Stella Damasus

For those who want to really see pictures to satisfy their curiosity, please enjoy.

 

It's my birthday today the 24th day of April and all I can say is thank you Lord for everything.
 I sat down as usual to take stock of my life and try to evaluate this being called Stella DAMASUS. I see the world around me now, how it was, how it has been, how it should be and  how I wish it could be.

Through it all, I thank God for times I had plenty and times I had nothing.
The times I was happy and times I was sad.
The times I gained and the times I lost.
The times I was judged and criticized by too many and the times I was celebrated by only a few.
The times I loved and the times I could not love.
The times I fell and the times I picked myself up.
The times I made mistakes and the times I did it right.
The times I felt alone and the times I felt complete.
The times I was married and the times I was not.
The times I did not have anyone and the times I had a family.
The times I thought I had it all and the times I thought I had none.
The times I thought I knew it all and the times I knew nothing.
The times I blamed the world and the times I blamed myself.
The times I thought I could fix things and the times I knew I could not.
The times I could have died and the times I was saved.
The times I cried and the times I smiled.
In all of this I realized that I could not really control any of these factors on my own. That was when it dawned on me that while we are here on earth breaking our backs to control everything, God has already done that and has decided who we will be, where we will be, how we will be and when we will be, so no matter how hard people try to interrupt other people's lives or theirs it is not possible. It is said that who God has blessed no man can curse and whoever God has already cursed no man can bless.

After my last article find out more, I received a lot of comments from people who had never heard about meningitis. Comments also came from those who felt I was trying to make people take me more seriously by talking about an issue they say I know nothing about.
Truth is that I was happy I got all these messages from both sides as it confirmed to me that at least I have raised something in the minds of people. The fact that they read and decided to take the time to respond either positively or negatively gave me joy.
I do not think I need to be a doctor to share something as serious and as important as that. It can happen to anyone or a relative so I think that we should take out time to look into it.

As I continued my research this week on the Internet, I discovered something that might convince the doubting thomases and the extremely busy parents who leave their children in the hands of hired helps as regards health and safety precautions.
The schools in Nigeria also have to play a part in this by insisting that parents must make sure their children have completed their immunization at a certain age before they are admitted into the schools. This means that even the schools should have medical consultants to take them through all the things the children require. It is not enough for schools to have a sick bay with ugly, hard beds and apprentice nurses. They should have pediatric consultants they can call for quick remedies and to know what children should and should not take. For schools that give lunch as an option,  a certified dietician or pediatrician should work with them to provide balanced meals for the children. I have also asked if anyone goes to schools from time to time to check the school kitchen and cafeteria as regards hygiene of both the location and the people making the food for our children.

As I went through the Internet I stumbled on a story of a young girl called Kaitlyn. She was a beautiful girl who loved to dance but unfortunately had symptoms that were obviously not taken care of. She got so sick that when she got to the hospital both her hands and legs had to be cut off because the disease had entered her blood and other organs. When her parents came they were asked if Kaitlyn got her meningitis vaccination as a child and they said NO.
They watched their 18 year old daughter loose her hands and legs at the same time.
Imagine how that girl will feel for the rest of her life and imagine how her relationship with her parents will be from now on, knowing that she could have had a normal life if her parents had just taken more time to find out what she needed.
Imagine how she would feel everyday seeing her parents as they walk around her and bring food to her with all their body parts complete and fully functional.
She will spend the rest of her life probably wearing artificial legs and hands which she will have to learn to use from scratch.
It is the most devastating thing for anyone to ever have to go through, for a disease that is extremely preventable.

Recently I got involved in the life of a little girl who was about 5 years old. The experience I got was so scary but also very informative and educative. I thought to share this information with parents, guardians, heads of schools, neighbours, hospitals and pharmacies.
          I realized that Nigeria pays a lot of attention to specific vaccinations when children are born and our hospitals do not have the culture of going through files to know who and who is due for another vaccination. They just leave it to the parents who might not remember or are not around and in the process skip a very important vaccine for the children.

