Being sick in Kenya at this time, may be the worst thing that can happen to anyone, considering the doctors’ strike will clock 2 full months in a few days. It must be more torturous than being run over by the soon-to-be-launched SGR train or mugged by some mean-looking street urchins at a lonely alley in the night. Being aged and sick is double jeopardy. Mzee Ngamau (fondly referred to as guka) was glued to the TV set and oblivious of my entry into the living room.
It was his favorite program (7pm News bulletin), a daily ritual that he closely observed. His eyes were tightly riveted to the flat screen as he absorbed the News of the day from the News anchor-cum-fashion model, who was groomed to the teeth! For 15 minutes, we sat in pin drop silence as guka followed through the political fiefdom of the day in the first segment of prime time News. I had stopped by on my way home from work to check on him considering his latest fluctuating health condition.
Only when the News went into a commercial break did he turn around to see who had joined him in the living room. His trembling handshake was not like his former self when it was warm, stable and reassuring. Owing to his advancing years, he was braving diabetes, early prognosis of prostate cancer, besides the recent bouts of what Medical Interns and Clinical Officers thought was arthritis. His multiple health condition meant that he would be in joyful self-briefly, then slide into periods of intense and stinging pain.
We caught up quickly before the TV commercials wrapped up with him asking how my day was at work. Before I could finish the narrative of how busy I had been and how moody my boss was, he quickly interrupted with snippets of his 33 years of productive working life where he spent all his youthful energy operating and maintaining Sheet metal cutting and molding machines for his Asian employer. Talking of which, in the years gone yonder he rarely had time for family or any social activities. His ethos being, hard work pays.
When his slave-driver employer realized that his productivity (and usefulness) was declining, he proposed a severance package similar to the golden handshake in the 90’s in Kenya that was advanced to civil servants in an attempt to curb a bloating wage bill. With Ksh.159,273 deposited into his bank account and a farewell party to boot, Mzee Ngamau felt generously rewarded and well braced to face the future outside formal employment. At the time of his early retirement, he had no businesses running or forthcoming ideas on how he could invest such a lump sum amount. His wife had been living upcountry all these years as he rented a bed sitter in the city of many lights.
Research show that less than 5% of recipients of severance packages are able to wisely invest the funds or establish sustainable means of livelihood post-employment. Mzee Ngamau fell into the majority category who miserably failed in their startup entrepreneurial endeavors, constantly battling with nostalgia while resiliently wading off recurrent age and lifestyle illnesses. His equally hardworking wife had walked out on him at least thrice, during his retirement phase but returned due to his failing health and intervention by her in-laws.
He was a sucker, even to his own children.
Although I had visited him to catch up on his state of health, it turned out to be a storytelling session mostly about his rendezvous and the years gone by that will never reverse. The 7pm News resumed and I knew it would be another 15 minutes of watching him getting emotionally agitated over things that he had no business with, including corruption scandals in government procurement processes, early campaigns for the upcoming general elections and the live interviews for the big question section of the News.
We had been served tea which I sipped hurriedly and left for my house, wondering whether it would have more judicious to have called him while at the comfort of my house for that conversation. Before leaving, I spoke with cucu and we agreed to take him back to hospital the following day for further check-ups and guidance on his condition of urinary retention. Early the following morning, we faced the regular challenge of talking him to go to hospital. It was a rather long persuasive conversation that lasted 2 hours.
We only succeeded after the intervention of Nyumba kumi area chairman.
Halfway to the hospital, he mentioned that he forgot to carry his medical card and knowing there was no way he could be attended to at the hospital without it, we raced back to the house. On reaching home, he said he was feeling fatigued and needed to rest before embarking on the trip back to the hospital. Our doctor had forewarned us that aged people express anxiety in unique ways. Handling his childlike tendencies required the heavenly gift of patience mixed with iced tea.
By the time we reached the hospital, the only consultant doctor on call (having been hired by the County government owing to the prevailing doctors’ strike) had left for the next hospital. Guka was happy to propose that we head back home and return the following day. At the mention of that thought I was burning in fury at the wastage of time and money in dragging the old man to hospital and his not appreciating the collective efforts. His stubbornness met mine and we quibbled over the idea of chasing after the doctor. I won and we got to the next hospital just in time to be signed in as the last patient to be seen that day, behind 20 other sickly patients.
