Children are vulnerable: how my mother saved my life

That morning, my mother had asked me to go downstairs and wait for her while she put a scarf on her head. Holding the railing and the wall, I walked the two flights of stairs to the ground floor of our family’s home in Onitsha, Nigeria. My strength was failing, and my legs could barely hold me by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs.

To my left, off the ground-floor gallery, was a storage room. I walked in and collapsed on the floor. Darkness surrounded me. All I needed was a quiet resting place to lay my head. I was too young to understand what could happen. No strength to stand up and wait for the Mother as instructed.

“Where are you where are you?” I heard my mother’s voice screaming. Her voice was the kind you find in people who are about to suffer a tremendous loss. If she could, she would have answered. Even today the echoes of her voice sound in my memory. All children are likely to jump up and respond when their mother calls with that voice. My deep apologies. Mother, because I had no breath left to utter a word, no muscles to get up from the ground.

Mother had started looking for me frantically. She found me lying on the floor when she opened the door to the storage room. She must have assumed that I had died. “Wake up,” I heard her say, and she took me into her arms.

I drew my strength and walked out of the meeting room with her holding close to her waist. She put my body in a vehicle and took me to the Borromeo hospital in Onitsha. I was too young and too sick to remember how we got there.

Behind one of the wooden counters was a nurse. I could tell by the way she dressed and the way she talked. On her head was a triangular or square cap fastened with pins. The color was white or blue. I am trying to collect; it’s hard to remember every little detail after fifty years. I know the nurses reminded me of the injections.

Mom talked for several seconds with the nurse, then invited me to sit on a wooden bench. Life kept returning to my body, opening my eyes a little more. It was a quiet, well-lit room. Giant wooden cabinets containing brown charts leaned against two of the walls. There were one or two kids my age who were on the bench. They didn’t seem as sick as I felt. Of all the dangers I faced, the one I feared the most was injections. The smells of alcohol swabs and cotton balls were unmistakable.

My mother sat down next to me again. She with the back of her hand touched my forehead and started to sob, but then she regained her composure. “Son,” she said, “you’ll get better soon.” I nodded.

Next, we were in the doctor’s consulting room. A nice man is what I remember of him, perhaps in his middle age. He wore an immaculate white coat. For some reason, he acted fast. Was she that sick, I wondered. He quickly exchanged information with Mother and quickly wrote something in my file.

My suspicion had come true. A few minutes later, the nurse with the triangular cloth pinned to her head ushered me into an injection room. “Come hug me,” said the mother. She would have run but she didn’t have the strength to do so. As my mother hugged me tightly, the nurse pulled down the right side of my panties and gave me an injection in my buttock.

Whatever was tormenting me disappeared after the shot. We brought home some bitter medicine. It was around 10 in the morning when we left the Borromeo hospital. Along the way, close to home, Mom stopped and bought me some akra (round balls of fried beans) and akamu (Ground corn). I ate and felt better.

Looking back on the incident now, it scares me to realize how helpless children are and how mothers, fathers and caregivers must make life and death decisions for them on a daily basis.