INTERCOURSE WITH THE JOURNO

IT’S DARKEST BEFORE DAWN

2021 was an exciting year in Zambia. The country was going to the polls in August and for political players and electorates alike, it was going to be a busy year. From a newspaper business point of view, the prospects were also high.

Despite the tumultuous phase we were going through, we were very sure that 2021 would be our year if we were aggressive enough and positioned and accounted ourselves well. I personally saw this as a turning point. We needed to survive. We needed to make money and so, it was time to realign our objectives as a team in terms of content and business.  What kept us afloat were small business opportunities that we were getting from a few of our friends, just enough to continue printing the paper but we did not lose focus.

We knew it was just about time before turning a corner but we needed to do more work. We started by expanding our circulation by increasing the number of towns under our coverage and also engaged more vendors but while we were still implementing these measures, something unthinkable happened to me.

I fell ill around May but it took a long time for the health personnel to detect what was wrong with me. I had excruciating pain in the stomach and for a week or two, I was put on ulcer medication but this did not help until my stomach started swelling. After two weeks, I was again put on medication for gases without being told what the problem was.

When I was not getting any better, my sister from Galounia Farms came and took me to her place. We tried to buy medicine from chemists and went to the nearby clinics within the area, but nothing helped. We tried herbal medicine but the situation worsened. I could not eat or drink anything because of the pain.

Few days later, going to the toilet became a struggle. My girlfriend was getting worried. She then made an appointment for me to meet one of her friends who was working at Matero Level 1 hospital so that I could be subjected to all tests. On the material day, I was taken to the lab but she was not satisfied with some results.

She personally took me back and supervised the whole process and by the time the results were out, she told me the problem seemed bigger than earlier imagined. She directed that I be admitted and once I had settled in the ward, she came and randomly pierced me on the right side of the stomach with an injection and to my surprise, she drew about 100 Mls of pus from my stomach.

She told my brother and my sister that this was an emergency and that since Matero Level 1 could not handle my problem, she would wait for the doctor to come so that I would be referred to the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) because I needed an urgent surgery to ascertain where the pus was coming from and what the problem was.

My heart sank. I had never been admitted to any hospital in my entire life. I used to get sick once in a while but I can count with my fingers how many times I even went to the hospital. When I heard that I needed surgery, I was scared. I have heard of people dying in theatre due to loss of blood. Was this the way I was going to take a premature trip to the other side of town? What could have been wrong with me? Was I poisoned? Was God done with me? Why would my life close at such a crucial moment when I needed total dedication to my company?

I saw my life vanish right in front of my eyes. I had been a very strong-willed person but that illness defeated me within weeks. My worry at this point was not the pain but the prospects of dying. I pitied myself because I thought I was too young to die at this point when I had nothing yet to show for my education. My elder brother had sacrificed everything he had to ensure that I get a better education but was this the way I was going to end?

At 23:00 on a Friday, the referral process was done. An ambulance came and picked me with three other patients, together with my brother and my sister. At the emergency, I was wheeled into the hospital and after preliminary processes, I was wheeled to the theatre. I closed my eyes and prayed that God would see me throughout the process but that if I did not make it, he should reserve a place for me in heaven.

I asked for forgiveness from the big man upstairs while questioning what could have been wrong with me because up to now, I had not been told the cause of the illness. Once in the theatre, I was subjected to general anesthesia and became unconscious.

I had no clue whatever was happening to me and the next time I opened my eyes, I was in the ward with a huge wound across the stomach from top to bottom. At least I was happy that I was alive but the pain was too much. I had lost a lot of blood because the wound was huge. Around 07:00, one of the senior doctors who was not part of the team that operated on me came and said I needed another urgent surgery. This was because there was a problem somewhere. I almost protested but the doctor said it was either they watched me die or did something to try and save my life.

I asked him what the chances of survival were, especially that this was going to be done within 24 hours and the doctor told me it was a 50-50 affair but that if that if the surgery was not done, I would rot to death!