We had been in the queue for about 20 minutes when guka started squealing while holding his tummy and rolling his torso on the floor. He was either in acute pain or trying to jump the queue in his usual stunts. Not sure which of the two was the case, two nurses rushed to put him on a stretcher and wheeled him into the consultation room. The scene of the famed TV program, Emergency Room (ER) was replaying in our very own eyes.
I quickly picked his (analogue) phone, A7 sized notebook with phone contacts and tattered handkerchief that dropped from his trouser pockets in the ensuing melee. Thanks to his erstwhile creativity, we safely and respectfully jumped the queue. The nurse checking the vital signs said the results showed he was hyperglycaemic (at 276 mg/dl, with normal being below 140mg/dl, after taking meals) and hypertensive (at 182/110mmHg, with normal being at or below 120/80mmHg) besides the excruciating pain from a bulging bladder that had not been emptied for at least 3 days.
Decisions were being made fast and furious, he was put on intravenous injection with God knows what drug combination and in a split second whisked off to the ward for admission and further emergency management. All this time he looked frail, in pain and beaten. Cucu’s eyes gazed blankly into the horizon as one who had grown numb to the reverberating health emergencies that guka had subjected her to, since his retirement.
Like the typical millennial, I was tempted to take a photo (or selfie) with them and post it on WhatsApp, appealing for prayers (and contributions). But it felt odd, very odd.
Three hours later, which seemed like eternity, he was stabilized but was deep asleep. The consultant doctor had finished doing his rounds in his third hospital for the day and had come back to check on guka’s progress. Considering guka’s age and multiple health conditions, he recommended we visit a Geriatrician, whatever or whoever that was!
He was discharged two days later and put on a bevy of expensive drugs to curtail his erratic blood pressure and sugar levels. Once at home, we realized his declining level of activity. He rarely sat up with family in the living room, save for watching prime time News after which he slid back to his bedroom where he would have endless and loud self-talk that was much later diagnosed as early signs of schizophrenia. Giving him medication was an emotional drill that even cucu dreaded.
When in good moods he would adhere to the drug administration routine, but when in stale moods he wanted nobody near him, which sometimes spanned a whole day.
Taking medication in sporadic fashion is akin to not taking them at all. That’s what our consultant doctor told us after observing no improvements in all the conditions he was being treated for. A Home for the aged or a Hospice would have been the perfect solution for guka’s sufferings. With time he was turning wild and extremely hostile, even to himself. In his self-talk he would question God, sometimes as to why he was born or as to why he was flung into the sea of pain. Mentally he was being tortured by his condition and by extension torturing his caregivers.
His urinary retention and prognosis of prostate cancer conditions required immediate surgical interventions, but hypertension and hyperglycaemia would give no room. Here was a man torn between disease and death, such a terrifying place to be. All the church and women groups that cucu belonged to had visited her ailing husband, at least twice. Fervent prayers had been made for his healing and quick recovery. Not once, but many times, traditional cures, concoctions and medical supplements had been considered, but guka would have none of that.
The only thing he seemed to enjoy in his agonizing sickness was watching prime time News.
On an evening before his scheduled Geriatrician’s appointment, I had gone to visit them when I found him glued at the same spot in the living room. As usual, I couldn’t interrupt the News streaming in, mostly about the aborted discussions where the doctors’ union declined a 40% salary increment, advanced by the President.
As the TV went into commercials, he tap-tapped with his hand on the coffee table in front of him in reaching out for the TV remote control. I didn’t know why he couldn’t have easily picked it, until cucu came in and said that his eyes too were failing and he was partially blind. JESUS, SON OF GOD! I bolted from my seat as one who was on the throes of being electrocuted. Poor old chap, such an unbearable agony of failing faculties, when he needed them most.
Views expressed in this article are my own
Joseph N. Mungaiis inspired by people’s life experiences. Do you have a intriguing life story and need a ghost writer? Email: j.mungai@hotmail.co.uk