A young lady, Kristy Ejura Ogwu has narrated a rather touching story of how her close friends, including her lover, abandoned her when she was hit by a strange ailment.
Ogwu, who is a graduate of Environmental Biology from the Federal Polytechnic, Bida, Niger State said some years ago she was diagnosed with grave disease, which led to goiter, an abnormal enlargement of the thyroid gland.
She stated this in an exclusive interview with THE WHISTLER.
The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland located at the base of one’s neck just below the Adam’s apple. Although goiters are usually painless, a large goiter can cause a cough and make it difficult for one to swallow or breathe.
According to her, the illness, which was diagnosed five years ago changed her facial appearance, and she couldn’t apply cosmetics to cover her ‘urgliness’ because her skin could not hold or take make-up.
“Cosmetic didn’t work on me, so my complexion changed. The more I eat, the more hungry I become. I couldn’t sleep over at anybody’s house because of how I breathe; I was breathing heavily.
“It became a challenge because I could not mingle with my friends or neighbors. I had to use veil to cover my neck. I didn’t graduate the same time with my mates. I was a year late because I found it difficult to read, lost concentration.
“But I made it with the help of my project supervisor, who just gave me a simple project to do and my elder sister who finished from my school assisted me.”
But the goiter situation made her lose friends, including her lover who couldn’t bear the embarrassment of been seen with her.
Her closest female friend (name withheld) also abandoned her. She couldn’t cope with gossips about her and her ‘goiter friend’ and decided it was time to stop the friendship.
“She told me I can never finish school; that I should drop out. She didn’t want to be seen with me again and she never believed I could make it through school. She told me no man will marry a goiter patient.
But Ejura persevered and struggled through school to earn her degree. She carried the goiter for three years and lived in isolation, with only members of her immediate family coming
“I carried it for three years. I took medication for three years before going for surgery. The surgery was done in Ahmadu Bello University teaching hospital (ABU) Zaria and conducted by a professor along with 17 other surgeons. The money for the operation was paid by my parents.”
She also recalls how the surgery was carried out: “I only knew they made a cut through my thyroid gland because the mark is there. Anesthesia was administered on me before the surgery that was all I remembered. The surgery took 7 hours. I spent one hour in the recovery room. The surgeon said the surgery normally takes 3 hours but when they cut me up I had complications; that I gave up for an hour but the grace of God brought me back. So mine was different because it took longer time.
“Immediately I was recovered back to the ward I felt very normal, all the breathing palpitation, hunger for food stopped immediately. A month after, I recovered back to my normal self. Before now the more I eat, the more I lose weight. Am okay now, just the scar on my neck.”
Ejura got married to Alex Ogu, a pastor based in Kaduna, in February this year (2019) less than two years after her surgery.
“ To God be the glory, I am happily married and my ex-friend who said no man will ever marry me is not. She’s still searching.”
“I invited her to my wedding, the first question she asked me was, who am I getting married to? I told her am getting married to a pastor, and she was shocked. The guy I was dating when this incident happened left me after some months. He stopped calling, and started giving me excuses that’s he’s always busy and all of that.
“He never told me it’s over. He just stopped communicating, so I knew it was over. After the surgery I took lots of pictures and posted them on facebook, and while several people were happy, congratulating me, that friend of mine just said, ‘Madam, you look fine’. That was all.
She revealed how she met her husband: “Along the line I met my husband, we were friends for a year, courted for two years. When I met my husband I was already suffering from goiter and he was cool with it. He was going to fix the wedding date even with the sickness. I did my introduction with the goiter before the surgery.
“A month to my wedding, my ex-boyfriend started chatting me up. I didn’t tell him I was getting married. He said we should meet up, and we met at an eatery. Then he started saying he was sorry and all manner of things. That am looking good now and that we should come back again.
“Then I told him, what if I marry you, and I fall ill, and he said he didn’t leave because I was sick. I just left him and two weeks after, I posted my pre-wedding pictures on facebook and tagged him. When he saw the pics he called it rubbish, that I should marry him.”
Ejura said she is now a happy woman and happy with her husband who ‘means everything to me.’
The whistle
