VOAA Ep 10_ Good Health

The speaker has been sick with a combination of typhoid and malaria. They initially thought it was a spiritual oppression, but realized it was a physical illness. They experienced indigestion, heartburn, bloating, headaches, sore throat, and fever. After a blood test, they were diagnosed with typhoid and started treatment. The speaker reflects on the importance of valuing good health and shares a childhood experience of falling into a gutter while sick. I have been sick, ah typhoid, the doctor says it is typhoid and malaria, a bit of malaria but more of typhoid, oh my throat hurts, my head, I feel like someone burrowed it, I don't know, I don't know what's happening, but I'm not myself, my chest is, my chest is like it's hurting since, since Thursday, oh no, Wednesday, since Wednesday last week I've been having indigestion every night, I was beginning to feel like it was a spiritual oppression, so usually I don't eat once it's 8pm, but I was really hungry, I went to my sister's place and I was really hungry and I decided okay let's go get some light meal and my light meal I went for cereal, so I had the cereal, I added some other, added some other things to it, just to like make it interesting, then I couldn't sleep at night, my whole chest was burning, my back was hurting, my stomach felt bloated, I had to go take a CVE with warm water, then I was able to get some sleep, Thursday same thing happened even though I did not eat late, I ate at past 7 at the latest, but I noticed I still had the same heartburn, backache, indigestion, bloating, on Friday the same thing happened and I'm like hello Shelly, what's the problem, it's just beginning to feel like it's a type of oppression, you know on Friday it wasn't very severe, so I said okay I can pull through, on Saturday I had to text my gym coach on Friday that oh I'm suffering indigestion for the past two days, so she should give me a detox, because usually when I get those I have to like detox my system so that all the unhealthy meals can flush out, so she took a while to respond to me, I think she sent me that detox on Sunday or it was a Monday sir, Monday after I dropped my kid at school when I saw her message and then I replied her, but on Saturday it was a bit better, in fact Saturday night to Sunday morning it was bad, it felt like I was now dreaming stupid dreams, I was like having nightmares, you know when you're not sleeping properly, my whole stomach was bloating, no that was on Saturday, it was Sunday night to Monday morning, because it was after we had heard the word in church, knowing your identity in Christ, that it was like you're not oppressing me, and I'm like no I know my identity in Christ, this is my identity, I'm the righteousness of God in Christ, yadda yadda yadda, all of that, then I woke up, it was like 11pm on Saturday, on Sunday night right, that was when that thing started, by the time it was 5am, because I had woken up, trailed into my devotion at 4, so I woke up, I was playing my local pastor, in my local church, I was playing the message, so I worship the CCI and on Sunday Apostle Aaron was in Ghana, so we had another pastor preach, so it was on the same topic, so I was now listening to Apostle Aaron's message of Sunday morning 4am, on that Monday morning 4am, so I was listening to Apostle Aaron's message, Aaron Iren, I don't know much, but you get the point, and then I was not myself, I didn't even go to take, because I don't have ACV at home, so I went to take lemon, yeah lemon in warm water, I drank it, but no relief, as soon as it was 5am, how did I know, because I said my devotion is 4 to 5, that I have to work from 5 to 6, so I have alarm that tells me oh it's 5, and it was about the same time my husband was leaving for work, and he told me oh babe, see you later, it felt like I was unconscious, but I knew that I was conscious, and immediately my alarm rang, the thing stopped, like it ceased immediately, and I was praying because I couldn't talk, I couldn't speak up, but I knew I was praying within me, I was listening to the message, trying to let the message sink into me, but as soon as it was 5, everything ceased, and I'm like no this is not ordinary, this is definitely not ordinary, it was then that Monday morning, after I dropped my kid to school, I went to the market to buy the details my coach gave me, it was cloves and ginger, just boil it together and drink, I did that, but ever since then, when I was going to bed on Monday night, I had to pray, serious prayer, telling myself I don't know what this is, but I come against this oppression, my identity is in Christ, and I'm not subject to your oppression, so whoever you are, whatever you are, that's coming to oppress me in my sleep, in the name of indigestion, I come against you in the name of Jesus, my prayer was that simple, and then I slept, and since then, I've been having baby sleeps, until, well it was Monday that my illness, my illness started with Cyphoid, and I was having this constant headache, and