A former member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has recounted how she survived six surgeries after first suffering appendicitis during her 2017 service year.

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The lady opened up about her ordeal in a tell-in-all Twitter thread on Sunday.

The Benue ex-corps member recounted how she had suddenly started feeling severe abdominal pains and was diagnosed with an inflamed appendix after a scan.

After returning to her family’s home in Cross River state from where she underwent the first surgery to take out her appendix sac, complications followed such that eating or drinking caused further swelling in the operation site.

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Following a laparotomy, it was found that the first doctor who operated on her had punctured and sutured her intestines, prompting her inability to retain food, abdominal obstruction, and rot. She was subsequently moved to a teaching hospital in Makurdi.

For fear of the risks in undergoing the third surgery, she said a nasogastric tube was passed through her to remove the dirt in her intestines while a urinary catheter was passed to her bladder through her vagina as she couldn’t move.

After her discharge, the corps member said she returned to her NYSC place of primary assignment (PPA) and later passed out with her colleagues. However, the bloating and abdominal pain resumed on her return to Cross River.

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She said she was taken to a teaching hospital in Calabar where she couldn’t be operated on due to a power outage, prompting her to transfer to a state hospital. There, she underwent the third, fourth, and fifth surgeries.

She said she started having a fistula and 13 other holes opened on their own due to inflammation, with faeces oozing out of her scars. After a transfer to the Uyo Teaching Hospital in Akwa Ibom, she was moved to a private hospital.

There, she was operated on while parts of her intestines were cut. According to her, she had taken multiple blood transfusions, slimmed down, and nearly died from the procedures performed on her between 2017 and 2019.

Read the full thread below:

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“It began during my NYSC year in 2017. In the fifth month of my service year, I got sick with very severe abdominal pain and had to visit the hospital. The Scan results showed that I had an inflamed appendix and had to operate. I called my mom and she asked me to come back home (Cross River state) so we could do surgery in the hospital where she was working. My mom is a retired nurse. Her house was 4 hours from my PPA (Gboko, Benue State), so it was easy to travel with the pain. We saw a doctor at her workplace and a date was fixed for my surgery.

“On the 30th of May 2017, I had the surgery and everything seemed fine. I sang that night with my cousins. I even walked, the next day, to my mother’s office to greet her colleagues. Everything was jiggy until I was asked to drink water on the third day. As I drank the water, I could feel it moving in my tummy, like through a pipe, to the OP site (i.e the place that was opened on the right side of my abdomen to take out the appendix sac).

“I told my mom but she thought I was probably just playing as usual (I play a lot). And I just decided it was maybe all in my head or I was paying too much attention. The same thing happened when I took Lipton, Pap, and then very soft rice. But this time, the rice went straight to the OP site and formed a small ball. This was when the wahala (problems) started. Everyone could see the ball, so it was clear I wasn’t playing. The doctors kept going back and forth with the issue not able to tell us what exactly the problem was. I stayed in the hospital for a week.

“By this time, the ball got bigger and I could barely retain food. My mom being a nurse wanted to follow the entire procedure but when I had stayed there for two weeks and no one was saying anything tangible, she had to take me to another hospital. There, the doctor had to carry out an exploratory laparotomy (i.e, a surgery to find out what the problem was in my tummy). It was then he saw my intestines had been punctured and sutured by the first doctor.

“Hence the swelling and inability to retain food. Some parts of my intestines were already rotting. My mother saw all this in the theatre, so we knew it was accurate. The doctor did his best to fix everything but the damage had been done to my intestines already. So we waited for it to heal, but it did not heal. An abdominal obstruction had been caused and it got worse. I threw up everything I ate, including bile in my tummy. After weeks of not knowing what else to do, I was discharged.

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“It was terrible at home, I was dying. At this point, someone suggested the teaching hospital in Makurdi and we went there. They were hesitant about going in for a third surgery, so they used conventional methods. A nasogastric tube, AKA, NG tube was put in my nose. An NG tube is a long, thin silicone or rubber tube put in the nose or mouth to administer or remove substances in the tummy. In my case, it was to remove dirt from my tummy that was presumed to cause the obstruction. This dirt looked really nasty and the NG tube was extremely uncomfortable. I was not allowed to eat for one week. My food was dextrose saline and other drips, on a steady.

“A urinary catheter was passed to my bladder through my vagina to pass out urine as I could barely move around. After a week, my tummy was no longer bloated and the pain had reduced drastically. The NG tube and catheter were removed and I was asked to eat. When I ate, there was no problem. I was fine and my mom was happy. After a few days, we got discharged and I went back to my PPA to get my discharge letter.

“I had lost so much weight and had to give my old clothes out. After few days, the bloating resumed. The pain got worse. I complained every time I went for my checkup but my doctors said I was fine and that it was the healing process. After my POP, I went back home to Calabar and life was a living hell but my doctors kept saying “Healing process”. My tummy was like I was pregnant, I couldn’t eat properly, I couldn’t sleep properly. Fast forward to December 2018, my situation got worse and I had to go back to the hospital. This time, teaching hospital Calabar.

“Another round of catheters, NG tubes, and drips. I was told I’ll go in for a third surgery but they kept postponing due to light issues. That big hospital, it was embarrassing. On the day I was finally taken to the theatre, they took light. Oya turn on the gen na, they said no diesel. My mother asked how much diesel would be enough for the surgery, they told her and she offered to buy. Next thing, they said it wasn’t diesel again, the gen was bad and could not be fixed anytime soon. Are you people mad? I’m dying! My mom got angry, signed against medical advice and we left for a state hospital. Here, they were more organized and my doctor was lovely.

