Posts by Abiola Adebayo

Faints and Rails ; Merry Christmas

holidays December 24, 2021 10 Comments

FAINTS; what I nearly did.

It’s Christmas Eve today. I have been feeling under the weather all through this week and dragging myself to work everyday hoping to make it to today (which is the day I officially close for the year). When I woke up this morning, I got dressed, went back to bed having only enough energy to gaze absentmindedly at the ceiling of my bedroom. I’m contemplating my existence and why in the world my body feels like I’ve been run over by seventeen angry elephants. My contemplation isn’t yielding much but I keep doing it anyway.

I do this until a friend calls me, approximately six minutes after my expected resumption time to ask if I had made it to work. I hadn’t. He gave me the one sane option – call in sick. But being the super woman that I kid myself that I am, I say “No, today is the last day of work this year. I can summon enough energy to end this last day well”.

I then proceed to drag my tired bottom to work and as I am attending to my last client, my eyes do a funny thing, my head drops ever so lightly, the room spins just a little bit and I find that my height has halved. In order words, I nearly pass out. So I ask my senior colleague to review all the work that I have done today, just to be sure I haven’t made any errors. I then excuse myself from work and go home early.

As it’s my last day at work for the year; I hop on the train and start to head to my Aunt’s place. I’m still feeling off and my head is banging on repeat but every part of me is just eager to get home so I can be pampered for the rest of the year.

RAILS; on the way to magic.

Some minutes into my ride, the train stops abruptly and 5 minutes later, the driver announces that we are being stopped indefinitely because there’s a situation on the rails.

The situation is simple, someone has had enough of their life and is on the train rails wanting to commit suicide, hoping that the train will run them over and end it all and there are officers trying to de-escalate the situation to get the person off the rail tracks. It doesn’t seem to add up, why will any one want to cease to exist at a such a time as this?

It’s holiday season, there are lights everywhere and many people have mounted their trees. Gifts are exchanging hands and everywhere seems jolly. Random people are walking by shouting merry Christmas with a-half-genuine smile to anyone who cares to hear and return the greeting. At least that’s what seems apparent as we walk by carrying out our daily activities. But for someone to want to die at this time, it means that what we see apparently is not really the reality. At least, it’s not the only reality that there is to see this supposedly jolly season.

BLUES; something we all feel.

Yes, there’s lights around but not every one is seeing it. There’s snow abounding but for many, the cold is coming from within. Many are looking over their account statements silently groaning at how it doesn’t seem to balance. Many know from a glance that they are already broke into January, many are going into this holiday season feeling like they have failed this year not having quite achieved all they had hoped to, many are grieving and wishing they had a certain family member with them to have and to hold this Christmas, many are coming to terms with difficult diagnoses and many have had to end relationships that were supposed to last till death do part.

Many have resorted to using humor to console themselves for still being single despite being all too ready to mingle, many people are sick and just showing up day-in-day-out because that’s all they can do to ensure their survival; many are feeling lost and wondering what the celebration is really supposed to be about,

Many are tired, hungry, saddened and heavily nostalgic for what they are not aware of. And many, overwhelmingly many of the people in this category are Normal. If you fall into any aspect of these categories, pause right now and take this minute to breathe out as you most certainly aren’t alone in how you feel. Take deep breaths and remind yourself that you are normal. And you will get through these holiday blues.

MAGIC; what Christmas isn’t.

Christmas is not supposed to be about faking a jolly feeling until you make it come to pass neither is it supposed to bring an obscene pressure on you to be what you evidently aren’t. It also isn’t a time where magic suddenly appears to right every thing wrong or out of order in our lives.

At its best, Christmas is simply a time where people are intentional about creating something worth celebrating. It’s a time where we remember that indeed, someone was born to offer those who choose to believe, a whole new unprecedented approach to life as well as a renewed hopeful existence. It’s a time to remember that there were gracious hands extended out to help us, when we were not even aware of how much help we would be needing.

Christmas is in essence a culmination of what we ought to do everyday, which is to remain hopeful, that there is more coming for us as promised by God. So, if you find yourself struggling to feel the ‘magic’ this season, remember that you are not alone. Remember everything that went right and every time you received help even before you could ask for it, remember that you’ve survived a hundred percent of every tough season you’ve had to face and shift your focus towards creating your own magic. Take out time to rest, to be present, to acknowledge how you really feel deep down. Take stock of what it is you are grateful for and find simple ways to make the day count.

Most of all, remember that you are loved and chosen long before you could believe it. You are still chosen even when you feel blue. Still chosen even when you can’t see why and when it no longer seems or feels to be worth it. Chosen enough for God himself to come in the form of Flesh and blood to make this evident to you. Remember this, for it is what we really are celebrating.

Seasons Greetings; what I wish you all.

Isolated – Part Three

Life Uncategorized June 27, 2021 1 Comment

It is still day five.

I get up from the unsettling dream and inspect my torso for evidence of vomit or sweat or saliva and to my delight, I find none there. Then I rush to the bathroom because I’m feeling dreadfully sick. I support myself by resting my left hand on the wall facing the wash basin, slouch forward and basically stare absentmindedly into the sink. I make up my mind that I would be taking the test-to-release. This is a test that can be done on the fifth day of isolation, to release me to go out peacefully. I am sure I can’t take any more of this. I rinse my face and brush my teeth and then head back to the living room.

My plan is to pick up my novel, read a little bit of it and complete 3 modules of my e-learning courses but I end up scrolling through my phone and catching up on messages instead. As I head back to the couch which undoubtedly has become my favourite spot in this house, I notice that every joint in my body is audibly popping and for once I find the sounds grating. Like, I’m sort of alarmed. It’s as though all my joints are arthritic and are registering their displeasure that I even bother to attempt to move. Could this prolonged inactivity and immobility somehow account for arthritis in the elderly? I wonder.

Sometime during the reading process, I sleep off and my sleep is mercifully more restful, free of haunting dreams.

“Abiola”.

