SICK MAN, SICK WIFE 1

Tade received a call from his wife, she was down with pain, a motility problem that triggers every once in a while, as critical as the case seem, it is not an emergency to Tade, he is used to it, he rushed out of work in frantic race, most of his colleagues understood, they let him be, he drove blindly to the house, it’s about 15mins away, an idea he initiated for reasons of emergency as regards his dear wife. He was fagged out, the persistence of the sickness in recent times have been a threat to his well-being, he was right on that thin line between giving up and trying more, he got to the house, carried his wife like a child into the vehicle, it was a regular charade to his neighbors, they simply helped him with few things and wished him well as they were overly sure his wife will be fine. Many news of the woman being a witch or a money wasting entity has been in the buzz for a while, many folks desist from associating with Tade as they surmised that he had used his wife for some money ritual, there was an underlying presence of rejection in the manner of engagements with Tade in his neighborhood, this made him expect very less from people, he used to take it to heart but as time went; he figured out people will talk no matter what, he grew tougher skin when kin and friends joined the league of the careless rumor mongers, it dawned on him that it was him against the world even as sometimes he still get worked up with the unpleasant bad occurrence. 

Reaching for help in the hospital, he screamed to alert the gossiping nurses, they were quite reluctant to help him but the fear of losing their jobs gave them no choice. 

“Which kind wahala be this sef? Iwo leni, Iwo lo la, bi ekún a p’ko je.” One of the nurses lamented. 

Tade’s wife was attended to by the doctor, who as usual was nice and encouraging, maybe because he was genuinely doing his job or because he gets to bill Tade every now and then. They sat to discuss as usual, a new door to solution, meeting a specialist to get a permanent solution to the stomach attacks, Tade at this point was not as enthused as he used to be, six years of a particular pattern will wear anyone out, his wife wasn’t only the sick one, even Tade was sick, only that his sickness had no diagnosis, he agreed with whatever the doctor said simply because he doesn’t want to be tagged the weak vessel but weariness filled his soul, he was sad and angry at the same time, sad of his bad luck, angry at God. He had done about everything he’s been advised to do, he couldn’t just wish death on his beautiful, curvy and slim wife.

The doctor advise was to fly abroad to Santorini in Greece to meet a motility specialist, the line of the Doctor that got Tade on board is the promise to quit trying if the Greek specialist have no solution, all he (Tade) had been looking for, a way to stop the torture, he needed a voice of support for his intention, a voice that would say its okay to quit.