Majekodunmi on her sick bed
Gbenro Adeoye
If Adebimpe Dipe, 28, could turn back the hands of time, she would rewrite history to make her mother well again. Adebimpe’s lonely battle to save the life of her mother, Abosede Majekodunmi, 53, a chronic kidney failure patient, has overwhelmed her with confusing emotions – fear, worry and sadness.
The two only have each other: Majekodunmi, a retired Director of Community Development with Ogun State government, is a single mother with Adebimpe being her only child.
Since early 2017, Majekodunmi has been having dialysis sessions but the cost is increasingly becoming too heavy for her child, friends and other family members to bear. Adebimpe is now desperate to raise the N20m estimated cost of kidney transplant to save her mother’s life.Adebimpe said, “It started around October last year (2016). She was complaining of stomachache and headache – the kind of a headache and stomach pain that didn’t seem to be normal. After a while, it was fatigue; she was always weak, she couldn’t climb the stairs or walk a short distance. She couldn’t drive or do most of the things she used to do.
“She went to a hospital in Ota (in Ogun State) and they kept telling her it was malaria and typhoid fever. But her condition did not improve. She was told that the typhoid fever might take time to go because she was elderly. I told her to use another hospital and there, she was told that her Packed Cell Volume was low and that she should be eating lots of vegetables. I was not pleased with that recommendation. How much vegetable can you eat to bring up your blood level if it was said to be at 14 per cent?
“But I was in Lagos while she was in Ota. Then she went for a church programme and was admitted at the church’s health centre for about five days. They gave her two pints of blood to boost her PCV and by the time she left there, her blood level had increased to 23 per cent. But the problem was that none of the hospitals ran any test to find out what was bringing her PCV down. That was the foundation of the issue.
“She felt okay but after one week, it relapsed. She came to my place in Lagos, and at that moment, I had just finished my master’s degree programme and just started working but had not been paid.
“On December 30, 2016, when she got her salary, we decided to go for a comprehensive test. She was working with the Ogun State Government and retired as the Director, Community Development. She retired in May, 2017. It was after comprehensive tests were carried out at a laboratory in Lagos that we found out about the kidney problem.”
Majekodunmi was referred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja for dialysis, but according to Adebimpe, all the health workers did at the public hospital was to measure her mother’s vital signs and direct them to a private hospital in Ikeja GRA because their dialysis machine was not functional.
“We took her to the private hospital and in all, we spent over N800,000 that week because by the second day, her blood pressure was low and she was already passing out. Her friends, her church members and a lot of distant family members showed love,” Adebimpe said.
Doctors at the hospital where Majekodunmi has been receiving treatment had advised her to have three dialysis sessions but the cost of that has been a burden too heavy for Adebimpe and her mother to bear, hence the need for financial support from the public to fund kidney transplant that will restore Majekodunmi’s health.
Adebimpe said, “Her dialysis costs N27,000 per session and she takes Epogen injection per session, which costs N11,000. Then there is a test she does after each session to be sure that everything is balanced. The post-dialysis test costs N2,000. That is N40,000 per session. Doing this three times a week makes it N120,000 per week and N480,000 a month.
“That is excluding the drugs. I spend about N20,000 on her drugs every month. That is N500,000 that is needed per month to keep her alive. And by the time she was admitted to the hospital the second time, all the people that were there for us before had returned to their lives.
“And I would never blame them. The country was in a recession and everybody had their own problems too. People had to pay their children’s school fees and so on. And this is not something an individual can take up. I tried to get NGOs to help out but nothing was forthcoming.
“Although, the ideal thing is for her to get dialysis three times a week to make her active but I thought, with my salary and if I could get some family members to support us, we could get her to have dialysis sessions once in a week or twice in three weeks to sustain her since she is retired from work.
“Initially, she could stay for three weeks without dialysis session but it got worse and if she didn’t have it at least once a week, she would start throwing up and purging. Then I realised it had gone past me. I have been struggling and striving since March all alone to keep her alive. If I don’t plan towards having a transplant as soon as possible, I don’t know what will happen.”
Adebimpe has been advised by doctors at the private hospital her mother is using to take her to India for kidney transplant.
She said, “It will cost us between N8m to N12m to get the transplant done in India. But that is just for the transplant, by the time we add other costs, it will run to N20m. Apart from the cost of the medical procedure, we have to consider the cost of travelling for three people – the patient, the caretaker and the donor.
“Then we should consider the cost of staying there for about three months because after the transplant, she will be required to stay there for about three months for close monitoring. And I understand that there are expensive drugs that she will have to take to ensure that her body does not reject the new organ. When you add all of this to the cost of feeding, it will run into N20m.
“I checked the cost of doing transplant in the United States which is about $200,000, so I realised that it is even better to go to India.
“It has been a traumatic experience for me. But it has also made me a very strong person because I cannot cry whenever I am with her. I have to be bold and keep all the pains inside. So the painful part is that I cannot express what I feel so that my mother won’t break down. When she is in pain, sometimes, she cries like a baby. I don’t want to lose my mother. She is a good mother, who has been there for me.
“There is a day I would never forget. We ordered a taxi on Uber to take us home from the hospital after my mother had a dialysis session. As the nurse was wheeling her out, the Uber driver arrived, saw her and reversed the vehicle immediately. He left and cancelled the appointment. I felt bad. I cannot even imagine how my mother would have felt.”
Donations should be sent to Zenith Bank, Adebimpe Dipe, 2003846522