That’s the sound of my mom’s voice and it is accompanied by the creaking of the door which signifies she is trying to enter the room to access me. I roll my internal eyes because my sleep is actually sweet and restful and I don’t want it to end. She says, “They have come to look for us. Get your passport and mask and come downstairs”.

If it were someone else waking me up with those words, I would have considered it a prank or a rude joke and I would have just turned my back and gone back to sleep. But this is not someone else, this is my mom. My mom that’s famous for jinxing my attempt to sneak out to exercise because she does not “like breaking rules”.

So I get up, collect my mask and passport from where I have them stashed and go upstairs to wake my aunty. When we get downstairs, there is this government official outside, wearing a yellow, high visibility jacket, waiting for us.

He looks like a mix of Indian and Pakistani but his accent is hard to place. He is holding a smart device which has our names and phone numbers propped up on the screen. He asks my mom for her passport and what day of our self isolation we are on. Then he asks when exactly we arrived into the country. He has quite a bit of challenge pronouncing my moms name and apologises for it. The apology is “nice” and accepted but the name really isn’t that hard bro, especially given that there is an international celebrity who bears the same name.

After attending to my mom, he checks my document and leaves. All through this encounter, my aunt is watching from the window upstairs. We walk back inside the house and I roll my eyes, knowing that I’m not going to hear the end of this.

“You know I told you so. My friends were telling me they may have installed a CCTV to monitor us ……..” I zone out.

Like I said earlier. I already know I’m not going to hear the end of this.

Day 8 – Monitoring Spirits Alert

For some reason, guilt or maybe sensitivity has got the best of me. On day 5, I finally decided to take the test to release, because all the nightmares have haunted me enough to know that I would not last ten days in isolation. Test to release is basically taking an additional test on the fifth day os isolation so that you can be allowed to come out of the house without being considered to have violated isolation rules.

My test says I am negative and that means I am now finally free to roam the streets and interact with the outside world. But something keeps me indoors. Maybe it is guilt that my mom did not take the test and is still bound by the isolation rules, or maybe its me merely being sensitive and not wanting to rub my new found freedom all in her face. Or it could be that the outside world has suddenly lost its allure now that my freedom has technically been restored, you know! They say stolen meat is the sweetest, but now that the meat of my freedom is legally mine, I don’t feel drawn to stealing it. So I stay indoors and start to enjoy watching TV again. Talk about being a couch potato.

Its night time and my phone starts to buzz. First of all, I get an email saying someone on my flight tested positive to Covid 19 and so this means I have to isolate. (Guys, Laugh with me please). The first thing I do is to mark the message as “Unread” and archive it straightaway, I even dramatically look over my shoulder as I am doing it, because I am convincing myself that it technically doesn’t concern me. I am already 8 long dreary days into the prison sentence, I’m not about to start all over again. Secondly, my additional day-5 test has released me and there is no going back. So, it does not concern me. Amen.

Then my phone buzzes again and this time, a strange international number is calling me – In-The-Dead-Of-The-Night.

I pick up and its a government official calling to ensure that have gotten the email, the same email that I chose to ignore. He is also calling to tell me that all my negative COVID tests no longer count and my test-to-release is basically down the drain as I have to complete my isolation INDOORS for the 10 days. How sweetly convenient. How convenient it is, to wait until I have done a test-to-release, and felt the bliss of freedom, even if only fleetingly, to then call me and tell me that same freedom is being taken away because someone who I am very strongly sure I didn’t come into contact with on the Boeing seven-oh-seven has got the virus. How convenient!!!

Warm Hands, Cold Feet

Faith June 24, 2021 10 Comments

???The Night.

I wore slippers that night, and my feet were cold, because the trip was supposed to be a nearby trip, a short one to a hospital in the neighborhood. The in-and-out kind of trip. We would be back home in 30 minutes max, or so I thought. It was a cool night by Nigerian standards. You know the kind of nights where there is a gentle breeze but the air isn’t particularly cold enough to require layers of clothing? The kind that gives us respite from the heat of the day. Or maybe not, maybe it was within myself that the cold was being generated, Maybe it was the numbness and the being self-detached, watching everything in reality as though it were a trance.

???The Feeling.

I stood outside the car and just watched, as the feeling of utter helplessness engulfed me – a feeling I’ve now come to realise, would be an unforgettable imprint in my mind. To watch someone die on my thighs and not be able to do anything about it (more on this is written here). To actually not know what to do. To have small head knowledge but be utterly unhelpful to the outside world. To have all medical knowledge rendered irrelevant. That’s what helplessness felt like to my sixteen year old brain.

Helplessness for me was not in lacking external aid, it was rooted in not knowing what to do to help my own self out of my suddenly dire situation. The helplessness came from having one strong burden of desire and knowing nothing within myself could change the situation, thus having to rely on others to fulfil my burden, like my burden isn’t really mine to carry. My feet were cold but my heart wasn’t, it was literally on fire, beating with just one desperate wish. Inside me, I was yearning for someone to come and do something!

???The Fire.

And people did come. There were Pastors from his church who came around immediately we called out to them, (very well-meaning people) and they prayed. Gosh, even hell knows they prayed. They were pastors from a church that nearly every Nigerian knows is exceptional for their mountain-moving-prayers. My friends, they really prayed and in my helplessness, I watched them. I watched because I knew there was nothing I would be able to do, so I was desperately hoping to God that a miracle would happen. I knew in my heart of hearts, that my own prayers were not strong enough to raise a dead man to life- rather a dying man- because I dared not think of him as dead, if I truly hoped for a miracle to come. My father had always been my prayer warrior and I considered myself too small to pray the prayer that would touch God’s “distant” heart to bring back a man so full of life, in fact the epitome of it, to this earth. So I kept putting my faith in those pastors even though I prayed my own bit.

