ZEE BABY 2

Our flight took up from the Murtala Mohammed International Airport at exactly 2.30pm. It took us about 14 hours to reach the Indra Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi with about an hour stop at the Dubai International Airport.
We had flown an average of about 28,000 meters above sea level with an equivalent ground distance of about 600 km per hour. We arrived the Indra Gandhi Int. Airport at about 7.30 am local time.
I was told a cab would be waiting for us at the airport to convey us to Apollo Hospital, so immediately we were outside the arrivals I started to fret through over a thousand cabs at the parking lots to locate which of them would carry us to the Hospital suddenly Bibi screamed, look Baba she pointed, look that Man is holding a board with my name on it, I then knew our search for a cab was over, we went up to the man who immediately ushered us into the cab and after about 2 hours drive we were at the Hospital.
Apollo Hospital is a gigantic edifice with a large bill board at the main gate with the inscription ‘Welcome to Indrapratsha Apollo Hospital’ from the main gate to the hospital is about 100m. It took us about half an hour to finalize our documentation at the IPL (International Patient Lounge) and our dossier was taken to our Doctor Vikas Kholi.
We were admitted and taken to room No.2449, a twin sharing apartment. When I went to the cashier to effect payment, I noticed a board with the description of the tariffs for all the rooms available at the hospital but to my surprise, it is boldly written that these tariffs are not for foreign patients. It was much later when we were discharged from the hospital I realized that foreign patients pay 25% extra for any room chosen. The following day we were transferred to the pediatric Intensive care unit (PICU) bed No. 3521A, there we spent the next 10 days and on the 29th July, the surgery took place.
The surgeon Dr. Raja Joshi an American trained pediatricardiothoracic surgeon took me through the whole itenery of the exercise, the pros and cons of the Valve replacement and of course which of the 2 valves I will have to choose for Bibi as there are 2, the metallic valve and the animal tissue valve. I chose the metallic.
By Thursday, the 30th Bibi has had mitral valve replacement (29mm St. Jude) with Tricuspid valve repair. After spending about 3 days in the Theater ICU we were moved to PICU, bed No. 3522, we stayed there for 2 days before we moved to the General word (GW) bed No.3534 and exactly after 3 days in the (GW), Bibi was certified fit to be discharged from the hospital on Sunday, the 9th.
We left the hospital and moved to a guest house known as Shubham Palace at Sarita Vihar area and stayed there for 8 days but of course we visited Apollo every other day for a review with our Doctors.
On Monday, August 17, was to be our last day for the review as our flight to Nigeria was scheduled for 04.00 on Wednesday, the 19th but it turned down to be a nightmare for Bibi who was already homesick. I had already purchased the I.N.R machine for her that morning to enable her record the thickness of her blood as required by her Doctor. As we were moving towards the OPD to have her blood checked, I noticed a clot of blood in the saliva she spitted. I quickly rushed and informed her Doctor who without hesitation required that we spend another 2days for him to conduct some tests to establish the extent of the problem. Luckily after spending 2days he certified that she is fit to travel. We left India on the 21st at about 4.30am on Friday by 1.00pm local time we were in Nigeria.

Apollo Hospital is one of the ten 5star hospitals in India and it is the1st internationally accredited hospital there. It is a superimposing structure and has a super market, a business centre and two large lounges namely International Patient Lounge (IPL) and Platinum Patient Lounge (PPL). It also has two important companies, the Apollo Pharmacy and the Restaurant that attend to only the patients and their attendants.
Patients all over the world visit the hospital on a daily basis. From the USA to Europe, Africa and of course Asia. If a census of International patients in Apollo is to be taken Nigeria will rank 3rd, Afghanistan 2nd and Iraq 1st. But in Africa, Nigeria ranks 1st with patients from Tanzania and Somalia in 2nd and 3rd, respectively. If you are in the Internal Patient Lounge (IPL) you will surely mistake the place for the National Hospital, Abuja as Nigerians constitute over one third of the population.
The most common illnesses are cancer, kidney and heart problems but to my surprise I saw 2 Patients who were in Apollo for treatment of diabetics. Discuss with any Nigerian Patient about his case and he would tell you that all the tests results brought from Nigeria are either exaggerated or not true reflection of his sickness. In my own case, we came for mitral valve replacement but we ended up having a replaced valve and a tricuspid repair.
Apollo Hospital is a pure capitalist structure as nothing is virtually free. The cold water from the taps you drink, the tea and coffee you take from the kelvinators in both the lounges to the public lifts you enjoy while moving from one floor to the other, all these and many more amenities have their prices and are lumped as a Miscellaneous expenses in your final bill.
So to every one of you out there who were and still in adu’a/prayer with me I would like to say thank you, perhaps this is the best time to say so and May Allah reward you abundantly. But for Bibi the journey has just begun as she has to contend with the effects of having an artificial valve. If I had chosen the animal tissue valve for her it means she has to undergo valve replacement every 5years but now she has to live with taking warfarin tablets for the rest of her life. The drugs will enable her blood to become thin so as not clot on the metallic valve, the I.N.R machine is used to determine how thin the blood is, the thinnest should not be below 1.5mm and not more than 2.5. If it is below the minimum she will increase the dosage of the warfarin (7.5mg) and if it is above the max, the dosage is decreased to 5mg, this she will be doing for the rest of her life.

