For Mrs. Ganiyat Olanrewaju, the last 15 years have been days, months and years of intense pain, anguish and suffering. Ganiyat, a 40-year-old mother of five, has been contending with a mysterious tumour at the lower left hand side of her mouth for the 15 years.
How did her travails start? According to her, she noticed a mild pain in one of her teeth 15 years ago. And like every woman in her agrarian community, she took to some traditional medication. She paid less attention to the pain as she was assured that it would disappear after she applied the medication.
But she was proved wrong. As days rolled into weeks and weeks into months, the pain also grew, extending to her lower jaw. Before she could fathom what was happening to her despite several orthodox and traditional medications, a swelling had appeared at the outer layer of her mouth.“I woke up one day to see the swelling,” she said. “I never saw it on anybody before. I saw this kind of swelling for the first time on my chin.” As she spoke, you could virtually touch the unbearable pain on her face.
With the swelling, the situation became worrisome to her husband and other members of the family. They went from one place to the other looking for a way out. But their financial situation became a big hindrance to their search for quick medical attention and total relief. The husband, a native of Gbongan in Ayedaade Local Government area of Osun State, had three wives. Ganiyat is the third and youngest. Raising funds became extremely difficult to the husband, leaving Ganiyat to accept her fate and continue suffering in silence.
A tragedy of unimaginable proportions befell the family in December last year when Ganiyat’s husband passed away. The burden of raising and supporting her five children and her deteriorating health became a cross that she must carry single-handedly. The non-existence of a standard medical facility in her agrarian Gbongan community became her undoing. Hear her: “The swelling started 15 years ago. I noticed a swelling on the gum of one of my teeth. I then applied some local, traditional drugs on the teeth, hoping the pain would disappear. I had never seen such a thing in my life. After about three years, the pain refused to go and I was advised to go to a hospital in Ibadan.”
At Ibadan, she was asked to go for laboratory tests. In the documents in her possession, she had visited a private hospital, The Grace Hospital, Ibadan. In the hospital invoice, dated November 30, 2002, she was asked to provide N55, 000 for an initial six-week treatment. Unable to raise the money, she went for another test at Twotees Laboratory, also in Ibadan on December 2, 2002, where her heart was certified ‘normal in size’. But efforts to source for enough funds to treat the tumour proved abortive, forcing her to carry on with her burden.
Years after and unable to bear the excruciating pains, she proceeded to Seventh Day Adventist Hospital, Ile-Ife, hoping to get a respite. But she was turned down at the hospital and referred to the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC) for proper diagnosis and attention. She met the shock of her life when, after all examinations had been conducted, she was told that she needed the sum of N400, 000 as the ‘proposed fee for excision of jaw tumour’.
It was at this point that she realized she was in for serious trouble, she told our reporter. Lamenting her ordeals, Ganiyat disclosed that she at the moment spends N1, 500 on drugs daily despite her precarious condition. A petty trader, she said the tumour has weakened her body and incapacitated her. Right now, she can’t do any work, neither can she embark on any business to sustain herself and her children.
“I cannot even bend down again. The pain has extended to my chest and the heart. I am in serious pain and I am calling on well-meaning Nigerians, especially our humane governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, to come to my aid. I am in pains,” she pleaded.
Asked about her children, she said: “I have five children. The last-born is 11 years old. He is still in the primary school. But none of them is living with me because their upkeep has been a serious problem. They are scattered among family members.”
Her first born, Kolawole Olanrewaju, 21, who just concluded his secondary school examinations, corroborated the fact that neither he nor any of his siblings is staying with their mother. He said they all live with family members in order to lift the burden of their upkeep off the frails shoulders of the sick woman. The young man, who was with her during the encounter with the reporter, pleaded with the Osun State government to assist his mother get off the pains by footing her medical bills.
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