I walked into the car, sat beside him and held his hands. They were very warm, even though it had been nearly one hour since he collapsed on my thighs, so I kept telling myself the impossible could still happen. His hands were warm and that to me meant his blood was still fluid and able to flow. And if his blood could still flow, his heart could beat again, and if his heart did beat again, he could open his eyes and give me the cheeky smile I inherited from him and tell me it was all a joke, as was his effortless nature. Coulda! Woulda! Shoulda! As Celine Deon once sang. His hands were still warm, so the prayers could, should and would most definitely work.

???The Calm.

My sister came around and she too started praying. And in my own head, her prayer was even better than those of the 4 pastors combined, because she was speaking in tongues. ? I was young enough at the time to know that those who pray in tongues speak mysteries and are praying God’s will. My father had taught me that much, so I got reassurance. The pastors were praying in English and praying a lot of fire, but she was praying calmly, peaceful and speaking God’s will. Surely God will not turn a deaf ear to his own will, right?

She was praying calmly even though I could tell that she wasn’t happy with the situation. And I interpreted that calmness as some kind of supernatural faith. Like her calmness meant she was bloody confident that heaven was on alert. While the pastors were very energetic and sweating and raining fire, my sister was calm, concentrated and praying in the Spirit. The tray was set before heaven that night, garnished with whatever it required to move, all it had to do was take a pick and deliver on miracles.

See, my mental-gamble was a pretty fair one. In between 4 pastors and a tongues speaking sister, God surely couldn’t, shouldn’t and wouldn’t turn deaf ears. This case would be the one exception he would make: so I thought.

???The Cold.

I kept believing. And I kept holding his hands until they started to turn cold. And when I noticed they were getting cold, I desperately started to rub on them vigorously so as to transfer some of my own body heat to him. Guys, I had just one job – to keep him warm – and I wasn’t going to let this miracle pass me by. I could go on but you already know how this one goes.

He! Stayed! Dead! Read more on how I felt about it here.

???The Dark.

Anyway, for the next 7 months, I remained in denial, although I found a way to hide it from both friends and family. Denial, betrayal and actually very well hidden anger, that God would refuse to listen to his fire commanding pastors, or to even the tongues that his Holy Spirit enabled my sister pray. I’ve heard testimonies from my dad’s church, about many of the pastors being able to raise the dead and I wanted it to happen in my own very eyes. How could He be so cold and hard of hearing? How could He let daddy get cold and empty of life?

I was done with this faith thing. And I watched my previously warm heart grow cold and numb, because, if it was a function of believing, then I surely should have qualified for a miracle. I very strongly believed in “God”, it would take me a while to realize the only problem was the GPS of my faith. It was wrongly located.

My faith was in the prayers of other people. My faith was in the fact that my father had Good works and had just preached a sermon about the very heaven he went to, in church that very day. My faith, was in hearing someone else speak in tongues and believing that would be enough to turn God’s heart in my favour. My faith was in someone laying hands on me and commanding blessings over my life because that was what my father did for me every morning when I greeted him. I really didn’t believe in God, I didn’t believe my voice was one He would listen to. I just believed in his prophets and in the people who confidently and eloquently claimed they knew him. Again, I could go on and on, you get the gist.

??? The Tribute.

So, to my daddy, who modelled God’s fatherly love to me for the sixteen years that I knew him, who on this day would have turned 70, all I’d say is, thank you. Thank you for exemplifying faith to me when you were here, in your smile, your prayers and everything you did.

And most importantly, thank you because it took your death to finally jolt me to realize that if I was going to dare to have faith, I needed to have it rooted in the right One. The same One who is now jealously guarding your soul and mine, until the day we get to see again.

??? The First End.

I’ve written about a small window of closure that I have regarding this event, You can find the post here

We Don’t Learn To Swim By Looking Longingly At The Waters

Stuff June 16, 2021 10 Comments

Dated ; 16, June 2021

This day last year, I penned down a prayer in a book that I received as a gift on my birthday, which coincidentally, was also the day I launched this blog. Naturally, half of the space in my head was dedicated, at the time, to churning things out, as regards the blog as I had questions and fears ringing in my head along with the dutiful sense of excitement.

The prayer I penned down is worded thus, “While it is perfectly normal for me to consider within myself how I’d keep up with blogging consistently, It is not enough grounds for me to doubt that I can do this in a meaningful way. Neither is it grounds to quit. A gift that is not used will not have the chance to grow and be developed, so I will use this gift until I can’t anymore. Dated ; 16-06-2020.

Sometimes I think it sounds more like a mantra than a prayer, but anyway, it was in response to some sentences I read in the book that I was reading at the time, that has stayed with me to this day – One of which was, “We cannot afford to doubt our God-assigned, unique destiny. If we do, we will undermine with hesitancy, fear, or anger all that has been entrusted to us.” – Lisa Bevere.

A word in season if you ask me, because I surely had a lot of self-doubt at the time. Self-doubt adorned with many fears that really rooted in the unknown.

After one year of blogging on a limb, I have these struggles to admit;

I haven’t figured out what my blogging-niche is yet, and I’m grateful to all of you that keep reminding me to but thinking and stressing about it has been giving me anxiety. I’m hoping it will come to me when the time is right and that I can enjoy the process up while waiting to figure it out.
I haven’t found a perfect logo yet. The one I’m currently using is great especially because my amateur self designed it, but come on, I still need help with that.
I don’t have my itinerary for the next one year planned out, perfectionist as I may be. And seriously, who wouldn’t like to have it all planned and figured out
I have only very recently written out my personal statement to myself about what I want my blog to be like, and I suspect that now that `I have it written dow, the list will only keep growing as I grow more into myself.
I still have trouble explaining to people what my blog is about because I can pen it down better than I can verbally explain to you. I don’t know why this is but its just so.
Even if I spell-check manually or automatically, I still find errors in my writings. this excites me as much as it keeps me on my toes.

But what I can tell you in addition is;

I started – and this was the hardest part, for this I congratulate myself.

My writing and grammar has improved today from what it was a year ago, it never would have if I didn’t exercise my pen, or in this case – drum my fingers on the keyboard.