Either way, there were consequences. It was either I waited for my death, or allowed the doctors to do something to try and save my life. I obliged. My elder brother reluctantly signed for my operation and later that day, I was again on the operating table. This was the operation that almost took my life and kept me in the hospital between June and July.

During the operation, I woke up twice. The strong drugs I endured the previous day plus the ones that had just been administered on me drove me to the blink of giving up the ghost. By the time I was taken back to the ward, I was finished. My body was swelling up. Doctors and nurses now struggled to find veins to insert the cannula.

My family, friends, and my ever-faithful girlfriend went through a torrid time. At some point, it was clear that they were just waiting for time to wind down. They were prepared for anything. Every breath I took was a struggle. Every movement I made summoned my whole energy. I could not sit but lie on my back.

Apart from the pain from the wound and the stomach lining which had been eaten up due to the pus that had collected after the wound burst inside, the drugs I was put on also took a toll on me. I started bidding farewell. For me, that was it. I was dying and I needed to talk to my family before taking that premature trip to the other side of town.

When the swelling reduced a bit, I was due for the third operation. Going by my experience of the second operation, I now completely gave up. As they were wheeling me to the theatre, my prayer point now changed from “heal me oh Lord” to “receive my soul oh Lord” because by now, everything seemed hopeless. My lights were dimming by the hour. I saw the cold hand of death coming.

I survived the third operation but I still had one more. I was to be operated on the right side where they would put a colostomy bag from which waste material from the body would be collected because I was no longer going to the toilet.

The doctors made another small incision just below the colostomy bag where they inserted a tube that was collecting pus from my body into a container. I saw pus dripping through the transparent tube into the container like water. Around June when everyone was shivering with the cold, I would be sweating like someone who was being steamed. My brothers took turns to be on my bedside. None of them ever slept, they continued massaging my swollen body all through the night.

I never slept. The longest time I would sleep was only 30 minutes. The rest of the time, I was awake due to pain. Everyone in life needs a strong support system whether in good or bad health and I can safely say had it not been for my brothers and sisters who kept me going when my hope was fading, I would have been history by now.

By the third week of July, I was discharged. It was at this time that I discovered that while I was battling for my life in hospital, my father died. I grieved for my father for a long time. He had been sick for over seven years and was confined to a wheelchair for a long time after suffering a stroke.

I felt so hopeless that I was not there to see him take his last breath, not to talk about burying him. However, I was happy that before his death, dad had been baptised in the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church and was hopeful of taking part in the first resurrection at the second coming of King Emmanuel.

Mom came to see me after the burial rites had been completed and stayed with me for some time until I was strong enough to start walking around. My heart was not at peace. I was looking forward to going back to the office.

While I was in hospital, my two colleagues ran the company. Each time they came to see me at UTH, they would come with the newspaper for me to see what they were doing and so, the moment I became strong enough, I started going to the office though mom was initially against it. Every day around 14:00, she would call me requesting me to return home and eat but a lot needed to be done.

By the time I was going back to the office, we had accumulated a debt of over K79, 000 but thanks to the two ladies I worked with, we managed to dismantle this debt within the shortest possible time. Truthfully speaking, it was like we were starting afresh and it was not easy.

The business had dwindled to unsustainable levels because those who were fighting us had taken the fight to another level knowing that it was an election year. We lost a lot during that time. Contracts were terminated before they were implemented. Those days, the mere mention that one was supporting the opposition was enough to get your business closed. We suffered but we were not giving up.

The story of The Scoop newspaper can never have a perfect ending without mentioning these two ladies who went out of their way to do what they could for the paper to survive even when the men I thought would help drifted away because it was no longer fashionable to sacrifice for the business whose owner was dying in hospital. This is the reason the two ladies have continued forming a formidable fulcrum on which The Scoop business oscillates.

While we were still re-strategizing on how we would move forward from that major setback, one blessed morning on 9th May, 2022, almost a year after I fell ill, I received a call that changed my life. I was offered a job which I never dreamt of in my life and the rest is history. When I look at the mountains that fate made me to climb before it was time for me to celebrate my triumphs, the old adage “it’s darkest before dawn” now makes a lot of sense.