A thousand deaths in one

 It makes exactly two months today since the drastic overturn began. The phase where life changes its course and death is undeniably inevitable to the larger-than-life. It is a glaring truth, a sporadic downturn that oars the later tides of my path through the earth. Forever. 

Today makes it two months exactly since I woke up to the alarm ringing on the sit of my juniper bed table. The snoozing little asset had been gifted to me by Tena, my only sibling, on my seventeenth birthday weeks ago. It is a valid asset and I cherish it to the same extent to which I cherish every other valuable, - from the most intellective to the little demure golden boot I won at JS2. I do this to keep track of my achievements and watch them fuel my zeal to be more. Makes sense.

The mildly throbbing headache I feel had become persistent, but I move on from it. A pill of analgesic and a good bath will work it out just fine. I walk over to the dash board hanging on the wall with series of post-its placed thereon. I make plans for the day, created to-dos and ticked this date on my calendar. 19th January 2021.

 It's not what I plan that makes me futuristically inclined, it's how meticulous I make detailed catalogues of my life and plans. The past, present and future, the places I want to visit, goals I need to smash and milestones to climb. I keep quotes and personal Mantras. one of which reads, "Before I die". 

"Before I die," I read aloud,

"I'll write a classic, I’ll visit the Himalayas and see for myself the pleasures of the white mountains.

I'll Influence millions of lives to the scale of positivity and will build me a sustainable business firm that will span generations.

Before I die, I’ll live. I'll live to my fullest self."

I pace around the room as my mum calls for breakfast. We ought to leave home before 10am. Today is my graduation ceremony and I'm graduating Magnacaum laude. My dad seemed to have pulled on a spike for me on this one. I made him proud, and with this, fulfilment creases our veins. I can almost see myself being awarded. With the actual price proving more satisfying than the idea of it. So much more when I walk down that aisle to give my speech ever so audibly and coherently.

"Today, with the heights of emotions seething through me, I am honoured to..."

Bodun! My mum calls again from the kitchen, interrupting my rehearsed speech for the umpteenth. I don't give her the pleasures of seeing me grope for food, because instead, I made my way to the bathroom to fix up for the morning. It took me the better of one hour to meticulously shower and put every pins and cuff links on. I sized myself over at the mirror, head still throbbing slightly but then, this is another day to smash the goals. Tena comes just in time to chime me away from the room as I reach out for the pain killer lying idly on the table.  

Pancakes, marinated with maple syrup and tea was for breakfast, and in no time we are driving through the ebbs of town. It will take us about half an hour to get to the school venue, frankly because we stay in the suburbs. Of course, I am not of the fancy folks who puts on classy wears and get hair cuts in a state-of-the-art salon. Neither am I the slum slugger who has got no dunlop to fix on his foot laying bare. We are not rich, but we aren't poor either. We only do our best at the little on our plate to handle. 

We had just gone a little further into the main town when my first faze-out occurred. It happened in milliseconds, with Tena looking like a little chucky dull. The smile, the frown, all spontaneously woven at a time to stop me in a heartbeat. The illumination from the window panes made every element in the vehicle color-warring, and my head throbs too intensely to bear. I am not sure what happened next and I don't think I hear me when I screamed. 

                                       Black out. 

* * * * * * *

9TH FEBRUARY,

I woke up to the confines of the bed at St. Mary's hospital. In a ward with substitute fluids running down my veins and oxygen flipping the orifice of my nasals. Mum says I've been there for about three weeks. it's a little before 2am and we had long missed the event. She probes me to find out what went wrong as dad makes for the attending physician. I honest-to-goodness have no worthy reply.

“My visions altered and my headaches got severe. The pain killers didn’t work” It is all I say to her, it's all I say to the doctor. They had treated me for cerebral malaria. I do not question him about this, but I didn't think I had a fever before the episode. (I always thought that high fever was a precursor to malaria). He places me on oral meds and after little observation and much counselling, I was good to go. My mum probes me further as we got to the house but I've got nothing else to tell her. Dad is quick to always deflect her questioning just so she'll let me have my rest. I needed it. I walked to my room with an unsteady gait that I'm sure will balance up soon. Tena tends to me in the room, like a nurse, almost never letting me lift a finger at the very least to get my phone.

“Don't stress, I'll get that for you " she says.

“It's fine really.” I tell her. “I'm okay now”.

“I know that, just taking precautions. Mum is in serious panic, anything goes wrong again and she'll think this is a spiritual battle.” 

I laugh, “it’s a miracle she wasn't doing the driving”

”Yeah. We'd have all gotten car crashed.” 