I’ve learned and I am still learning art, such as designing a poster, I hope y’all feed me back on the ones in this post.

I have many unfinished / unpublished words written down, that may never see the light of day and that’s okay because the joy for me is writing it down and having my jumbled thoughts finally make sense.

I am learning to be more intentional about my life because, time counts, words impact people and life is figured out on the go, without cheat codes or expos.

I am not ready to monetise the blog just yet, despite the offers, because I just want to write and be in my happy sane space and not be under pressure to put out something catchy every week.

I am not happy to write just for the sake of writing and having something to say publicly – there’s no fun in that.

And most importantly, I have been able to connect with brilliant minds, and have had vulnerable things entrusted to me, because I made the brave move to share the mundane, overlooked and vulnerable stuff.

This is what blogging on a limb is really about for me, blogging and figuring it out in the way because no gift comes out fully mature.

My point is…

Whatever your gift is, please just start working on it. Draw up rough drafts and make as much of a mess as you need to make with it but just start. It will take time to master it, but start anyway.

The things I know today, I would never have guessed on the side of being hesitant and too fearful to start the process. We don’t learn to swim by looking longingly at the waters. We learn by getting wet and messy, learning to hold our breaths a little longer than is comfortable, getting in the waters and training our bodies to perfect the strokes.

We don’t learn to swim by looking longingly at the waters

So Start.

Then get better.

Then become the expert you can potentially be.

Live your life on a limb.

Ps: thanks to the one who gifted me the book that added to a sequence of beautiful events that led here. The book continues to mean a lot to me. ?

Pps: it’s coincidental that today I read a beautifully worded piece that Chimamanda penned down and asked myself, how much work it must have taken her to master the art of writing so brilliantly.

Also, before you jump to my WhatsApp (which I appreciate), Kindly drop your feedbacks here. Gracias.

Isolated – Part Two

Life June 6, 2021 2 Comments

Day Four.

The human innate ability to adapt is likely limitless. We are good at adapting to our situations, whatever it be. The brain is good at that. But does that ability to adapt have limits? Is there a point when our brains just decide that they are having none of this hardship and just quit, leaving us to suffer whatever it is that we have failed to adapt to?

I’m asking because, it seems my brain has gotten to this point. I have learned to adapt to working seventy-two hours at a stretch, I have adapted to running on less than 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep and still giving some version of my best to those I work with. I’ve had to finish my whole anatomy syllabus, in my “Keith Moore” in just 7 days, and I’ve read my “Kumar and Clark” as though its a novel. Don’t bother with these names, they are simply medical jargons. I’ve had to work three jobs simultaneously, at a time when I conveniently oscillated from being a doctor, to being a patient and then a visiting-patient relative and I! did ! not ! crack !.

My point is, I’ve adapted to hard conditions. My brain is very capable.

Why then, is my head finding it hard to adapt to rest? To temporary restriction in my movement?

Being forced to sit in the house and just catch my breath is not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve been able to catch up on sleep and on praying and some studies. I don’t even go out so much to be honest. If you told me to go outside now, I would have no idea where to go, other than the gym, grocery store or window shopping.

So why, just why, is my head making a big deal of having to stay at home for just 10 days? Is it merely the fact that I know that I am being restricted? or is it the human tendency to resist being governed?

Why is every indoor chore now seeming dull and dreary? I remember when I was working, I used to want to take days off to rest, I used to dream of saving a ridiculous amount of money up so that I could afford to go on a gap-year to explore the world.

Why then am I now tired of everything including eating and why is my head aching from inactivity?

Day Five

I’m seated in the dining hall, the one for senior secondary school students. There are 3 rows in the hall, each containing about 40 seats. Each seat can accommodate 4 people but I’m seated with just one seat mate and we are probably on the 26th chair on the row. I don’t know what it is that we are gathered here to do since we are evidently not eating, I just know that some of my classmates are walking up and down pretending to be coordinating us in our seating position.

Does that even make sense?

All doesn’t feel well. My joints continue to pop everywhere. They ache too. My head feels heavy and I don’t know what to do. I look beside my left to the face of the person seating with me and I realize I don’t know her, she doesn’t even feel familiar. Then I look away and face the ground, thinking hard as to why I’m in that room in the first place and why it is that we are not allowed to leave the dining hall.

Beside my foot, I notice a styrofoam-disposable self-closing-pack inside a nylon bag, I don’t need to think too far to know that it’s empty, although I don’t remember why it is there or why I think it is mine.My chest starts to feel warm, more like heat is ascending through it, making way towards my head and every strength in my aching joint starts to ache. I belge once, expecting air to come out, but instead, I’m greeted with my own vomit. The food I don’t remember eating has made an appearance in my mouth and now in my hands. So I tear two sheets of paper.

I place them on each other, cup them in the palm of my hands and throw up inside it. Throwing up is unlike me. I wrap the paper and before I can dispose it, I throw up a second time. Again, this is an unusual experience! When I’m sure I’m done throwing up, I get up to dispose it and walk up to someone that I identify as a collective guardian. I have the mind to explain to him that I need to get out of the building and some exception needs to be made for me because I am sick, but for some reason the memory of how that conversation went decides to elude me like a butterfly.

Some unknown amount of time passes and I find myself seating back on that seat for a second time. This time around, there are two more people on the seat and the space is not enough. I’m feeling choked, inconvenienced and very uncomfortable. And then I vomit again. This time around, it seems all of my bowels are intent on emptying themselves via the narrow orifice that is my mouth. I vomit and vomit and vomit again until I am quite sure I must have suffered an acute kidney injury.

Then I get up, damn the consequences and storm out of the dining hall. Aren’t dining halls supposed to be for eating? Why then has my experience been marked with food moving in the reverse order via my bowels?

I walk out using the back door and walk to the area we call the “reservoir” This basically is a long wall that contains a sequence of about sixteen to twenty functioning taps that dispense clean water. I approach one of the taps and rinse my mouth and my hands and also my head.

