Immediately I returned from school, I was feeling feverish and I lay down, covering myself with a cloth.
My parents returned from the farm to see me shivering from an excessive internal cold. My body was radiating heat in abnormal magnitude.
My father placed his hands on me to feel my body temperature. He shouted on top of his voice. "What's this?" He was scared. He told me to get up immediately.
I struggled to get myself to a sitting position. He immediately supported me while we walked to a small clinic close to our house. The clinic was manned by an experienced Nurse who was approaching his retirement at that time. She was popularly known in the area as Mummy Nurse.
On arrival at the Mummy Nurse clinic, I was asked to take my seat. She opened my eyelids, felt my body temperature and ran a few more tests before she concluded that I had a fever. She told my dad that treatment should commence immediately.
"Did he eat recently?" She turned to my dad to ask while my dad turned to me to get my reply.
"No ma," I replied.
My dad sent my brother to bring food for me to eat before starting the treatment.
While we were waiting for the food, Mummy Nurse was busy at her table mixing some drugs together with a syringe and needle lying on her table. It became obvious that my skin would be pierced that evening. I wasn't shaken because I detest oral administration of drugs. I prefer injections. The pain is just within a split of second when the needle finds its way through the skin. Most children of my age hated injections but I was different.
The ordered food came and I battled with a lack of appetite to take about three spoons from the fried rice, a food that ordinarily was my favorite. I was looking at the chicken on the food as if it were poison. I was compelled to take a few more spoons before I was ordered by Mummy Nurse to lower my knicker for the injection to be administered.
I looked the other way as I felt the sharp pain on my right buttocks in less than a second. The spot was rubbed with a damp cotton wool after which I drew my knicker to my waist.
My father held my hand for the few meters trek to our apartment. We barely changed position from the clinic when I felt a muscle pull in my right leg and I fell down unexpectedly.
My father pulled me up while he asked me what the problem was. All my efforts to return to my feet proved abortive. I lost control of my right leg. He carried me home.
Mummy Nurse was notified of the development and she came to massage the spot with ice block with the assurance that I would get well before the following day.
The following morning, my right leg was still paralyzed. My parents became apprehensive. Mummy Nurse came around to see how she could make me stand on my feet all to no avail.
My father took me to a bigger hospital for proper examination. The Nurse was crying and wailing as she followed us to the hospital.
"I have been doing this for about three decades. God, please don't let me down at this time of my career." She looked up to pray to God in teary eyes and shaking voice.
Some treatments were started immediately but my father was advised to get me crutches in the interim. That was how I became a boy in crutches. My mother would wake up in the morning to cry and pray to God to help me get back to my feet. Mummy Nurse would come and stand by my bedside to pray and offer me encouragement.
Anyday that we had an appointment with the hospital, my father would carry me on his shoulder between the last bus stop and the hospital.
On a particular day that he carried me in such a manner, we were accosted by some traditional religion worshippers who were into procession round the town. During such a procession, it is forbidden to come across someone carrying another person on his shoulder. Anyone caught whether resident or visitor would be made to pay some fines to appease the gods. Because of this, my father was asked to buy some materials to appease the gods for violating their rules.
My father pleaded with them for hours without acceptance of the plea. When I saw how frustrated my father was, I started crying. It was my crying that melted their hearts and they allowed my father to take me to the hospital for my treatment. We were pardoned.
I took the treatment and used crutches for six months before I started walking gradually with my feet unaided. I nearly lost my leg.
This experience created a phobia of injection in me. I had the challenge when I was 7 years old. About three decades later, I haven't been able to overcome the fear of seeing an injection needle. I prefer swallowing loads of drugs to allowing a needle to pierce my skin when sick.
I changed from a boy that preferred injection to the one that ran away from the sight of a syringe and needle.