7 YEARS
There is not a single job or career that exists in the world where errors or carelessness is okay. But for some carelessness or errors are more expensive than others. For instance in math in uni, we were told to give a plus or minus 0.5 error allowance to calculation results. But my math was mostly about demand and supply. The margins of error usually do not lead to fatality, even though they could very often lead to shortage.
But there are careers like medicine where these error margins, a little omission could straight up lead to the end of a life or permanent destruction of lives and family — I could have been lost.
Let’s go back 7 years ago. I started to experience discomfort in my left ear. I immediately knew it was connected to my sinus issues because the first time I ever experienced discomfort in my ear was when these whole sinus infection and surgery happened in 2012. So I didn’t hesitate to schedule an appointment to see an ent doctor — my ent Doctor. A prof — the same one who had seen me at the start of my sinus struggle, the one who had performed all 5 surgeries for me, the one who once waived my surgery fee to show he cared for my survival. Surely he would do what is right I believed. So when he said I had a boil in my. ear I simply believed — mind you this wasn’t the first boil I was told about. But they usually resolved without ever rupturing — in hindsight I should have suspected. But I was seeing a prof, paying good money for private care, surely he knew what he was doing. so I took the medications every single over priced tablet and ear drop. I took them.
However I wasn’t better, the pain remained and the boil unlike other times ruptured — I was thankful, to be free if only I knew.
What followed this boil rupture was a few months of ear discharge and that was where I started to worry. It felt like my hearing was reduced and I didn’t understand why a boil that usually would dry out right after a rupture had suddenly found a way to produce discharge for months. I went back to see prof. And he insisted it was a boil that had been infected or something. I had the discharge cultured and medication given. The meds seemed to help while I took them. But once I got off. I was back in hell.
I visited prof a few more times for about two years and then I started to feel like he wasn’t paying any mind to me or my situation so I found a new hospital. This time I chose public private partnership, because typically my grouse with public hospital is the wait lines and the stress to pay and all, but typically government clinics offer the opportunity of having multiple doctors examine a patient. And so most times in the rotation one clinician would pick up what others might have been missing. Gratefully Garki hospital, the hospital option I picked had shorter wait lines because it was more expensive than a government clinic, but as a former private patient the consultation fee was way less than anything I had ever paid. I joyfully went to the ent clinic every Tuesday for a while — my office was a few streets away from the hospital so I’d usually go to the hospital before resuming at work every Tuesday.
Sadly I kept meeting the same doctor, one time I was sent out to a private facility for certain tests and the report from there indicated eardrum perforations, my doctor insisted it was a Eustachian tube problem. It didn’t make sense. But I devotedly took meds for months as prescribed by the doctor but nothing seemed to work.
Armed with the diagnosis from this other clinic I went back to my old trusted Prof, surely now I had a different diagnosis from the boil he insisted it was he would have a solution. On my visit I told him about visiting a clinic because it was closer to my work place and my hmo was there, so he did check and confirm there was a perforation in that ear and offered me the usual antibiotics. But I wasn’t better. And he started to act like he was frustrated from attending to me, he stopped smiling when I visited, he picked my call with annoyance and scheduled me for very impractical hours but I always went. After a while I took the hint and started to find another doctor. I reached out to another one of the doctors who was part of the surgery team at National Hospital when I had my surgery and she directed me to meet her in FMC Jabi.
My visit to fmc was possibly the worst in all the clinics I visited; I was mid explanation of the ear situation when the doctor, I think he was called Ebenezer interrupted me and said “what do you want from us?” I remember trying to tell him of my history with sinusitis and how this ear thing started with unresolved cold and how I still had the cold but he simply refused to listen, it was group consultation at that point so I moved closer to the female doctor to explain but no one was interested in my back story. I was simply told to come for a perforation closure surgery — but I knew that surgery wasn’t what I needed.
I knew this, because my second ear had started to give the exact same symptoms my left ear gave years before the perforation. I was sure there was something in my head or body causing the ear trouble and until we found that thing I wasn’t going to go under any one’s knife.
I went back to Garki hospital and booked to see a consultant, he didn’t help much. Instead he insisted that it was mere allergies and even hinted that I wasn’t mentally stable, and was complaining because of anxiety. He dashed me a pack of loratidine as though it was a noble secret invention for allergies, like I didn’t have even stronger ones at home.
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After suffering so much I decided to take a break from seeing all the doctors all together.
In December 2025 while decorating the party arena for out bible clubs Christmas party this my friend a Muslim young man spotted me and for some reason decided to join in decorating with me. Which was shocking because I knew him to be an Islamic teacher in the estate I didn’t know he was liberal enough for that but for whatever reason I thank God he did, we got talking and our talk landed on health care and I suddenly found myself narrating all I had been through for the last seven years and he asked what I planned to do. I said I had no plan and so he scheduled a meeting with his sister — a doctor.
I met his sister days later and she was willing to connect me with an ent doctor at her own clinic. But the clinic was far away in gwagwalada. I asked to be given time to decide.
While I was weighing my options, my sister called — my sister is a doctor just not an ent specialist but for the last seven years I have cried to her about my pain and health struggles. But this particular night I cried, I lamented so bad that right on our call she started to take my history to send to an ent colleague who fortunately had just moved to Abuja about a month earlier — Dr Andrew.
Dr Andrew decided to see me during his call duty on a Saturday morning. And immediately he checked my ear and nose I saw his face and I just knew even before he said “when last did you have a CT scan?”
Immediately he asked something woke in my head and I knew the missing piece in all this lay in a CT scan. And then he said “it looks like everything has come back. You’re most likely going to need a head surgery. But get the scan done first”
And suddenly everything made sense, the mouth breathing, the years long loss of smell, the ear blockage everything.
Two days later I did the scan, saw Dr A again and he confirmed it. I had over seven years worth of polyp growth and fungal spores in my face and I was in need of multiple urgent surgeries. However with the government workers strike I could only get a date for April tentatively.
My sister found another consultant — the marvelous Dr. K and shared my ct scan slides with him and he kindly admitted that my case was beyond what he would be willing to handle especially with my past history of 5 surgeries and the complex situation I now faced, so he directed us to his superior the marvelous Dr. D. I was able to schedule a surgery for four days after our first meeting.
On Monday 2nd February Dr Dahillo, Dr Kopdimma and Dr Harrison along with a team of very helpful theatre hands stood for 5 hours assisted and strengthened by God removing growths and fungal spores from my head and nose, they also performed an additional procedure to save my right ear from a rupture.
I am deeply thankful to God for life and for carrying me these past 7 years for pure hell. But I wonder how different things would have been if 7 years ago the error of not requesting a ct scan wasn’t committed. I know it would be different is someone had ordered a CT before my right ear joined in the diseasing process.
But I bless God who didn’t allow this disease to spread to my eyes or brain, I am thankful that he allowed time, chance and provision work in my Favour. I am thankful for the hands he guided to work on my body. But I cannot pretend that errors weren’t committed in my care. And it is sincerely disappointing the sort of errors that they were.
I am recovering and spending my time reading, writing and thinking.
