These were the exact words of Frank Joseph Nwankwo, a 27-year-old graduate of Public Administration, Ebonyi State University (EBSU), when Saturday Sun visited him on his sick bed. The 2021 graduate was warming up for the compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme which his mates have all concluded, when fate played a fast one on him.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶
•Nwankwo on hospital bed
On June 15, 2022, he was knocked down by a reckless tipper driver on the ever-busy Okposi Umuoghara, Ezza North quarry road. Since then, Nwankwo, a native of Oriuzor in Ezza North Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, has been languishing at the orthopaedic ward of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital Abakaliki 2 (AE-FUTHA 2).
His major concern now is to be alive and possibly return to his original state, but there has not been much improvement in his condition in the hospital.
“I am beginning to suspect that doctors and nurses are already tired of me. You know, treating a patient for a long time and you are not seeing a quick result can weigh you down as a doctor or nurse,” he lamented.
He was returning from a bible study on a motorcycle that fateful evening. Nwankwo sustained perennial injuries both internally and externally. He was in coma in the hospital he was rushed to for medical treatment for many weeks.
Medical report showed that he sustained pelvic breakage, femur breakage and tibia breakage which rendered him incapacitated. His urinary, excretory and respiratory organs were damaged beyond repairs as a result of the accident. This prompted the doctors who have been battling to repair all the organs to open his stomach from where he has been passing excreta till date. Another place was also opened in his body and fixed with a tube through which he passes urine.
Saturday Sun learnt that no fewer than six surgeries were carried out on him in a bid to repair the various organs and places he sustained injuries, but some of them had not been successful. They included an orthopaedic surgery which a triangular iron was inserted inside his waist, general surgery that made the packing of maggots inside his stomach possible when it was opened for colostomy, another surgery that external physiator was inserted in his femur and tibia bones, among others.
Nwankwo has been discharged for over one year now and was billed N2million by the hospital which he was yet to clear as a result of lack of money. He was to undergo three fresh surgeries after the discharge but money has remained the big issue.
The three fresh surgeries he must undergo include; urinary organ surgery that will make him to be urinating through his manhood, excretory organ that will enable him to be defecating through his anus and neurological surgery.
Nwankwo is further bothered by the irons inserted inside his body which he said, had tripled the pains he is passing through.
The young pastor in Assemblies of God Church, Okposi Umuoghara said he cries every night to the extent that he no longer has the strength to cry. He can only shed silent tears now. He said that he is easily irritated by his condition, revealing that he had died nine times in the hospital and resurrected.
He recounted his ordeal, thus: “I had this accident on June 15, 2022 as I was returning from bible study where I went to teach the youths. I was on my lane when one tipper driver left his lane and knocked me down. I did all I could to divert to another side of the road to avoid what he did to me but children were on that particular lane that I wanted to divert to, and I said in my mind, if I mistakenly divert, I might kill one of the children. So, in order not to do that, I had to accept my fate.
“This accident happened around 5:30pm on that day and I was rushed to this hospital-Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (AE-FUTHA). I was here already before 6pm on that day. The guy that knocked me down is not the owner of the tipper, the owner of the tipper was contacted. He was the one that rushed me to the hospital with his vehicle.
“On that evening that I was admitted in the hospital, no doctor, no nurse agreed to touch me. They said that my case was much and very complicated because before I got to the hospital, all the blood in my body had finished. The hospital management had to contact one old doctor who came around by midnight. The doctor said okay, let me try my fate. He was the one who covered the perennial injury that I sustained.
“That perennial injury was the place that the blood was pumping out from. From there, my pelvic was affected because I sustained a pelvic breakage, femur breakage and tibia breakage and that pelvic injury, the iron that enters through there, affected my urinary organ, respiratory organ. The same iron cut the intestine that led to my anus that I always use to defecate. So, now, I pass stool through stomach colostomy and use pipe to urinate even till now.
“The condition was too severe that in the emergency where I was admitted for up to two weeks, no other doctor agreed to touch me again. They just placed me on drip and blood till the blood that remained inside my stomach started forming maggots. So, maggots filled my stomach. My mum would pack them out every morning. I was in coma all through. So, my mum told me that she always packed the maggots.