“He really did do his best to make me better. We went in for a third surgery, then a fourth, then a fifth. At this point, everyone was scared and we had already put millions into drugs and bills. After the fifth surgery, something happened and I developed an abdominal fistula (This is when poo comes out of your tummy.) Poo came out from my scars and 13 other holes opened on their own due to inflammation and poo also came out from all 13 holes.

The holes were actually busting out and it caused me so much pain. This was when the horror started. I became a walking “Suckaway”. I stung like hell on the first day it started. I was sad, my mom was sad, my doctors were sad. I wanted to sink into the ground. I wanted to cry my lungs out but I couldn’t cry, I had to be strong for my mom. She tried not to let me see it, but I could see how much she was hurting. She had also lost weight and was looking sick too. There was so much pain in her heart, so I had to be a big girl and I kept all the hurt inside.

“My mom vowed to never let me smell, she was not going to allow people walk past my bed and cover their noses. So she sat by my bedside cleaning the faeces from my tummy every second. Bandages were used around my tummy but they got soaked really fast with poo, but my superwoman was always there to clean me up. To date, no visitor knew I had a fistula. Only my nuclear family. My mom kept to her word of not letting me smell and I could never repay her. But I was still hurt, the psychological trauma was real. Whether I smelt or not, there was poo coming out of my tummy!

“The fistula went on for months and I asked to go home. After hesitating, my doctor let me go home and another round of hell began. On the 1st of March 2019, I went blind for hours. My eyes were open but all I saw was black. I thought this was it. I was going to lose my sight and I thought, “wetin concern fistula with blindness.” Mtcheeew. After convincing my mom to let me sleep, I did, she and my sister were praying to God to restore my sight. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was my 2 y/o niece staring at me, “Aunty, grandma said you cannot see but you’re looking at me”, with her baby words. See her small head “I can see you” and she’s shouting “Grandma, grandma.

“Aunty can see me”. Lol. Anyway, after weeks in my sister’s house, I got tired and wanted a change of environment. So my brother drove to Calabar. He took my mom and I to his place in Uyo. With the fistula o. At Uyo, things worsened. We went to 3 more hospitals, Uyo Teaching Hospital gave us their own doze of rubbish too but I won’t get into it. Just know that my brother nearly beat someone. We finally went to a private hospital after one night that I almost died. As the doctor looked at me like that, he was scared and tried to send us back home.

“But my mom was stubborn, so he took us in and we had to deposit almost a million before he did anything because he said what we were trying to remedy was risky and we needed a daily supply of cash and we couldn’t afford a break. By that time, I was already a walking corpse. Every time nurses started their shift, the first thing they asked each other was “Is she still alive?”. And my mom and I would smile. Eskiss me ma, I’m not gon die.

“8 doctors attended to me, Chemotherapy, EKG, etc. I had to scrape off my hair to afaridon at some point, cause it was pulling and littering. After treating infections and taking artificial protein bags we ordered from abroad, I was ready for my Sixth surgery. My doctors were scared, the nurses were scared, the entire hospital was scared. So we all prayed before going into the theatre. While they operated, I saw cubes enlarging into bigger cubes and reducing into the tiniest cubes you would ever see. It felt like I was being dragged to the other side, but I kept fighting.

“At some point, I got totally knocked out and I opened my eyes in my hospital room. The surgery was successful. All 13 holes had been closed, all my scars had been closed. The fistula had been contained. A big part of my intestines was burnt, some rotten. They were cut out and the good parts were stitched back successfully. My family was around me, waiting for me to open my eyes and when I did, my brother came to me, held my hand real tight, and kissed my forehead. I could feel how fast his heart was beating, he had been so scared. My mom couldn’t contain her joy.

“She just kept smiling at me. My mom and sister had to take turns that night to keep me awake all through the night. The doctors said it was risky to let me sleep that first night. When it was dawn and I was still alive, my doctors were happy. Then the maintenance process began, to make sure my outer wounds healed and that the fistula didn’t return and it did NOT return. Long story short, I got better. I was healed. Everything had ended. I was free. I was alive. The only thing I felt was excruciating pain which was normal. The fistula was gone, poo only came out of my anus, the bloating was gone, the obstruction was gone. I could eat now.

“In bits, but I could eat. My doctors said I was a miracle. They said the hospital would never forget me. They had never seen anything like what they saw in my tummy that day and they still couldn’t believe I survived but I did. I survived. 6 times, I survived. And Omo, from 2017 to 2019, I had so many blood transfusions. I have like 50 people’s blood in me, if not more. I remember a time I even had partial amnesia. “Guy! I no dey remember anything again.” Why am I posting this today? My Sixth and final surgery was on Easter Sunday, 2019.

“Like my mom said, I was brought back to life on the resurrection day. I came back from the dead with him. He brought me back to my family. He wiped the tears from my mom’s eyes. Easter Sundays will forever be special to me and well, I’m taking it as my second birthday. So plix, I’m accepting birthday gifts. This thread may be long but it is only a glimpse of what I went through. What I have narrated doesn’t even give out one-tenth of what I went through between 2017 and 2019, but I am most grateful to God. I am good now but my scars still hurts sometimes.

“I don too suffer o. I just want to see where to make money and live a soft life. I deserve it, especially since I can no longer do things that are too tedious. And to complete my mother’s house. She hasn’t completed her house because of the millions she spent on the sickness, and I feel bad about it sometimes. But I know God will soon open financial doors for me. I’m grateful to my brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties, uncles, in-laws, friends, for being there for me in those dark times. Their Love kept me pushing.”



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