Almost Lost My Dad.

This is a story most people don’t know about me. When I say about me it doesn’t mean the story is about me; I mean it did happen to someone very close to me(my dad) but it was not me. I remember all the details of this situation like it was yesterday.

If I can remember correctly I was in primary 5 or 6 I think and I can swear I was left wondering what caused it. What happened was that my brother and I came back from school and meet the absence of my dad; it was a regular thing cause he always worked late into the night and would come back home getting to 9 or 10 pm. We met our mom at home though.

We were at home when we saw the official car of my dad coming back home. I was surprised at first and as usual, we had to switch off the television and act like we were doing something productive before going out to meet him. The car was parked very close to the stir case which he doesn’t usually do, he was not the one driving too so I realised something had happened.

We waited for the driver to open the door and help him come out of the car. Mehn, he couldn’t stand on his two feet. He had to be held and as he walked at a snail's pace I was saddened. Anyone who knows my dad knows he doesn’t really fall sick and then this happened.

The driver said they had taken him to the hospital because he had complained of a few things, he added that before they went to the hospital he was not that weak but before they could leave and come home he was that way.

When they brought him in he was taken straight to the bedroom so he could rest. My little mind didn’t think about it that much. As usual, I thought he would be ok the following morning but as the days went by he got worse. He couldn’t go to work any more and he couldn’t even eat on his own.

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He couldn’t even take a bath on his own. Well, fast forward to my mom decided to take him to Accra for treatment. Since back where we stayed nothing could be done we had to take him to the city because as we all know the big city has better facilities to handle these types of cases.

We were left behind cause school was in session. My mom looked for someone to take care of us while they left for Accra to seek a solution. They thought the trip to Accra will last for maybe one or two weeks but boy they realised it was an overwhelming sickness. So they decided that we join them so that we could proceed to tamale. Tamale is where we come from but we were transferred to the volta region because of my dad's work.

So we joined them in Accra and the next day we set off by road. Because my dad was the sick one he had to take a flight to tamale. From tamale to Accra is a 12-hour journey on road and like 45 minutes in the air. So he couldn’t go through the hustle of a 12 hours trip to tamale.

This was where the real hustle started. Back in tamale we all had to contribute to helping and making sure he becomes better. Our mates were in school studying and that was not my concern. I was so worried for my dad cause it came to a time when he could barely recognise his children. He could hardly talk. He saw the doctor week in and week out but the situation kept getting worse. Each morning I got into a devastating state.

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As you know, people we knew tried to help him but it seemed nothing was gonna work. Each time I saw him I felt a sharp pain in my heart. I would be sincere that I had lost hope but then I still had to try and be strong.

Then months into his sickness we started seeing improvements. He could eat something and it was headway. He was fed by my mom mostly. She did everything as you will have it.

Fast forward, the recovery was something else too. When he started getting better it was like he was born yesterday. He had to learn how to walk again. He literally had to learn how to do most of the things he could do when he was healthy. He did learn how to walk but then it was very difficult for him.

But he did and now he is all better. If am not wrong he was sick for almost a year. More than 8 months of lying on a sick bed without y being able to do anything. In that one year we were not in school(my brother and I), but it was only fortunate that he got better before the school year ended. When we got back to school we had to catch up and we did work our day there.

I don’t wish what had happened to my dad to happen to anyone. Now he is better and boy am I glad, I wish nothing of sort will ever happen again.

This is an entry to Galen’s weekend engagement prompt. You can read about it here and also choose any topic to write on if you like it.

Thanks for reading.