feeling some type of way, you know, funny, weak, I tried to pull through, I couldn't watch this all day, so from like 3pm, I just shut down, and then Tuesday, yesterday, it became worse, as I woke up a fever, I was shaking, I told my husband, I'm not getting myself, I don't know what's happening, my shoulders hurt, my head is banging, because Monday night, I was having a headache, and body pain, but I took paracetamol, before I went to bed, so I'm expecting that it would have relieved, but it didn't, so by the time I woke up on Tuesday, headaches, sore throat, like really painful, I could barely swallow, my whole body was feverish and everything, so I took my kids to school, I had to take a Uber, to take my child to school, then I went to the hospital, and the doctor was saying, oh it's malaria, we have to do, because I treated malaria last month, second week of last month, he was like, oh it could be resistant, so we have to do injection, and I'm like, you know what, let's do a test, just to be sure, that I'm treating malaria, I suspected I was pregnant, even though I had done like the test strip thing, but it came out negative, and then you know how all of this, I just read something on Instagram prior to, days before, I'd read something on Instagram, where a woman said she had her pregnancy scared, when she said, she did a test, it came out negative, but she still had whispers in her head, that, oh you know these things, it might be too early for, it might be too early for the test strip, to catch on, so we should do a blood test, so I told the doctor to do a blood test, that oh I want a blood test done, and he was like I told him it's not possible to treat malaria, and still be doing a PT, that I'm going to write a request, the other day, and I'm like, whatever, just give me a pregnancy test, I know my body, and this has gone beyond regular malaria, so there's got to be something in addition to this, so he did the FPC, and it came out typhoid, like yeah, I was really expecting to hear that, this is not just malaria, because malaria doesn't give me all of these sore throats and headaches still, it's got to be like an infection, so when the result came out, I was like, okay, okay, no problem, and I started on injection, so I shared all of that experience to say, we do not value our health, until it's been threatened, or let me rephrase, we do not value good health, until it's been threatened, I probably did not take the fact that, oh if I feel some kind of way, I can hydrate and sleep, and I'll be fine, I probably took that for granted, because I knew that, oh I've never had any sickness that really put me down, in a long time, the last time I had a sickness that put me down, was my first experience with typhoid, I was on SS1, and I was shivering, I was cold, I called my dad, he came, took me to the hospital, they said it was typhoid, they placed me on drip, as soon as I opened my eyes, I know I was sleeping for the longest time, because from school, of course, he took me with my school uniform, so he had to go, he called mom to come stay with me, as soon as I opened my eyes, my mom saw that, oh I was well, my mom doesn't like hospitals, just like I don't, my mom said that, oh the drip has finished, you're awake, oh yeah, let's go, let's go, and she carried me out of the hospital, you know St. Leo's Hospital, that long train, to ride up to the hospital, I want to talk about now, this was like years back, to ride directly up to the city, we were waiting to get a taxi, this was not a time where we could find Uber, you know, you had to like hail a cab, or a yellow and black taxi, and they told us we were going to negotiate a price, that time we could pay for like 500 Naira, to go from Twain to Oregon, because we lived at Oregon then, so before I knew it, I knew that my eyes were turning, I felt dizzy, and I knew this was all from, this was because of all of the drugs that I was giving, drip and everything, but I told myself, when I get home, I will sleep, before I knew what was happening, I felt unconscious, or I went unconscious, I was hearing screams and shouts, help me, help me, help me, and I felt like I was drowning, so the way I felt like I was drowning, this was me, in real life, I had fallen into the gutter, if you know St. Leo's, opposite St. Leo's, the gutters there are very wide, and now, the gutters are dry now, but then it was really wet, of course it was rainy season, it was wet, it was black, it was dirty, so I was drowning in that gutter water, I was gasping for breath, so I was, I was drinking in all of the gutter water, my school uniform then was a white skinny shirt, and a grey skirt, pleated grey skirt, so I wore my white shirt, it became black, my mum was screaming, calling people, you know, by the time they brought me out, the bike people had stopped, you know, tried to carry me out, I was looking like one of those ghosts from Scooby-Doo, if you know Scooby-Doo, I had all of those gutter heads on me, no coming out, you will not believe the