This is soothing, we laughed at the disaster just phased away from us. Little did we expect the woes of the preceding weeks to come. I powered my phone and followed through the retrospect of the graduation ceremony. So many condolences from my classmates, so many pictures I had missed out on. "It is a shame" I thought, and even in my spite for drugs, I chose to work my way around this one.

The next couple of days were pretty excellent - football, gaming and everything worthy of an holiday. We received a report of my scholarship to the university of Lagos, and my dad could never have been prouder. I still get the headaches that lull me away into obvious inactivity sometimes, and little episodes still frequently triggered my emotion switch, but they were a lot less livid. I mean, isn’t that the point of emotions anyway? to keep us on the verge of almost getting the point without actually ever getting the point?

We had a little evening home party to celebrate the event of the scholarship. More so, to make up for the grad I had sorely missed. I was opportune to give my much rehearsed speech again. It was a parody, and the burst of laughter at my stent bow made it feel surreal. In honesty, I couldn't really bend beyond that level, - the level of a simple nod. I felt too giddy, so I napped early. I don't remember the time, but my mum says at precisely 1:34am she jerked awake as she heard me shriek in pain. All three of them had hurried their way down my room to meet my twisted form on the floor, screaming, churning, judt then, I go mute. I don't wake. I don't talk. my bpm drastically reduces and my pulse became all too weak. 

16th February,

We were back at St. Mary's. I only remember little to nothing of what happened the night before.

I went to the room, I made to sleep, I don't know of much else, but of-course I wasn't found in the right state of personhood. - Squabbling on the floor, screaming my lungs out, hyperventilating and then, almost not ventilating. I say to the doctor "I don't know of what else happened"

“For how long have you been experiencing head throbs” he clerks. He is dark haired, with sunken cheeks and a fair complexion.

“A while maybe.” I say “I do not actually know how it began for me”

And you have been experiencing this pain since the last time you were here?"

"I think so" I think to remember, raising my gaze to the ceiling. "I think so"

"Hmm. Did you adhere to your previous medications?" 

“What medications?” I ask, because I don’t remember taking anything. My mum stares at me, 

"Your medications Bodun!" For a while she hesitates and don't speak. Met by my confusion, she continued "the one Tena gives you. Or has your sister not been giving you your drugs?" She turns to Tena who quickly interjects to affirm my adherence to therapy.

I do not know what she means, what they mean, and I try to fix my thoughts on it. It's hard to focus on a thing when inside of your head is in complete blank.

"Bodun! Please, remember!" mum keeps saying, Sounding even more distressed than I was. "what is wrong with my son doctor Maman? why can't he remember these things."

"Madam, please, give him time" he says "I know my son, He is much sounder than this"

I stare at how she says this like I'm a lost entity. She keeps talking and I don't think to hear what else she says. Try as I might to keep myself in perfect still, a tear breaks loose from my eyes and I became pretty frantic, my body stiffens up, spasms rummaging through my entirety as I try my best to free myself. I cant. I see them all move in frenzy, shooting Jabs of needle at me until nothing else is seen that I can see.

27th February,

After a couple of weeks at St. Mary's, I had been transferred to the country's specialist hospital. A friend once told me that when situations require referrals to the specialists, the cases are most likely too critical to handle. My head is fixed with bugs and wires connected to the EEG which beeps from an angle. Tena tells me I had earlier woken up in a panic fit with the petit and dark lady standing across from me. She was meant to be my attending nurse but I didn't know so. All I remember; she was wearing a purple regalia. she's not light skinned and her hair was full of talons, so many, crawling to me hissing.... hissing. She reaches her hand to mine and I scream.

"Let me go!"

she keeps trying to hold me and I fight with my might to let go. 

Soon enough a pack of them came running in, with purple and white and all the colours I cannot see. I receive new jabs that very nearly flips up my universe again. It is all I remember.

14th March,

Moments here have been very much breezy. All I do is wake and subsequently die in bits. I have been placated with too much medical jams for my own good. - lumbar puncture, biochemical testings, MRIs, PET and what nots. It is about now I realize what financial constraint I had binged my family into. Spending money with no hope of my recovery. I hadn't even been accurately diagnosed yet, and the hell, I don't know for how much longer this will last. I don't know for how much longer I can live without being me. When I awoke, only slightly this time, I hear him tell my dad, 

"He is deteriorating, the lab results shows markers to protein inconsistencies. we are not sure yet, but we query prion disease."

"What does that mean doctor?"