I feel so drained of life and in no time, I start to retch. I open my mouth attempting to allow the vomit one out but nothing comes forth, instead, my left shoulder starts to feel strangely cold. The kind of cold that makes me think I’m dreaming and may have been drooling onto my shoulders. So I open my eyes, with a start and realise I’m laid out on the couch, the couch in the living room where I am serving my isolation sentence.

Damn.

I’m still here.

My brain is not having any more of it and is now conjuring nightmares to haunt me.

And it is merely day 5.

Sweet Jesus.

Rescue me.

ISOLATED – PART ONE

Journals Life May 30, 2021 3 Comments

Day Zero

Yes. There is a day zero when you are self-isolating. They don’t start counting the 10 days until the day after you disembark from the plane.

A shame if you ask me. A shame and a waste of days to count.

After spending 3 hours standing on the line at the immigration control, Mr Y collects us and drives us home. Home for the next 10 days is my Aunt’s place where I happened to have stayed during my last visit here.

I’m too tired to sleep during the ride home.

I’m neither excited nor melancholic.

It just feels like doing something routine.

I’m grateful to be here, especially on the terms that comes with this visit. I’m happy because this is basically a dream come true. A dream that has been a long time coming, given the interesting events that went on last year.

We head to the grocery store, to pick up all the food we would require for the ten days period. The shopping is good too. It feels like clockwork. Has it really only been 6 months sinsce I last entered Tesco?

Once inside, the smell of fabric freshener is the first thing my senses register, and boy, it feels so familiar. Familiar and refreshing.

Familiar enough to make my eyes sting as my emotions finally catch up to me. I’ve missed this place since the six months that I have been here last.

It’s good to know that I’m here to stay and not just as a tourist.

I will make a home here and even more memories. I take a moment to collect myself before I start collecting all the junk I love to indulge in from the shelves.

Did I really go grocery shopping or am I dreaming it?

I don’t really know for sure.

Anyway, I’m vaguely aware of everything else around me as I toss and turn on my tiny bouncy bed. What is it with the British and small houses and hefty tax?

Day Three.

I’ve read novels and gotten tired.

I’ve scrolled the streets of Instagram and ridden the elevators of my WhatsApp up and down.

I’ve set targets and journaled my goals.

I’ve watched movies and even completed a series on Netflix – a good one by the way.

I’ve slept, and dreamt, and crashed, and died and resurrected.

I’ve eaten, binged, drank and snacked.

I’ve played music, danced and prayed.

I’ve called my friends and then stalked my emails.

And it is only 5 pm.

There’s still 7 hours before day 4 and then, there would be all the days left in this prison sentence until day 10.

This is unfair at this point.

I mean, what on God’s green earth justifies why I have to continue in quarantine when I’ve already had two negative PCR tests? I can understand if they are worried that the test I did at home is not up to their standards. But then, the test I took on day 2 came out negative and it was done by one of their accredited labs. Why do I still have to stay indoors, isolated from the world for another 8 days and still do another test?

What virus am I going to contract after day 2? It’s unfair if you ask me, and yes you have asked me because you are reading my journal. Maybe I should step out and take a breath of fresh air. Just a tiny, weensy, uncontaminated breath of fresh air on the outside. I’m thinking, surely that would not hurt. I lie down and force myself to sleep and only end up tossing and turning and tossing yet again.

Sometimes around 9 pm, I get up, change my skirt into black trousers and prepare to step outside to get fresh air. I go to pick up my phone and earpiece and find my mom in the sitting area watching movies. She asks where I heading to, and I respond, telling her that I need fresh air and would love to take a walk for a bit on the street.

She gives me her signature eye and says, ‘Don’t go. My friends have been calling me to warn me to stay indoors. They say the officials do random spot checks and may have specially installed hidden CCTV on the streets to monitor us”.

Hmm. My inner goddess pouts.

Mummy, hmmm !!!

For reals.

CCTV!.

I roll my eyes internally, instantly regretting that I came up to pick up my phone in the first place. Why does she have to jinx it with all this superstitious talk.

I mean, will Uncle Borris really tell his boys to be spying on me with special CCTV or to come and look for me at 9pm.

I roll my eyes again and collapse downcast into the ottoman by the window. I’m not one to disregard her warning. I feel like I have this luck where once someone says “so so so” before I do something bad, then it would come to pass and be jinxed, even if others get away with it.

This essentially takes all the fun out of whatever the action that “so so so” would have been and my taking this walk falls under that category. Now that she has spoken, a part of me just knows that she has jinxed it.

I change from my sitting posture on the ottoman into a kneeling posture and I look longingly outside. The streets, from my point of view, look so serene and quiet and lonely. Like it’s missing me. Like it’s beckoning to me.

They also look devoid of human life, as though suffering from the prolonged state of lockdown that this city has been in for the major part of the last year. The streets are calling to me and I’m here kneeling and just looking. Unbelievable! Can my simple 5 minutes intended walk really be jinxed by spot checks?

My mom gets up from the living room and heads to the room, possibly to sleep. As she goes, it occurs to me that she is also in this isolation with me and must be feeling the effects of the confinement just as I am, perhaps even more, although she has not complained as much. She must relate to my frustration in some way and if she really does relate, then she won’t want to kill my joy by jinxing my harmless idea. Right?

I return to a sitting position as my knees are hurting and my toes are tingling. I pick up the remote, shuffle pointlessly through Netflix, conclude that everything there is of little interest to me, turn off the Tv altogether and then return to binging on blueberries.

Before Accepting Job Offers

Plab O'Clock Tips May 23, 2021 26 Comments

Hey !!

If you are new to my blog, welcome here !

Today’s post is suited for Nigerian doctors who have just landed their first job in the UK. However, if you are not in this category, you can still hang in here with us as you may be able to pick a thing or two.

First of all, hearty congratulations are in order. Congratulations on passing your IELTS, Plab 1, Plab 2, finally landing an interview and getting that offer letter. I’m sending group hugs your way because you’ve come very far indeed.

