It was the end of another tiring day at work and, as usual, I was eager
to leave.
My eyes were heavy and I was only a few miles away from my
bed.
Since I wasn’t expecting anyone, the tag on my office door still
read: At Work. Even though I didn’t mean it in the real sense, it was an
answer to the prayers of the visitor I later got that evening.
The door
slammed open at her entry as she walked in with tears rolling down her
face. I was blank in the first few minutes as I tried to ignore the
rather unappealing fact that I had to attend to this woman with the fact
that my system was craving a good rest.
Being a pastor, it seemed to me
that I had pretty much little or no choice. But I decided quickly to
give myself the choice and tell this woman that she would have to come
back later or, at best, the next day.
“She is just like any other
person” I thought; there would be no need to give her any special
attention. Ironically, she didn’t seem to understand the look on my
face, and so the more I tried to explain to her how it wasn’t going to
be possible for me to attend to her, the more determined she was to
speak about what was tearing her apart.
Again I couldn’t understand what
was happening. In a small moment of silence, however, I did remember
that my wife always wanted me to give everybody a chance irrespective of
their status.
It wasn’t as easy at this point as she usually made it
sound but I saw the sense in it; and gave in eventually. I sat down
reluctantly to listen to her tale, praying that they would be as short
as possible. Interestingly, she showed no consciousness of my
unwillingness to speak to her, and throughout repeated throughout the
discussion how she grateful was that I gave her some time.
As we talked,
it was difficult for me to understand what exactly she wanted. Her
story was long and didn’t have a plot, and I was going to cut her short
when she threw the bomb shell. “I just had a miscarriage.” I
sympathised with her, but I questioned myself on the inside as to why
she had come to me. I was a pastor not a doctor. And even though my wife
was a nurse, she wouldn’t have known; if she did she would have gone to
see her in the first place. Now worried that my phone was switched off
and that I wasn’t home yet, my wife came round to my office.
The
excitement that grew from within me to engulf my features could be
likened to the relief that a man shows when he is set free from hanging
by a death sentence. I quickly narrated the woman’s ordeal to my wife,
and told the woman my wife could help her both medically and otherwise. I
tried not to make her feel uncomfortable as I left with a smile. The
rest of the evening progressed with my wife spending time with the
woman, and the events that ensued after are such that I will not forget
in a hurry.
The woman narrated to my wife a story of how her husband’s
family thought she was a witch, killing all her babies before birth and
how they had told her they were going to kick her out if she lost the
sixth child. Luckily for her, the current miscarriage was at 6 weeks and
neither her husband nor his relatives had known of the pregnancy. My
wife was a gynaecologist and thought she could be of help.
The woman was
quick to say she had met the best gynaecologists, and that all she
needed that evening was someone to talk to. She told my wife how much
she appreciated the time I spared her, even though she didn’t know that I
was grumbling on the inside. Every attempt to convince this woman that
there was still a way around fell on deaf ears, and when she also saw
that my wife was not willing to give up too soon, she let us know that
her husband was actually a professor of gynaecology, a Professor
Adeoti. For a minute, my wife’s heart stopped.
Professor Adeoti, the
woman’s husband was her PhD supervisor; and she had been working on a
research her supervisor thought is impossible. It seemed rather unreal
that a renowned professor of gynaecology had a wife that had had several
miscarriages. And that she was sitting just beside this renowned
professor’s wife. It couldn’t be possible! Mrs Adeoti tap brought her
out of her reverie. And my wife turned to the woman to hear her ask if
she was fine.
In response, my wife merely looked Mrs Adeoti in the eye
and proclaimed with confidence, “Madam you will have a child.” It was
the statement that marked the beginning of a wonderful testimony. My
wife had made some profound discoveries which no one was ready to pay
attention to.
It involved a simple procedure, but was crazy because the
chance of survival in animals was 0.2 percent, and since no one would be
willing to let themselves be experimented upon, it didn’t matter how
good it was. She immediately explained the procedure to Mrs Adeoti who
let her know she had heard her husband describe it as the craziest thing
in the world.
My wife felt disappointed at the statement but felt
relief and excitement when Mrs. Adeoti showed her interest to carry on
with the procedure. It was the happiest day of my wife’s life and she
was sure set to make the greatest discovery of her time. The day for the
procedure was fixed and soon after it was conducted. There were several
complications and Mrs Adeoti was in coma for about 5 days, but
eventually came back to life better and as a mother in the making. She
made it!
My wife now had the chance to show that her procedure could
work effectively for humans. On the day she was supposed to make a
formal presentation and show the woman she used for her ‘experiment’,
the audience was amazed as Mrs Adeoti, the wife of Africa’s leading
professor of gynaecology came forward. Everyone was dumbfounded but
ecstatic at the discovery. And my wife finally got what she wanted, a
PhD and patent for the medical procedure that has now become globally
celebrated.
I was definitely proud of her too. As I write, Mrs Adeoti
has three boys and two girls while my wife servers as the senior
consultant to the World Health Organization.
It’s been about fifteen
years, and so many memories have faded away, but one that I will never
forget is the fifteen minutes I spent with Mrs Adeoti fifteen years ago.
She was of no use to me then, but now I know better that without her my
life and my wife’s would have been fifteen years away from where it is
now. And I have since learnt a great lesson never to despise anyone
because that person may just be my angel in disguise.