My dad is asking, raising his hands over to ruffle his hair. He had grown pretty shaggy in a space of God-knows -how-long.

"It is a disease that occurs when prion, one of the body's vital proteins, misfolds. The abnormal folding causes certain systemic malfunctioning which particularly affects the brain. We are querying a form of cognitive degeneration Mr. Wale, and we are not sure there's a medical remedy for this yet." He spoke as they walked out the ward, oblivious of my half consciousness. I am dazed again, and when I wake up, there is a mildly heated argument;

"I will have to call them for financial support," mum is saying to dad

"No, you won't. I'll source for money myself. He is my son. Not theirs"

"You do not have to be too proud about this? Bodun's health is deteriorating by the day, and your pride is getting in the way of of giving him the best?" She's hysterical now. My mum. I didn't hear much else as I fazed out. 

19th March,

Awake again, no one by me this time. I look around to find a folder sitting on the stool beside the confines of my ward bed. Wrongly forgotten I suppose. Olawale Bodunsunmi, 854327 boldly written in blue at the cover page. I flip open to see:

Rapid progression of rare dementia. Neurocognitive disorder

pt to undergo PMCA

?? Familial creutzfeldt-jakobs disease- 

Monitor vital signs

Follow through routine procedures

Dc meropenem

I don't know what this means, and so I picked a phone lying still on the stool. I'm not sure whose it is, but I think it's Tena's, or mine, maybe. It had no passwords, so I google search: "Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease." In no time, I'm reading;

"Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), also known as subacute spongiform encephalopathy or neurocognitive disorder due to prion disease, is a fatal degenerative brain disorder. Early symptoms include memory problems, behavioral changes, poor coordination, and visual disturbances. Later symptoms include dementia, involuntary movements, blindness, weakness, and coma. About 70% of people die within a year of diagnosis..."

It is all I see before my mum walks in, it's all I see before my eyes well up in tears. I still hold on to the phone. Strongly. fiercely. I hold on like the little substance will convince me otherwise, that if my life were to shatter to shreds, this should be the only means to stop it. 

"You are awake" she says, trying to soothe me. She pats me at the back, stroking forth and down.

"How do you feel now?"

I do not know how I feel, but in my little moment of mindfulness I asked,

"Am... I having... a ...brain damage?"

I haven't spoken in a long while, and as I speak now, my voice slurs through every word.

"What are you talking about?"

She stares down at the phone clutched tightly in my hand, and then the folder. Her eyes strangely bewildered at the knowledge of what she knows I now know.

"Am..... I .....dying?" I practically force every word out my throat and through my teeth.

 Were they going to let me die without knowing I was creeping out the face of the world? were they going to leave me thinking I have the hope for tomorrow?! Just then my dad and Tena steps in, pacing up to me, trying to calm my frail nerves, but I am wont not to be calm. I trash the phone with my fullest strength available, it collides with the wall and crashes down, but I'm not satiated. the cords pull out from my arm as I go hysterical.

"Calm down! calm down!" my dad says to me, trying in his best ways not to fall apart like I already am. The nurse comes around to do whatever nurses do to loose cords.

Yeah that's right dad, we all deserve a share of this pain. We all just deserve the shreds and patters.

my mum pulls me to a hug, not forcefully but firmly. She's crying so hard that I don't think to know who's more broken between us both. I sob uncontrollably, leaning on to her to draw the little strength she's got left to spare. Heroes fall too.

"I... deserve...to... know". I say, sobbing between words that slurs loosely from my gritted teeth, "I ....deserve.... to."

She retracts from me, holds my face squarely in her hands, her jaw tightens and tears are free flowing.  

 "They suspect a brain disease. It's nothing to worry about son, it's just a suspicion, soon you'll be back on your feet doing great things."

I know she's trying her best ways to put it all together, convincing herself that things will go back to how it all was. With plans and milestones and strategies. But then, nobody strategizes life in its entirety. we only strategize based what life throws at us. Tena stands by the corner, away from that rest of us, sobbing. This is the highest moments of emotions my family has ever had. I see her smile to me amidst the sob, it's the first loosely fake smile I had seen since my day began. 

My world is falling in an uncontrollable chaos, The spines of my shelves crumbling into dust and ashes.

I have tried to pen these events, to write these things in my little moments of cognition and sanity. I fix these dates because my mum checks the calender for every day I get a taste of wakefulness. To give her the much needed hope, to give me the much appreciated time track.

I had thought that before I die, I will dream, that I'll live, but what do you dream about in a lifeless overturn? How do you live when you're clearly dying? 

Before I die, I'll have to die a thousand other deaths.