And because you have come this far, there’s likely a chance that you feel some fatigue and tiredness from the seemingly unending process. There’s also a chance you are like I was back then, just wishing (aka slightly desperate) the job offer has come already.

So, I’ve compiled a list of things I wish I knew and did better at that phase.

1. Ask about my pay.

I’ve been privileged to officially sit on a panel to interview doctors before and I remember that those who asked about salary while we were drilling them were not taken seriously. Having seen that unconscious bias play out, I subsequently decided that I would not do the same to myself if I were to be interviewed by any one.

My nerdy self made up my mind to ask intelligent questions and not the “unserious ones” but really what can be more serious than money talks? LOL

I have quickly learned that contrary to what is advised and obtainable in nigeria, where you are likely to be told to avoid mentioning salary and the likes during interviews, abroad interviews are quite different. Oyinbo mans life is not that hard. So you can essentially ask away. Ask clearly and clarify what you don’t know. And if you don’t feel comfortable asking during the interview, ask when your offer of employment is made to you just before you accept it. Usually you will be given a window of about five days to make a decision to accept or decline the offer. I would recommend you use this time wisely.

Ask how your years of working experience will be factored into the pay-band you will be placed on. You will not be considered unserious if you do.

If you land a job that is post-F2, ie CT1, CT2, CT3, ST1, ST2, ST3 etc. you have some negotiation room even if those jobs are in non-training positions.

Be rest assured that there are people who have negotiated their pay to something higher than the initial offer and have succeeded at it. The thing is, you may not know about it since bad news gets more PR than good news.

2. Ask about relocation benefits.

I’m sure I can’t be the only one that money talk excites. In fact, this is the point that spurred me to write this post because I did not come here to count the bridges.

Most trusts offer some extra support to doctors they recruit from abroad. Relocation costs and sign on bonuses!

This could range from support with your flight tickets, COVID testing, hotel bills for self-isolation, rent and feeding. The monetary value for this varies across trusts. For some reason, it’s highly likely that if you don’t ask for this, you won’t be offered. And the best time to ask is before you accept the offer of employment. So again, negotiate away.

Once you accept the offer without reading the blue print and asking, your ability to negotiate will significantly narrow and it can be very painful to resume work and realize that you are a couple of pounds ‘broker’ than you need to be.

Again, the catch here is that, not all trusts offer it and the price is not fixed across trusts, so if you ask and don’t get offered, it’s okay. You’ll have some measure of closure knowing that you did not shoot yourself in the foot.

If you have ever been a student in my class, you’ll definitely get what I mean if I say this point is as important as demonstrating IPS in the PLAB two exams.

Gosh, it may yet be my biggest “I wish I knew” in all the processes I’ve been through so far.

3. Make all inquiries via email

In nigeria, emails are somewhat seen as too serious and they carry a foreboding of evil with them. We have mostly learned to dread them as they can be associated with queries and being tasked with extra work.

But, an additional benefit to emails is that, it allows your conversations to “exist” and it allows for someone to be held responsible for how you are treated.

I had a consultant back home who always said, “If it is not documented, it is not done”. This has proven to be a golden tip indeed.

It’s not going to take long to realise that everyone is “happy” to help you, albeit only in words that are at best superficial and gone with the wind until an email is actually written.

Have an email trail of every valid conversation you have and every important inquiry that you make. Most people do not act seriously on verbal conversations, but once it happens via email, there’s an extra motivation to give you accurate responses since emails can be presented as evidence that a conversation actually took place.

4. Decide what accommodation to go for and start the search early.

Ah, it’s possible to be homeless abroad. Okay, that’s extreme! But accommodation issues can unnecessarily add to the stress of moving to a new town and country. It can add to a sense of being unsettled and displaced.

Decide early if you want your personal space or if you would like a shared space with a stranger. If you lean towards shared accommodation, then decide if you want a locally shared accommodation space or if you want the hospital accommodation.

For hospital accommodation, you may need to email the accommodation unit of your prospective trust as soon as possible to get a space reserved and if you lean towards renting a private space, consider if you want a furnished space or not and review your decisions with your budget.

The earlier the better.

If you have made it this far in this post, please consider subscribing to get more of my blog posts. T for Thanks ?

5. Ask about shadowing and who will be responsible to oversee you.

Yes, you have been practicing in Nigeria and you are probably a guru, you know your stuff and blah-blah-blah.

But there’s simply no underestimating how jarring a new environment can be. There will always be a difference between hospitals, in terms of documentation styles, in the use or non-use of EMRs etc. It’s best to start with a mindset of wanting to familiarise yourself with what’s attainable in a new environment before being plunged into the deep and making avoidable errors.

Its worth noting that there’s the tendency to underestimate how understaffed the NHS can be. Sigh!

Some trust may put you to work solo on your very first day because you have “practiced before” and they are “short-staffed” and this was my experience. My dears, I did not find this comfortable at all. I may have cried once or twice wondering what took me out of Nigeria. Because !!!

Need I mention here that this request should be made in writing via email. Know who you will be expected to shadow and try to contact them before you start or as you are starting. Communicate your expectations on how long you want to shadow for clearly during your interview phase. Also ask about who your clinical support fellow is.

6. Research Nigerian consultants in the trust.

This is probably extra, but it is worth the try. Find consultants in your prospective trusts on linked-in or on the hospitals website and send a nice friendly message. I mentioned consultants because they are easier to find. If however you have other means of finding other grades of doctors, then go for it. Nigerians in the diaspora are most times friendly to other Nigerians and very willing to help with inquiries. There may be tips that they share with you which will make your transition a lot easier. Or they can link you up with someone they know who can be of help to you. A win-win if you ask me.

PS; You may want to keep an eye on this post as I may update with more information as I continue to learn.

And kindly feel free to add whatever tips you have in the comment section.

Another cancellation in a cancelled year

Journals December 31, 2020 16 Comments

Dated June 3:2020

All lot is going on on earth right now. For real. Murders and rape and protests etc.

