14/04/2024
Limb Loss Awareness.
My True Life Story!
Catching fish with peers is fun. Like every other city kid, I was thrilled to join my peers at the river during our visit to the village.
I came from a riverine state, hence finding streams in my community was not a difficult thing.
On this fateful day, sweating from our kids’ play, the good news as we called it then came; our neighboring village had spread chemicals into their rivers and the fishes were running away for their lives, navigating themselves into ours 🙂.
That day, it was like a firework, while standing even at the bank of the water, you would catch at least a fish without a net.
I am not a good swimmer and worst I have no experience of catching fish, however against my mother’s warming I followed my team, we the children also wanted to catch fish and make money.
With our buckets and bare feet, we entered the stream, initially, it was fun because I caught so many fish that I felt tired but my team was not ready to return home. The more you catch plenty, the more you sell, so we kept driving deep into the water.
The pain came like a hot burn! My eyes just saw a shadow of a fish moving, stretching myself to use my bucket and get it, my bare foot hit a thorn in the water.
My right foot started bleeding, yet I was determined to close the day with my “great fisher kids’’ 😁 .
As the day got darker, we returned to our various homes. My buckets were filled with fish.
Trust African parents 😃, my mama was ready for me but grandma and other relatives were proud of me, ‘the city kid also caught fish’.
Out of fear, I didn’t tell anyone at home I was hurt.
Day upon day, my foot was becoming swollen and painful. Until one day, Mum noticed how I was walking, when it was discovered, the infection had spread.
I was rushed to the hospital and that was wheremy battle to keep my limb began.
It was a battle because everything got worse. For a very long period of months, I didn’t use my legs.
I knew what it was not to have a limb.
It is very important, we live a healthy life!
Most limb loss cases are a result of unhealthy living, poor medical attention during and after births, and some are due to accidents.