first thing I looked out for, when they brought me out of the gutter, it was my D&G earring, my father gave to us, oh no, my mum bought for us, I don't remember, but it was D&G, that was my favourite earring, it was silver, the first thing I did was, my earring, I can't find my earring, and my mum shouted at me, so she carried her bag, carried my bag, with the help of some bike men, they carried us back into the hospital, the doctors, the nurses saw it, like, oh my god, my god, she said that to you, you cannot carry her inside, my mother was angry, I think she wanted to bat me in the bedroom, but one of the cleaners was now making tantrums, and saying something like, oh they just cleaned the place, she can't, my mother got obsessed, she just looked for buckets and bat me outside, I was black, I vomited, and that took me back into the hospital, they gave me drip, everything, everything to purge my system, I vomited, all my saliva was black, my vomit was black, for like two days, everything that came out of my body was black, and my mum was now really sad, but like, that was the, that was the first experience, and so far the only experience that I've had that's gotten me sick to the point where I had to be in the hospital, I've never been admitted since that time, okay well, if you count when I was put into bed, well, that's a different case, but I was not sick, so I've never been sick to the point where I have to get admitted in the hospital, never ever have been, so I said all of that again to come back to the fact that we need to appreciate good health, it's something we should wake up every morning and be thankful to God for, the ability to sleep and wake, the ability to move your hands, to blink your eyes, that your nose can smell, your mouth can taste, my mouth went black yesterday, I ate everything, yesterday being Tuesday, I ate everything, I made, I got up, I went to cook because well, my family must eat, my husband was at work, I had to pick my kid up from school, he needed to eat, I had to make porridge, I made jello fries that they don't take to day, my son don't take to work, my son don't take to school, I made moi moi, just like an alternative, something quick and easy to eat, so that my little puppy can have something for dinner when he comes back today, that exercise kind of helped me, you see, I felt a bit free, but then again, my body does not feel like mine, because for crying out loud, I'm sharing my body with some parasite, bacteria, eww, I'm sorry for all the days that I took my health for granted, dear God, I'm very sorry, because it's a very painful experience to not be able to do things for yourself, to feel so weak, I couldn't work, I couldn't even look at my laptop, I couldn't even read a book, I'm like, geez, I was just sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking, thank God for health, I'm really grateful to God for good health, and for every time I've taken it for granted, I'm sorry, there's a few things I want to share with you as we proceed, we'll talk about this next week, for now, take care of your health, please, for those of you that have insurance at work, health insurance is maximized, I'm not saying abuse it, I'm saying maximize it, thank God that I have health insurance at work, because when I was able to go to the hospital, I'm not paid for it, because my insurance covers it all, if you're one of the people who don't have, please take good care of yourself, because like someone said, everything in capital letters will move on if you stop today, nothing will stop because you're dead, nothing will stop because you're sick, everything that looks like, oh, if I'm not there, it will not function, it will function without you, never since I got the realization of that, I prioritize myself, if I have anything that makes me feel funny, I take a break and I rest, if it's serious and I need to call into the office, I send an email, otherwise I'm resting things, I guess that I was informally out of work, I didn't tell my LM, but I told some of my colleagues, just in case anything, text me, but take good care of your health, you only have one, just one, and to me now it's like, oh, ordinary typhoid and malaria, ordinary, it kills, it takes people's lives, malaria takes people's lives, and so does typhoid, so again, celebrate grace, where you are sick, but you can carry yourself to the hospital, a colleague was telling me when I told him yesterday, he called to check up on me and he was like, are you sure it's typhoid, because if it's typhoid, you'll never feel well, so the doctor said it's typhoid, and I know it's typhoid because I know how I'm feeling, but God also knows that I have only myself to lean on, my husband is not at home and I need to take care of my son, so God knows, so he strengthened me enough to be able to do the things that I have to do, so take good care of yourself, take care of your health. This will be the end of this podcast for today, for this week, I'll speak to you again soon. This is Voice of Nature.