That’s what my friend and I were discussing when my phone pops up with a strange picture.

Strange because it’s on one of the many plab 2 platforms I’m in.

Pictures at this time of the day are not really fun. It’s usually updates.

I check it out and it’s not only strange but depressing.

It contains a message that the examination had been cancelled yet again. For the second time yet again. The cancellation is bad because all my plans for this year are quite tied to this, almost everything about my life is on hold because I need this to get out of the way so I can progress like I want in my career. It was first cancelled in April, which was when I was first supposed to take it, then it was postponed to July and now it has been cancelled for the whole bloody year? Like what am I supposed to do with myself the rest of this year?

By this time, I wasn’t hearing what my friend was saying on the phone as I had zoned out. I interrupt him and break the news to him because we are both supposed to take the exam.

Then we end the call.

Because To each his own grieving system.

As soon as that picture lands, all the other WhatsApp platforms start to buzz. Every one is waking up to the news. And reacting to it.

I don’t know how to react.

My thoughts are on a loop.

So many plans have been tied to this exam.

I’m a planner.

I dare say a good one.

But this is 2020.

It’s not the year for planners. It seems to be more like a year of wake up and just exist.

My hands start to shake.

My heart swells and makes a point of doggedly pumping blood to all the strands of hair on my head.

My neck feels constricted. And my ears are just so so so…. arggh

It feels like a stroke.

I can hear my heart beat everywhere.

I touch my face and try to smile to see if my muscles would move because despite all the feelings, I was also suddenly numb.

In a moment, my nieces come to where I’m lying down and all but climb over me asking “Aunt Biola are you freezing for us”

It is then that I realize that I’m staring blankly and have been unresponsive to their multiple calls.

I smile at them and somehow end up lost in my dazed maze of blank thoughts.

There are almost no words for this.

I get up and check my blood pressure. It’s high. I recheck 3 times before I finally quit.

My systolic went up by 28 millimeters of mercury. My normal Bp leans towards the low side, usually around 108/60 but today I’m nearing 140.

Even my pulse is every where. My heart is suddenly beating 90 times in 60 seconds!

My normal bradycardia heart.

I sit on the floor and just breathe in and out. I’m still hearing my pulse everywhere.

My head feels heavy and soon I go back to lie down. Because no one is supposed to carry the weight of 7 galaxies on their head.

My exams have been cancelled. For the rest of the year!

For the rest of this Rollercoaster year!

And there’s no new date in sight.

How!!!!!!

How do I return to work and justify my prolonged absence?

How do I start the meticulous documentation that visa procurement requires.

How do I start hoarding money that I don’t have and won’t be able to spend in order to prove I’m visa worthy.

How do I start applying for jobs against October when most hospitals are downsizing their staff and salary in light of the pandemic?

And how do I apply for another leave that I’m not qualified for early next year in an hypothetical new Job that I have hypothetically not worked for the minimum 6 months required to qualify for leave in the first place.

How do I even get through now and make it to October of this year.

How do I sit and watch my IELTS validity just waste away.

And then my flight tickets that I had booked? Or is it my academy courses that are now a waste or the mocks that are indefinitely unavailable.

I am not okay:

I don’t feel okay:

This event is not okay:

The world is not okay:

I text precisely 4 of my friends and tell them just that – I am not okay.

I get up. Change my clothing and walk out of the house. I don’t know where I am headed other than that I just want to walk.

Walk to anywhere my legs would take me.

It takes me to a restaurant and I buy more food than I can normally finish in 2 seatings. Not like any one is watching. I buy 2 bottles of wine too and I just keep walking.

I keep walking until I realized that I have stopped walking right in the middle of a street somewhere and a man is staring at me weirdly in the distance!

Apparently I’ve frozen again.

I remind my feet to take me home and when I get there I crash on my bed and stare endlessly at what I purchased.

It takes some time before I remember I’m supposed to stuff myself full with the food. I stare at it long enough to realize I actually don’t have the appetite for it. But eat I do. Eat and drink.

It makes me feel somewhat better.

So comfort food is actually a thing.

Phew.

Then my friends start to call and I narrate everything to them. They all end up speechless. Which is a relief.

Because it makes me know I’m not over reacting or overthinking.

One of my conservative friends even said the “F” word. Something that’s not part of his vocabulary in the one decade since I’ve known him. 2 of my brothers are also speechless so we agree not to inform my mom.

Some year this 2020 is. Some bloody year. Some bloody disconcerting disorganized traumatizing rollercoaster of a year.

A year that got me endlessly chanting “it is well”.

Hearing my close ones respond with the same confusion I feel makes me feel better and I actually start to laugh again. Although I don’t know what’s funny.

Like every other thing, I’d get through this one.

RF : It’s today. The last day of this year. The time when every where is flooded by pictures and news of achievements that highlighted the year for various people which probably cause others to feel like they may have underachieved. I realize the reverse is the case for me as I’m inclined to talk about the lows. It’s the cancellations that made this year memorable. Because they were the backdrop through which the things I’m most grateful for shine.
PS: the exam is one of the many exams doctors have to take to stay relevant and progressive career wise and it was later rescheduled and I passed it. We’ll probably talk about that in the coming weeks. Until then, know I wish you a memorable new year in advance.

White Rice: A Tale Of Closure

Life November 29, 2020 21 Comments

It is the wedding eve – Friday night and the whole street is buzzing with excitement. Every house is feeling the anticipation of the coming celebration. My dad loves to throw parties and given that he is a people’s person / crowd puller / “man of the people”, ? he almost always goes over board while throwing them.

The house at this point, is already full to the brim and by full I mean, all the bedrooms are occupied with guests, the chairs in both parlors are fully booked like a suite, even my mom’s precious kitchen is not spared for we have had to bring out the compressible beds and mats to host people there. We have also run out of bedsheets, blankets and wrappers to pass around to our guests. There are more than 20 of my mom’s friends and family around, each volunteering one essential skill or the other.

