Ebola Survivors’ Inspiring Stories of Recovery

Gboyega Akinsanmi Of This Day Newspaper captured moment-by-moment accounts of Ebola survivors in Nigeria during an interaction they had with journalists at the instance of the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola in his office at the weekend

It was a solemn moment. The idea was a simple one: To tell their stories after coming face-to-face with death as Ebola survivors in Nigeria. But for everyone who had come to listen to them, it was a day they cried so softly that no one hears.

It was Dr. Morris Ibeawuchi who started the conversation with her story. “I was the person that received Patrick Sawyer the day he was rushed to First Consultant Medical Centre.  It was like a joke. I did not know what came upon that day. Unlike me, I was so reluctant to attend to him.  But I was compelled by my colleagues to attend to him. When I got there, I was just talking to him. It was very unlike me. Being a doctor, you must examine your patient. After due examination, I asked him some questions. But Patrick Sawyer lied to me, even the ECOWAS Protocol Officer, who saw there, kept quiet,” he said.

He continued: “He asked him why he was in First Consultant. He lied to me that he was in a conference and felt so weak. As a result, people now rushed him to First Consultant not knowing that he collapsed at the airport. On that very day, the ECOWAS Protocol Officer was there and did not say anything. After sometime, I took his samples and sent it to the lab. I also informed Dr. Adadevoh (now of blessed memory).  I informed her. She told me to get back to her as soon as the result is out. When the result came out, everything was normal. But that night, the lever function test was not available.

“I told Dr. Adadevoh about MP result, and she was so confused and shivering because the man came in with a temperature of 39.7.  She said I should just admit him. We treated him. We commenced with the malaria treatment. The next morning, Dr. Adadevoh came around and we all went there. At that time, the liver function test was already out and the result was so terrible. That made us to be so concerned. After we went around, Dr. Adadevoh went for her daily clinic. It was at that point that one of the ECOWAS officers now came in and brought us information that Patrick Sawyer collapsed at the airport. After that, she asked whether I got the information.

“That was how the whole thing started. From there, we instituted barrier nursing technique. She tried as much as possible to get through to the Lagos State Ministry of Health. Again, I was asked to Sawyer’s sample.

“Since I had already had contact, I was the person that always took his samples. Before I went there, I took me hours. But I summoned courage to do my duties. So, I went there. When Sawyer was trying to explain, I asked to hold his peace and should not tell me anything. After that, I took samples and dropped it at the blood unit. The next day, Dr. Adadevoh was so busy.

“She was just going from one place to the other, working hand in hand with the Lagos State Ministry of Health. She called me later in the evening and told to be careful. She said she just got a call that the result of the test showed the feature of Ebola Virus Disease. She warned me to be careful and that Sawyer should be treated as the case of Ebola, not even the suspected case of Ebola. We placed him under surveillance.  But Sawyer died. But on the twelfth day, it was very terrible. My temperature has always been 36. But that same fateful day, I checked my temperature and it was 37.7. I felt the whole world was against me. I was down with fever and became so weak.

“I lost my appetite. At that moment, I needed some people to talk to. I left my house, and in that house, I have my brother, his wife and the two kids. When I developed the symptoms, I was so bothered about my family members. I had to put a call to Lagos State Ministry of Health. The ministry asked to make contact with my family and so on. At that time, I was still thinking it was malaria. I took anti-malaria drugs and nothing changed. The rate at which my temperature rose was screaming. At the first check, my temperature was 37.7. It rose to 38. The highest I measured was 41.

“The health ministry came and decontaminated the whole house. When I was at the isolation centre, the Lagos Ministry of Health attended to me. I was stooling and vomiting. I even became weaker. There was a night I thought my existence on this earth had ended. I was stooling and vomiting. At that point, Dr. David was the only doctor attending to us. He tried a lot to secure life. He had to rehydrate me. After that, they left me to my fate.

“That was around 9:00 p.m. How I made it that night was miraculous to me. I know the hand of God was upon my life. Dr. David came the next morning. As he was leaving the night before, I was gasping and found it difficult to breathe. At the time Dr. David came, I was already down. He was dumbfounded. After about few minutes, he forced to me that my condition was so bad that he did not know that I was going to make it. He thought he would meet my lifeless body at the isolation centre. But I am alive today to the glory of God.

“After some days, he took my samples for investigation. It was positive. He took another sample, and it was positive. He took third samples, it was negative. At that point again, the fever that had subsided began. I said God: is it Ebola again? He then told me that it might be malaria. He placed me on anti-malaria drugs. After sometime, the whole thing subsided. That is how I survived the virus.”

After his own account of how he was infected and survived Ebola, Dr. Adaora Igonoh took her turn to share with her audience what she called a story God’s goodness to her.

She said: “Today is a glorious day. It is a day of Joy. I want to say we are here today because of God. We survived. We are privileged to see this day. To be here with everybody, it is an honour. Thank you so much Governor Fashola. We cannot thank you for everything. We at First Consultants Medical Centre took a risk. We risked our lives because we knew that we wanted to ensure the safety of Lagosians, Nigerians and humanity and because we are in a global village.

“From a small village it can spread to the world and we knew the implications. But we said we would risk our lives and we would not let the index case leave the hospital. We remember the people that we lost, the wonderful people who risked their lives. We said we would never forget them. We cannot. Our lives have been changed, every one of us who went through this ordeal. We know we are better for it.

“Everything happens for a reason and we must find out the purpose and the reason we went through what happened to us. We want to say thank you very much to the Lagos State Government, the Lagos State Ministry of Health, the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). I was a full witness to the efforts to contain the virus. In fact, there was a time I asked for Chicken and Chips at the Isolation Centre, and it was brought.

