Tested with Fear; Wednesday 12th June 2024
By Hafitha Issa
“We will certainly test you with a touch of fear and famine and loss of property, life, and crops. Give good news to those who patiently endure”. Qur’an Chapter 2, Verse 155.
I don’t know why Allah started with fear, but a year back, I experienced what it means to be in a state of fear. I will chronologically tell this story with quite some detail.
On Wednesday, 12th June, I returned from the Library to my University residence, then joined colleagues for lunch. Shortly into my meal, afternoon drizzles broke the clouds forcing me to return to my residence. There, I checked my phone for messages and calls missed while at the library. Two calls came from my father, which I immediately returned. My mother answered in a sad voice, and a tone lower than usual. “Your dad suffered a heart attack. We are in hospital. He’s complaining of excruciating chest pain,”
My father had been supervising construction works for a field ahead of Eid Al’Adhuha prayers when the attack happened. He was rushed to a nearby military camp for first aid, where he was immediately referred to the Mbale Regional Referral Hospital. Upon arrival, my father, in his mid-60s couldn’t find immediate help.
Restless, he asked colleagues to take him to a pharmacy of a long-time acquittance where he got some medication to subsidize the pain as he sought proper treatment.
Disoriented, he decided to go home and rest. The first aid he had received seemed less helpful. My mother who welcomed him home called my little sister, a doctor, and explained his predicament.
As a professional, she must have sensed the intensity of the situation. After making a few calls, she advised them to immediately return to the hospital where a certain doctor waited. While there, the diagnosis revealed, my dad had blood clots interrupting the blood flow and hence oxygen circulation to the heart. The doctor prescribed medication, but still, not enough to significantly relieve the pain.
It was apparent my father needed lifesaving surgery. But the referral hospital in my district, which is over 240km from Kampala lacks the facilities to perform such a surgery. The old man had to be brought to Kampala.
Meanwhile, in my small residence at campus, I couldn’t find a suitable position to sit or stand. I must have oscillated between the bedroom and living room countless times. Performed salat and cried to Allah, Al-Waduud, Asshaafi’e.
The absence of an ambulance to immediately transfer my father invited more fear of the unknown. My sister and her husband organized for an ambulance coming from a district about 50kms away. It was the nearest we could get a well-equipped ambulance to transfer the kind of patient of my father. It took at least half an hour before the ambulance could pick him up and start on the longer journey to Kampala.
Still at my residence, my sister and I exchanged endless calls, and with our mother seeking updates about his condition. Each time, she maintained the response, “Your dad is in a lot of pain”.
With a quavering voice, I would end the talk with a prayer, trusting in Allah. We must have called her every 30 minutes. At some point, I wasn’t convinced the ambulance was moving fast enough. But I am no medic, so I consulted my sister. Knowing the itinerary, we agreed the ambulance could perhaps go a bit faster and we pursued that.
Back in Kampala, my sister with the help of her workmates made arrangements for immediate surgery once my father was bought in. Mulago National Referral Hospital was our pick, knowing that there are specialists and equipment to handle my father’s case.
Dear reader, this became another point of fear as the machines at Mulago had broken down. My sister went on a hunt for another hospital finally settling for Nakasero hospital. Need I say what it means going to a private hospital!
But all this, the patient and the carers were only to know upon arrival in Kampala. Back at my residence, every hiccup invited more fear.
Not to alarm family and friends, we had contained the news among a few people. But the need for comfort sent me calling the first person I knew could feel my plight from the sound of my voice, my cousin T. Bubi.
Still at work, preparing to close the day to return to her months’ old baby, she got her skates on to come see me. She offered me company until we moved to Nakasero Hospital where my father would be brought in that evening.
At around 8:30pm, the arrived. Tears pooled in my eyes, as we raced towards the parking lot. My mom sat in a co-driver’s seat, red eyes, sad face all tensed up. My dad’s friend and workmate disembarked as the medical team at Nakasero, and the paramedics in the ambulance helped take him out of the ambulance. He wore a calm face and looked strong but confessed being in a lot of pain. “My chest is heavily burdened. I feel like it might explode anytime,” said my father, a man I have never known to admit to being sick or pained with illness.
Listening, and seeing him on a stretcher and hospital bed for the first time in my life fetched more fear and pain. We followed as my dad was wheeled to the emergency room to be prepared to meet a team assembled to perform the heart surgery. Family surrounded him, I holding him arm and caressing his forehead praying to Allah to heal him.
More than an hour later, we were invited to meet him coming out of theatre into the ICU for further management. The excruciating pain was no more, he told us.
The surgery was a success, alhamdulillah. To this day, my father is recovering, alhamdulillah. Allah tested us with fear. The fear came from not knowing what may happen next especially negotiating through inefficiencies in the health system.
I had never paid close attention to this verse until Wednesday 12th June 2024. We thank Allah for the ease He provided, indeed, “Where there is difficulty, there is ease”.
Thank you to the physician in Mbale, the team at Nakasero, and Mulago where he returns for review, my siblings, family in its extension, friends of the family, and individual family members. And thank you my mam and my mam. Dad, you’re a blessed man.
The writer is a post graduate student at Makerere University
