get a taxi, and calculated memory to help guide the taxi driver to my block. It was surreal!
When I managed to get into my apartment , after struggling to find the keyhole for my key, I almost collapsed from exhaustion, as my heart had been in my mouth all this while!
Accomplishing this reignited my resilience, to the point that when the school I had left due to my heart episode called me back that afternoon(can you believe that?) and asked if I’d be willing to resume our collaboration, I said yes, but told them my situation and assured them I’d make it work. And I did. ( I later left the school at the end of the school year, but that's another story for another day.)
Fast forward 2 months later, with the help of a dear friend (who my heart registers as a cousin, only because people close to me are never just friends, but are assigned a familial value/tag), I went for my eye surgery finally.
It took a while before whatever gaseous stuff they put in my eye dissipated and my vision gradually improved. It’s still far from great, but it’s much better than how it was before the surgery. I can at least see well enough to see my laptop keyboard and navigate my phone, I still struggle to judge distances correctly which makes walking and painting quite tricky, but I have managed to do both the best I can. I still don’t do well at night but...meh!
Since getting some of my vision back I have managed to complete 2 portraits and two other paintings, and managing these have helped restore much of my confidence as an artist to me,
I’m no longer able to approach painting like I used to, but I’m fast developing a new approach and style. As we Nigerians often say...#Wemove!
Lots of things happened in this period, from going to a set to shoot a commercial while blind (they had to graciously assign someone to lead me about at the set), to one of my molars suddenly fracturing vertically leaeving me in pure agony till I had to be saved by one of my kid’s dental skills, with the helpful ‘ok’ from her parents of course. (By the way, if you’re in Bucharest and you ever need dental work done, you might wanna check out '3senses' on Mircea Voda. They do other beauty related things there too. You’ll be glad you did).
I’m gonna end this post around here. I still have a serires of medical investigations plus a cataracts procedure on that same eye to look forward to, but, one battle at a time!
People often ask me how I manage with all that life’s throwing at me and still be...me! The truth is, as God’s favourite Muppet, I am quite blessed. From the kind people here he’s brought into my life, the small army of kids He’s given me and, in a category all to themselves, my high-school siblings ( I do not have the words to convey what that collections of ABSOLUTE NUTTERS mean to me. I consider them the greatest inheritance, of sorts, that my late father left to me, that I know them is one of the greatest blessings of my life. They are my tribe! #ISL-94)
Anyhoo that’s it. I think for the next post I may actually write about my art for a change, or my recent trip to Sofia with my best friend. Not sure which I’ll go for though, we’ll see!
To everyone who bothered to help, check up and look in on me while I was going through all this, (you know who you are), you all have my sincerest gratitude.
And thanks to you all, THE BLACK THUNDER STILL STANDS!!! :)))
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