As exposed as a lot of us think we are, there are a lot of things that we do not know, or have heard of and are not sure exactly what it is. The problem we have most of the time in Nigeria as parents is the lack of research. When it comes to making money, marketing and publicity strategies, we are on top of our game as regards research. The story is however not the same when it comes to health care. We usually leave that to the doctors and nurses who might not even be as informed as you might think. Trust me I know what I am saying because I have encountered a lot of medical practitioners who are not able to answer questions concerning different things like lupus and other forms of diseases that are not popular in West Africa. The fact that they are not popular does not mean that they do not exist among Africans. Well that is for another article entirely.
             Back to the child I was talking about in the beginning. I saw this child in church on Sunday and she danced and played, even ate cake as it was a birthday celebration of one of the other kids in Sunday school. They all took pictures and generally had great fun. According to the family, she got home after church and was so tired that she fell asleep. Her mother left her to rest for a while but after three hours they thought it was unusual for her to sleep that much in the afternoon. So the woman decided to go and wake her up but when she touched the little girl her temperature was so high that mother almost dropped her. There was fear all over the house because no one had ever experienced the kind of temperature the little girl had.

As it is with most Nigerians, when something like this happens the first thing we think of is malaria which we always try to treat by ourselves by taking or giving medication we believe our bodies can tolerate. The mother gave her fever reducer and malaria medicine hoping that when the child sleeps and wakes up the next day the fever will be seriously reduced.
Unfortunately at midnight that same night the child woke up screaming, the whole house ran to her and she was hallucinating. She said "the man is moving faster mummy please tell him to stop moving faster". At that point her mother started crying. She got a towel, dipped it in cold water and put on the girl's body to bring down the fever which got worse at that time.
Sleep became far from the whole house as they all stayed up with her till 4 am when they decided to take her to the hospital.
When they got there, the receptionist first took almost an hour trying to ask questions, calculate money for consultation and so on. After that it was time to take vitals before going to see the doctor. The mother asked for a paediatrician and that was when she discovered that most hospitals don’t have resident paediatricians, they have consultants who come in at specific times and on specific days.
     

 

Moving on, they saw a doctor who admitted her and ran blood tests. Of course you will find malaria parasite but the saving grace was a particular doctor who was very patient and made further investigations. He then asked for the child to be treated with heavy doses of intravenous antibiotics. After a few hours the paediatrician finally came and asked some questions and noticed that the little girl could not get her chin to touch her chest. At that point the girl's mother was called outside and she was told that they will have to take a sample from the child's spine because of the suspicion the doctor had.
That was the most painful extraction they had ever seen even for an adult but the results came two days later. That was when the mother was told that her child had meningitis and it was close to the brain. The only reason that child did not turn into a vegetable and eventually die was because of the doctor who insisted the child be given antibiotics. If not for that early treatment the little girl would have died. The girl's treatment was so painful and long, it came with a lot of sleepless nights at the hospital and so much discomfort for the little girl.
       

 

The mother got the shocker of her life when the hospital started asking her questions about her daughter's vaccination. When they asked her if she made sure her children took meningitis vaccinations she said she didn't even know there was a vaccination for that. She also discovered that there were some vaccinations her children should have taken even at the age of five. Some are taken after the age of ten and I am also aware that if your any child seeks for admission in any school in the western world, whether pre-school, kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school or college you must bring a form filled buy the hospital telling them you have been taking all your shots and are up to date with them. The hospital documents will also tell them about your medical history and everything that concerns your family too.
          It is very sad that ninety percent of Nigerians pay attention to DTP, IPV, MMR, HBV and chicken pox. There are actually five more from what I have discovered including the almighty HIB.

Please try to find out how many vaccinations your children have taken and how many more they have to take. Try and make sure your hospital keeps you up to date with your children's medical chat and history. You must also know what they are allergic to and what treatments they have had over time.
Anything that can get into your spine and then your brain can kill faster than even HIV.

Please let us all try to take our children's health more seriously and I encourage you to find out about most of these immunizations, different illnesses that you can avoid, things your children should not eat or drink. Find out things you should look out for when you meet a paediatrician or go to a hospital that was recommended to you.

Your children should be your number one project so let the Research begin. Good luck.