ZEE BABY

Zainab (12) popularly known as Bibi is my 3rd daughter, a promising JSS 11 student at the Queen Anima College, Kaduna was first diagnosed to have juvenile arthritis about 8 months ago when she showed signs of joints pains.

She was placed on hydroxcloroquine by Dr. Umar a senior Consultant on Rheumatoid but before then she was taking as prescribed by Dr. Ibrahim the following pain killers - Feldene, Indocid, Ibrupen, asprin and almost all the known pain killers in our Patent Stores but all to no avail as none of the medication has produced the desired effect.

Arthritis is a disease that causes pain and swelling in the joints of the body, it has no definite medication as what ever is prescribed for the patient is just intended to bring the pain down, a palliative measure sort of. To manage arthritis patients you need to have great deal of patience as you will be having sleepless nights with the patients and more importantly you need to have a fat purse as lean purses will just lead to the proliferation of the sickness. You have to be ready to carry the patients to undergo different tests, x-rays and scanning, what makes managing arthritis cases even more poignant is the fact that the medication you are administering to the patient has several side effects, today you are with the Ear, Nose and Throat {E, N&T} department managing one side effect or the other, tomorrow you are in Radiology department, in short, the rate of complication in the medication of arthritis is very high.

As the name implies -Juvenile Arthritis, it is expected that by the time Zainab reaches adolescent age she would have out grown the signs and symptoms of arthritis and she would be free completely from it and of course she will stop taking hydroxchoroquine with all it’s attendant side effects. During one of our clinic days Dr. umar asked Zainab what she wanted to become after her studies, Arthritis Doctor she said. Umar uttered no word but just smiled at me.

I didn’t know Zainab is suffering from a more debilitating disease and I think none of her doctors knew until when I was away to Bauchi on an errand May, the 30^th. I received a call from my wife at about 10am informing me that they had a sleepless night and that Zainab is having difficulty in breathing (palpitation). It looks like Zainab is having a heart problem, she concluded. No, no, nobody has a heart problem. I quickly interjected and assured her.

I immediately left Bauchi for Kaduna and the following morning I took Zainab to Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria where the Doctor on call requested that we go for the following tests immediately – Chest X- ray, Electro Cardiogram (ECG) and Echocardiogram and exactly after one week the tests were conducted.

The result of the chest x-ray indicates cardiac failure with moderate cardiomegaly with pulmonary plethora.

• Electrocardiogram suggests left artrial enlargement.

• Echocardiogram showed severe mitral regurgitation with mild pulmonary hypertension. The image of the heart is attached showing mitral valve prolapse.

But one interesting episode worth mentioning was the way Professor Danbauchi the officer in charge of the Echo scan let the cat out of the bag during the scanning exercise that Zainab has a heart failure and she needs to be taken out of the country for operation immediately. He even suggested Egypt, India or Ghana. I was really astounded that no Hospital in Nigeria can conduct the surgical operation on my daughter. That is the level of development Nigeria has attained.

My wife could not control her emotions on hearing Danbauchi’s proclamation, she busted into tears and neither could my daughter.

I wanted to confront him for that; I felt he didn’t have to say that in the presence of the girl but may be he underestimated the intelligence of the little girl, I reasoned. We left the clinic in total confusion, how much time has she remaining? I was asking myself and I knew nobody could give me that answer, somebody who was neither looking pallid nor sickly a couple of months ago, now has a terminal disease. What a tragedy.

I quickly got in touch with some friends and other associates who advised that I should get in touch with some hospitals in India. I did and the result is that Zainab is billed to undergo Valve Replacement by Dr. Vikas Kohli a senior Consultant at the Apollo Hospital New Delhi, India. The flight is scheduled for Sunday, July the 19th.

The import of this rhapsody is therefore to request for your addu’a/ prayers for Zainab to make her dreams good and more importantly, for Journey mercies and a successful operation. This is so as the greatest of mankind (SAW) had requested his companions to pray for him in a particular instance.

I know each and every one of us is going through one tough time or the other but Allah (SWT) has promised to intercede and is ready to bless us in a way that only He can. So keep the faith.