“I was surprised. I asked because I wanted to see if they would honour my request and they brought Chicken and Chips to me. I was amazed. Thank you so much. It told me a lot. Thank you for coming to the houses to decontaminate, saving our families who were with us at the early part of the disease when we did not even know we were infected. We also hope that His Excellency will be able to visit our institution, thank you so much sir we are grateful.”

And for Mr. Dennis Echelonu, the husband of the late nurse, Justina Echelonu who died of the virus, it was an emotional moment, though he survived the virus.

He said: “I really want to appreciate everything you have done. My case was different. I was not among the doctors. My wife, Justina Echelonu Obioma happened to be one of the nurses that cared for the index case. She got contact with the index case. When she came back home, she told me. We did not know what was happening because she was having symptoms. She was two-month pregnant. She was feeling feverish.

“In fact, that was her first day on the job. It was my wife’s first day at work and her first patient was Patrick Sawyer. She just resumed that day. I encouraged her to go to work, but she was reluctant because of her condition, but I had to convince her to go and tell them in the hospital about her condition so that they can give her more time. She was pregnant and it was early pregnancy. So she was not feeling strong enough.  That was just the first day. When she came back, the following day she went to work again, then the next two days, she was off. We were just at home when the case of Sawyer was announced.

“She told me that she cared for him at the hospital. I asked her if she was sure about what she said, because we have been hearing about it. I asked her what kind of contact she had with him and she said she used protective gloves. Hearing that, I felt rest assured. In fact, she came to the house and was thanking God that she used gloves. She was just praying and then the fever persisted and did not go down. But because of the assurance that she gave me, I felt well, maybe the fever was pregnancy induced, but it did not stop.

“She had fever in the morning and night, and the highest temperature she got was 41. She called her gynecologist because she was being conscious of what she could take and what she would not take. 

On the 14th day after her contact she went down, she started bleeding and vomiting. I think if we had taken her out of the house earlier, maybe she could have made it. Even when I went to the house, she threw up. She requested for pap. I made it for her, and she threw up on me there. I understood what I was up against. But I felt well.  I was already 100 percent exposed. So, I continued to clean her up and made sure she was okay. There was no way I could run away from her.

“I had to get a taxi for her and made sure the taxi man did not have any contact with her. Sometime, the taxi man will attempt to help her into the car, I refused. The response at the Infectious Disease Hospital was okay. At that point, I was so careful. I believed God for her. I trusted God for her at a point. I think she gave up on herself, but at the point when I was taking care of her, my own symptoms started coming up. I just felt I could not afford to come down with illness, because there would be nobody to take care of her or myself. Even when I go to the hospital to see her, I would return home with fever, my temperature rose from 35.2 to 37.2, I was shocked.

“I was so dehydrated, I called my step mum who is a nurse, and she encouraged me to continue to take enough water, so I started taking lots of water until when she gave up. Two days after she died, the Lagos State Ministry of Health began to monitor me, call me regularly, to trace my contacts and to know my temperature and state of health. When the thing went out of hand, they said they would come and pick me, I agreed, but the next day, it became normal. They came back again to pick me, but I told them I was fine, I was confident of myself, I had faith in myself and knew that Ebola was not a death sentence, but seek early medical attention. I finally found myself as a suspected case and after being a suspected case for a while, I was praying continuous.

“I guess my prayer worked for me. People stood by us, it was not easy. I felt weakness in my waist, muscles and ankle. My being alive today,  even though I lost someone, God knows why and has a reason for everything I just want to bless God and everybody who stood by us. Dr. David especially who did a lot of work on Justina. 

At a point, Justina believed she would be fine, before she gave up she gave me confidence that she would pull through, but she had also told a friend she was going to die, at that point she gave up on herself. This is a call to fulfill purpose, God has given us a second chance to know what we are here to do, to fulfill purpose and touch other people’s lives. Nigeria has beaten the record of high mortality.”

Dr. Akinniyi Fadipe, another medical doctor working with the First Consultants Medical Centre described his experience, saying his faith in God brought him back to life.

“I am most happy here today because as matter of fact, when everyone was running helter-skelter, I told myself I only opened the door and by the virtue of that, nothing should happen to me, I never knew I was deceiving myself. Until the day I recorded my temperature and there was a kind of spike,” he said.

He continued: “I told myself what is going on. Once I have treated malaria a while ago and I told myself that it could be malaria. I used anti malaria drugs but nothing changed, rather it was getting worse.  Eventually, I went to a private hospital to treat myself because I did not want to admit it was Ebola. I felt they would be able to proffer solutions to all my problems but it wasn’t to be so.

“Rather, it was becoming terrible and I started stooling and vomiting.  I summoned the courage and called the doctors at the monitoring units that my temperature has been persistently high. They told me not to worry that they would come pick me up. In another four hours, they came with ambulances and before I knew it, I found myself at Yaba isolation centre. It all happened like a dream because I have read a lot about Ebola even while in schools, we had a lot of things on haemorrhagic virus.

“How it wreak direct havoc on human beings, bleeding and all that. You continue to bleed until you are dead. I was very devastated but I kept the faith. I remember Dr Adesina telling us when we got there that I would leave this place. That no matter what happens, I would leave this place. She said as it is, people survive the virus, and that I should not mind that I would survive the disease.

“So, I kept my faith and with the help of God. I am very grateful to Dr. David who was the initial doctor who attended to us before our doctors who were on strike finally emerged. Dr David really tried. He really tried. He committed himself totally to us and if I should have a time to meet him again, I think I will tell him he is a very brave man, leaving his comfort zone to come and treat us here in Nigeria. Knowing that with these people, after a couple of time, you could actually contract the disease. It is not easy.

“I thank God because with time, things got better. The vomiting stopped, the fever subsided and eventually, I was declared Ebola negative. I was very happy to reunite with my family and everything changed back to normal.”