“After two weeks and some days, I was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and placed on first surgery. They opened my stomach and packed out maggots, then opened the colostomy stomach where I can be using to pass stool. So, that has been the experience till now.
“We have really spent a lot. To spend one night in ICU then, you must pay 25,000, you must also buy drugs. We were paying N25,000 in the ICU daily and buying N70,000 drugs too. Many doctors were managing me in that ICU; this doctor will come and check me and write, another doctor will come and write, another one will come.
“There were up to five doctors that were managing me; orthopaedic doctor who takes care of the bones, urology who takes care of the urine and the general surgeons who were the ones that opened my stomach and operated on my stomach, the plastic surgeons which their own is to cover wounds and a physiotherapist. The doctors prescribed their different drugs for me.
“After a month in ICU, I was admitted in the male orthopaedic ward. The experience wasn’t easy but God helped us that even while I was in ICU, I was only on drips because a time came that my body started swelling up. It was only water that was in my body. So, they had to connect one pipe through my neck and that is where they inject me from. That is where they did many other things on my body from.
“They did these three weeks because there were no veins in my body because everywhere had swollen up. I was later transferred to the ward which is where we are now. In that orthopaedic ward, I died four times. In this ward, I died five times but I am alive today to the glory of God. So, we have really spent money in this hospital and God has been the supporter because my family doesn’t have money.
“The three surgeries that are remaining now is that they said that I should wait small so that the internal organ will heal. That is, the urinary organ will heal very well. Then, they will do some construction in my anus so that I will be using my anus to defecate and that is the second one and that is the second new surgery that I am to undergo. Then, there is neurological surgery I am also to undergo. The essence is to ensure that my urinary organ is functional so that I will become a man again. For now, I am not a man.
“The third surgery I am to undergo is still tibia bone because they need to remove the iron in my bone any time the bone connects but if the bone couldn’t connect, there is need for bone surgery again to remove the iron in the bone and find another alternative. They treat it every morning from where they put the iron because all the muscles that supposed to cover the iron have finished. So, the iron where they added the knot from, is always bringing out pulse.”
He called on government at all level, public-spirited individuals and corporate organisations to come to his aid.
“I am beginning to suspect that doctors and nurses are already tired of me. You know, treating a patient for a long time and you are not seeing a quick result can weigh you down as a doctor, as a nurse. They gave us bill of N2million but we have not cleared it because there is no money.
“The experience I have had in this journey is not palatable because I don’t sleep in the night. I only sleep in the day if the pains reduce and that sleep can’t even get to one hour. The pains don’t allow me to sleep at night, I cry all through most at times in the night but the pains have taught me to be shedding tears alone, I don’t make noise anymore while passing through the pains.
“But before, nobody slept in this hospital because of my noise as a result of the pains. I have been lying one side since I was admitted in the hospital. I can’t lie on my back. If I try to do that, the bone inside will create another wound internally, coupled with the pains. If I say let me lie through the other side, the knot and the iron they put inside my bone will be another problem. So, I have been lying on one side for almost two years.”
His 49-year-old mother, Mrs. Roseline Nwankwo, said her son was the pillar of the family. Describing him as a God-fearing and hardworking man, she noted that the owner of the tipper that put him in the pathetic condition he is now, has abandoned them after assisting to bring him to hospital.
The woman said that her husband, a school principal is still battling series of surgeries he had as a result of health problems and had not paid the debts he incurred for his own ill health.
She, however, accused some of the nurses of preventing public-spirited individuals who had been visiting hospitals to help patients from helping her and her son.
“I have been thinking of how this my son will be alive, I am thinking how he can survive this difficult condition so that he will not die. He is my only hope, he is my first son. I have eight children; six girls and two boys and he is the first son, very humble, God-fearing and hardworking. I don’t want him to die. He is my hope. All my female children have nothing doing. The little they have given is not enough to treat their brother.
“I want him to be urinating through the normal way so that we can know if his manhood is still functional to enable him marry and bear a child for me, I want him to bear a grandchild for me, I need help seriously. I want him to be walking, he is not walking, he can’t also sit down,” she lamented.