It was a few minutes to midnight when I finally got home from Regina Caeli Hospital, Awka, on Sunday, July 28, 2019. A friend’s wife was admitted at the hospital few days earlier and I got a wind of it that day. I went straight to the hospital after mass to spend time with them before continuing with my planned activities for the day. Little did I know I would be spending my day there and now I thank God I did.

Here are few lessons I knew, but got reminded of today at the hospital.

• 1. Be Grateful for Life!

Even as I type this, someone is breathing their last somewhere. Be grateful for the life that you have.

A woman was rushed into the hospital that evening. She was fighting to stay alive. Her strength waned with every drag of oxygen in her lungs. Each breath seemed to be the last. She wanted to live and she fought to live.

The nurses tried to support her with oxygen, but before they could get the oxygen mask functional, she gave up.

Her young son, helpless and hopeless, stood there speechless as the nurses prepared his late mum’s body for the morgue. Her chapter closed!

• 2. Be Grateful for Health

Health is wealth. I guess you know that already. Abundant health is abundant wealth. Okay let’s even assume your health isn’t so perfect. Perhaps you feel pains in one or two places or you need one or two drugs to live well. But if you can walk by yourself, bath by yourself, eat, excrete, talk and do most basic activities all by yourself, then give thanks to God for health.

A young man, yellow in complexion and exceedingly handsome was carried in to the emergency unit by another guy. The way the nurses rallied around on his arrival showed he needed urgent attention.

As I sat by the corner and observed, I couldn’t stop thanking God for the health I enjoy. Chineke Ekene oooo!

• 3. Be Grateful for Your Sound Mind

Keeping one’s sanity in Nigeria now takes a lot of guts. When you see a fellow not acting in the most appropriate way, be not quick to judge.

One man at the hospital ward kept disturbing everyone with loud tunes from Radio Biafra. His understanding wife patiently cautioning him at intervals.

Around 7pm, the man wearing his boxers was about leaving the ward, when his wife asked, he said he had IPOB meeting at Onitsha. Going for a meeting at Onitsha on boxers? Chukwu zoba!

• 4. Be Grateful for Shelter and Comfort

I had never appreciated my bed and the privacy of my room the way I do now.

Back in the hospital, care givers were exposed to the worst level of discomfort one could imagine.

My heart bled as I watched an elderly woman sit on a metal chair, placed her head on the mini table by the side and closed her eyes for the night. I can only imagine how mosquitoes, body pains and foul smell will keep her awake through the night into another laborious day ?.

All the beds in the ward were occupied by patients, except the bed on which a woman died on few hours earlier. Care givers must find a way to pull through the long night, while I lay comfortably on my bed. Chukwu Daalu!

• 5. Get Insured Today!

I have no details of her ailment, but my friend’s wife was rushed to the hospital, admitted under emergency, already spent some days in the hospital, had series of tests carried out one of which was ultrasound; drips, drugs and injections administered on her, yet you will be shocked to hear that upon discharge, their bill was just N1820.

They simply subscribed to ASHIA (Anambra Health Insurance).

You think you don’t need insurance because you no dey sick abi? Jisie ike!

• 6. Put Your Faith in God

One of the patients shared some of his life experiences with me on how he lost his wife to cancer having sold his landed property worth over 15million naira to save her life, how he vowed not to remarry till all his children were graduates, how he lost his younger brother in 2015 and how he started a foundation that today sponsors over 34 children in school.

It’s a long story, but in conclusion he said “trust in God. His ways are not our ways and we may not understand his plans in the darkest moments of our lives, but we must trust Him” Chekwube Chukwu ?

It was a long and tiring day, but I thank God for how it ended and the lessons I learnt.