At Emmanuel Adesanya Street, downtown Ikorodu in Lagos State where she resides, there is hardly anyone who does not know Taiwo Fakiyesi, aka Mama Maria. She became very popular among residents as the owner of the only well-stocked grocery store around the area.
But two Saturdays ago, almost everyone in the neighbourhood shed tears for the ailing 47-year-old mother of three as she was struck with yet another tragedy.
She lost her husband who had been helping her contend with kidney disease.
Last October, following an excruciating stomach upset, tests revealed that her two kidneys had packed up. And since then, she has been undergoing dialysis twice a week.
With the support of her husband and the association of landlords in the area, the family had been coping with the high cost of the treatment. But unfortunately, the husband, who had been running around to see that his wife was cured, succumbed to death, thus throwing the family and the entire neighbourhood into mourning.
Everything was done by the family to hide the news of his demise from his sick wife, but it did not take long before the cat was let out of the bag. Sooner than later, the woman got to know that something terrible must have happened to her husband when for three days, she did not see him.
According to her brother, Sunkanmi, who spoke to our correspondent on Sunday, everything was done to keep the news away from her until it was no longer possible.
He said, “We tried as much as possible to keep the news away from her but we failed. The man was the one that was solely responsible for her welfare and in less than two days, she was aware of the terrible news.”
When our correspondent visited the ailing woman, it was obvious that the demise of her husband must have hit her very hard as she lay on the floor moaning.
With an emotion-laden tone, she moaned in Yoruba, “Ha, my husband, how can you die? I’m sorry I didn’t mean to kill you. Now that you are dead, what is next for me? Who will take care of me? We did not plan it this way; why?”
Sunkanmi, who was detailed to attend to her, told Saturday PUNCH that her health condition grew worse when she learnt of her husband’s death.
He said, “Even though she has been in pains, the death of her husband has made her situation worse. She has not stopped lamenting since, even with the little strength left in her. We have tried as much as possible to console her, pleading with her to save her failing strength for the sake of her children. But she has refused to listen to us.
“It is now difficult to know which one pains her more. Before the death of her husband last week, she had demonstrated strong faith in God, being a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. She had borne the pains of her sickness stoically, believing that God would see her through.
“But the death of her husband shattered all of that. I must confess that she has lost the zest to live, especially when she has taken responsibility for the death of her husband. We have appealed to her to stop feeling that way, but she has ignored everybody.”
Fakiyesi was said to be a very hardworking business woman whose grocery shop built in front of her house enjoys good patronage.
In October 2012, she woke up with a terrible pain in a part of her stomach that did not allow her to open her shop on time. When the pain would not go on time, she asked one of her daughters to boil water to massage the spot but it would not go away.
In a laboured conversation with our correspondent, Fakiyesi said she had never known anything called renal disease until tests run on her revealed what she was suffering from.
She said, “When I woke up that day, I was feeling pain at this side of my stomach. When it was becoming unbearable, I asked Maria to boil water so that I would massage it. But when the pain would not go away, I was taken to Ajayi Medical Centre in Ikorodu here, where I spent three days on admission.
“The pain subsided a bit and I was discharged. But on the second day it came back much stronger. My husband took me to his church for prayers because everything appeared so strange. I can’t remember the last time I took meditation, not to talk of being admitted. In this kind of environment, one cannot rule out spiritual attacks.
“But when the pain would not go, I went back to the hospital where I was treated again but this time around, the pain refused to go. I was then taken to Jolad Hospital in Bariga, Lagos where I was told that I fainted repeatedly. It was from Jolad that I was referred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja for an abdominal scan.”
Fakiyesi lamented that her condition would perhaps have been salvaged had the hospitals she was taken to at the initial stage detected what was wrong with her.
“Maybe I would not have suffered like this if they detected the disease early. “Even when the scan was done at LASUTH in October, I was given a December date to come back for checks when I was already dying. I had never been so shocked in my life when the result of the scan revealed that I had a kidney problem.
“They said my two kidneys had gone bad and that I would need to undergo dialysis at least twice a week to stay alive. It was as if I was dreaming because prior to that time, I had never heard about it nor had any symptom of the disease. I had to undergo different tests running into thousands of naira.
“I can’t even quantify how much we have spent, especially on dialysis which I have been doing twice a week since October at Life Support, GRA, Ikeja. A session alone is about N45,000. My husband spent everything he had and even borrowed. Members of my family too have come in, as well as the landlords association to make sure I come out of it, but my condition killed my husband,” she said and burst into tears.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that Mr. Fakiyesi was diabetic and had been managing the ailment for years before his wife suddenly fell ill. He was said to have been so overwhelmed by his wife’s condition that he neglected his own health which led to his death.
“For years, he managed his diabetes but my ailment killed him. How else do you want me to feel about the death of my husband who was the one carrying me everywhere? Maybe I should just have died instead of killing the good man,” she laments.
Sunkanmi told Saturday PUNCH that the man’s death had begun to take its toll on his sister’s health. The dialysis has even stopped because of lack of funds.
“It’s a week today that she had the last dialysis. There is no money to continue and you can see her condition is becoming worse. When it was discovered that her kidneys had packed up, the recommendation given to us was that if after about five sessions of dialysis she did not pick up, we should seek medical help abroad.
“We cannot even count how many dialysis she has done. The confusion created by her husband’s death has not even allowed us to sit down and deliberate on what next to do,” he lamented.
Fakiyesi informed our correspondent that her first daughter, Maria, who had since stopped her studies at the Redeemer’s University, had offered to donate one of her kidneys.
“Maria has offered to donate one kidney but where am I going to get N5m required to travel abroad for treatment? Now my husband is dead, who is going to take his place? I must be the most miserable person in the whole world. People will say that I killed my husband and even if I die, they will tell my children,” she added amid sobs.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that the three children of the sick woman had stopped schooling.
As it stands, Taiwo lies critically ill at home, facing an uncertain future.
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