Inside the intensive Care Unit of Wake Medical Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, seven thousand miles from her country home, Ebere Ukwu sleeps, eyes open; kept alive by the hospital’s life support machine.
Her fate is hanging between faith and modern medicine. Her life didn’t have to come to this painful circle. She was an ambitious dreamer that wanted to explore her young world and excel. The ICU room wasn’t supposed to be her final destination. But early spring of 2013, her exciting life of adventure suddenly collapsed during a visit to the Emergency Room for minor aches, pain and high body temperature.
Her charming life began at the completion of university education in 1991. After her Youth Service, Ebere got hired as a staff of the United Bank for Africa. Few years later,
she shifted her loyalty from UBA to other banks, finally settled at Unity Bank where she rose to become the branch manager of the Tin Can Island/Apapa branch.
Mr. Ezuma Ukwu, Ebere’s elder brother described her as a charming enthusiastic sister.
“She was a giver of everything to make life easy for her friends and family. Ebere’s soul was a pot of gold: she dipped into it and touched so many lives with her candour and kindness: a character embedded in her religion.”
Ms. Ebere’s admiration for all things American pop culture was manifested in her young lifestyle and swagger. Her desire and love of Yankee life moved her to apply for a visa to the United States. She was granted a two-year visa. She waited for the right time to make that visit. It came during the financial institutions’ meltdown in Nigeria. She resigned her position at the bank and relocated to the United States.
Ebere arrived USA during the cold winter month of January 2013 in pursuit of life, liberty, happiness and opportunities. She anchored her new residence at her sister in-law’s place in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta was not friendly to her dreams of relocation and quick employment privileges.
Ebere soon left Atlanta for Maryland, at the invitation of an extended family friend, to try few available menial jobs targeted towards new immigrants wishing to settle into a different social structure and culture. Ebere accepted an offer as a part time nanny. She was frustrated by the lack of appeal and job satisfaction. This wasn’t the job she expected from the land of dreams. Two weeks after her first job, she quit. Ebere is diabetic. During one of her daily chores as a nanny, she split her big right toe. The small gash was infected, thus, it resisted casual self medication. But Ebere kept nursing the minor wound.
Ebere reconnected with Tunde, her sister’s ex boyfriend who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She pleaded for Tunde’s assistance with employment and a new life direction. Tunde invited her to visit Raleigh and search for better employment opportunities she desired.
Ebere arrived Raleigh with severe temperature and fever. Two days after her arrival and still running high temperature, her host encouraged her to get immediate medical treatment at the ER of Wake Medical Center. She went to the hospital and was urgently admitted. Doctors initially suspected she had been infected with Poliomyelitis but X-ray revealed otherwise.
Ebere’s sad condition has energised some Nigerians in Raleigh, they have adopted her. These families and friends allege she was conscious and interactive when she was admitted to the hospital and before treatments were administered to her. The X-ray from the hospital indicated that poliomyelitis was negative.
However, the hospital allegedly began series of antibiotics treatment when she was admitted. She was relieved until a new medication was added. The new medication caused her severe reaction: affected her breathing pattern. She was scared of telling the hospital that the new medication was affecting her breathing: so she confided in Tunde. Tunde encouraged her to tell her care givers and request a change in medication. She courageously complained and her medication was changed.
Her unhealed right toe injury became a conc
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