Some of them are skinning the meat, some slicing onions or carrots or condiments. Some have taken it upon themselves to sort out souvenirs while others are holding the usual vigils in the tents ; Vigils where alcohol and music are the holy anointing raining down from the heaven my father has created.

It is also a day of random dancing, where while moving from point A to B, I’d randomly stop halfway and dance to “o baby sawale, Sawa sawa sawale” before I catch myself and move on with whatever I have to do.

Of course, that amount of crowd and activity means one thing for me – endless errands. ??
“Biola, where do you guys keep this”, or “Biola, please get us matches or an extra knife or fuel or salt or tinned tomatoes etc”.
You get the gist.
Every volunteer needs something and I am being constantly tossed up and down the stairs, to and fro the garage and in and out of different storage rooms.

NIGHT

It’s night time, probably around 11 pm and I am exhausted to my bones. I sit up on my mat that I have managed to hustle for myself because yeah, I had to give up my bed too.
I am trying laboriously to fix my own nails myself when I hear the unmistakable footsteps that can only belong to my dad.

Something tells me that his visit is likely errand oriented and specific to me so I lay down and pretend to be asleep. ?? Pardon the sixteen year old crook that I am. (I’m sure you’d have done the same too)

My dad comes into the room, with his special smile that lights up his eyes, my moms world and literally the entire universe, wakes up the “sleeping” me, ( so much for my game of pretense right ??) and tells me he is hungry and needs me to cook his food.

I remember saying “Daddy, there’s food at home. Your sisters prepared pounded yam for you”. This persistent man says, “ I know, I want rice and I would really like to have your special white rice, the one only you can cook”.?

First of all, white rice is not special.?‍♀️ You literally toss washed rice inside water plus or minus onions and some salt and the rest is history. So why all this hyping of such a mundane food?

Second of all, what is special about my own white rice, what about it can only I cook? There are many people downstairs who would happily cook for him. Why come to bother a visibly exhausted and unwilling me. ?

Thirdly, what typical Ekiti man says no to pounded yam that was made specially for him only to come wake a teenager for white rice? ?‍♀️
Ko add up fa …

I grumble on the inside and reluctantly stand up, begin the laborious journey down the stairs and all through the while, Oga is hailing me, calling me all my pet names and so excited that I am actually going to cook for him. Like I have a choice? ?‍♀️

I don’t understand it really. In my head, I’m lamenting the nail polish I have poorly applied on my nails that would definitely get smudged while washing the rice.
I’m also lamenting the time I could be spending relaxing and getting my beauty sleep in.

The night passed, the wedding came the next day and by Sunday, my dad died peacefully on my thighs, right in front of my eyes. Read more here.

Selah.

Naturally, a crowd gathered in our house again, not to celebrate this time but to mourn.

As a part of grieving process in a bereaved house, people tend to verbally reminisce on memories of the departed. I remember walking past a gathering of people doing this when I heard the words “I trust Biola to take care of me, she always does.”

Upon hearing my name, My ears prick as expected and I listen super closely.
One of the commentators happen to be my aunt so I call her aside to inquire further what the discuss is about.

She says, “On Friday evening, we offered your dad pounded yam and he rejected it and when we asked him what he was going to eat in place of it, he told us not to worry about it and boasted that his baby doc (which is me, last time I checked) will have something special planned for him as she always does”.

???

Wait! Did I just hear “as she always does”??‍♀️???

Phew !!!

Thank you Aunt.

Phew again.

Upon hearing this, I run into my room, close the door and cry out a fresh amount of tears.

Why was my father boasting of me taking care of him?

“As she always does”??? — What is that supposed to mean and how am I supposed to feel about that?

Why did he reject that pounded yam and come up for my rice that I had not even yet cooked?

Why did he boast saying I always take care of him, when in essence, what I did in place of that was grumble from my room to the kitchen and back about little things like my nail polish and my being tired?

I’m crying and crying and crying and I realize somethings.
That my dad genuinely knew and actively basked in the knowledge that I loved him, enough that he could boast about it behind my back and especially without having approached me with his request.

And that he loves me wildly – Loves me enough to choose me and my grumbling exhausted company over something “special” made by a stranger,

Loves me enough to stay with me while I cooked the “white rice” and cheer me up,
Loves me enough to have boasted back and forth about little and big things about me.

As these thoughts come to my realization, I start to feel that I have done something right in my short life. And by so doing, I have given myself closure. I have done right by communicating verbally and via my actions to someone I deeply care about.
I have gifted them the “gift of knowing”
Knowing just how much they mean to me.

Click here to see more about how I really felt.

NYSC Orientation Camp Day 19 : A Monday To Look Forward To

Journals October 18, 2020 6 Comments

Monday

There will be no drills this morning. Good.

There will be no more sleeping on bunk beds after my waking moments today. Better.

There will be no queuing to bath in a water logged bathroom while females gawk at my naked body. Even better.

There will be less comments and weird glances from people. Very good.

There will be a return of my autonomy as regards the use of my time. Excellent.

There will be no more missing services in my home church. Ecstatic.

There will be private quiet moments where I can resume my daily meditation. Great.

There will be less junk music being blasted into my subconscious intrusively. Amazing.

There will be me carrying my luggage down three flights of stairs and through the parade ground to the gate. Not particularly exciting.

There will be distribution of posting letters and me trying hard not to get anxiety disorder. Sigh.

There will be traffic as we all try to get Ubers and Bolts out of this venue. Bland.

There will be those who will try to unlawfully part with others peoples stuff. Not good.

There will be me, making it through this day triumphantly. Voila

And there will be a small but big part of me who would miss journaling about this as that is what actually made this memorable! Nostalgia

And there will be you, wishing this piece never came to an end because you’ve grown to like the turn of events. Presto.

Also, there will be more writings like this, although their release date is something I’m not yet aware of.

Till next time.

Ciao

PS: I find it cool that this post literally comes out the week of my Passing Out Ceremony.

So allow me to share with you for the first time publicly pictures from that day ?

DONE and WELL DUSTED.