I was in Makkah on the third of December last year for Umrah and to seek healthcare. And perhaps to run and rest from a political endeavour I willingly jumped into with both feet, even though wide-eyed.
By February 10th I was through and was planning to return to Nigeria on the 20th of the month. My intention was to start the Ramadhan that commenced on the 18th there. I informed the airline, which rescheduled my return ticket accordingly.
Man, always proposes. And you must as long as you are alive. But like it or not, it is God that always disposes. That is His prerogative.
On the night of Thursday, the 13th – incidentally, a day I was also born – I woke up at about 12 am gasping for breath. I used a nebuliser, and it subsided. I went back to sleep. Then at 2 am, it recurred. This time around, the nebuliser did not work. Symbicot, Spiriva – all didn’t. I told my family, my wife, Doctor Aminat Zakari, Fanta Baba Adam and my son, Abubakar Sadik, that we should go to the hospital.
We were staying on the fourth floor of an apartment in the Shahra Mansur area of Makkah, but the lift stops at the first. I was not able to move down the staircase when we reached the floor. And I was seriously gasping for air. I heard Fanta tell Sadik, “Just pick him and let’s get down.” And this boy actually carried me up with one hand, using the other to hold the rails for guidance.
Strong boy! I wondered where he got his strength from. From our father’s side, we were ulama and farmers. Perhaps from his mother’s side? She, her father, sister and siblings were big-boned. One of her senior brothers was even nicknamed Giant. And her father, at one time, was the Emir of Fika’s Head of Guards.
Well, that’s by the way.
He brought me out of the block and I heard him calling for an ambulance. Within five minutes the Medical Emergency Team, Red Crescent, was with us. An impressive aspect was that the team was tracking our position through my son’s phone and asking him what I would require.
What happened was that my lungs had collapsed due to infections by germs and opportunistic parasites. But I have been having lung issues even before I left Nigeria. It made it difficult for me to walk for any appreciable distance. Or climb stairs. Doctors here in Nigeria look at you superficially in the name of diagnosis, prescribing what may not be the solution.
Over there, the ambulance came at a time when my lungs, as I said, had collapsed. Without functional lungs, you cannot breathe. Simple as that.
The Red Crescent ambulances are mini-hospitals in their own right. Where you see windows in ours, that one can peep in or out, theirs are all constructed to accommodate medical gadgets for almost all kinds of unforeseen and envisaged emergencies.
When they arrived, of course, I could not move. I was forcefully pulling in the little air I could into my compromised lungs. Grunting, chest heaving like a ram being slaughtered. They talked to me like humans to a human, calling me “Habibi”.
Habibi is an Arabic word meaning “my love,” “my dear,” or “my darling”. The Arabs, great people in the art of love, use it as a term of endearment for friends, family, or significant others. It is masculine. The feminine form is “habibti”, meaning “my beloved”. It is derived from the Arabic root ḥubb (love or affection).
These medics, two of them, carried me to the ambulance when they realised I could not help myself. Inside the ambulance I immediately began to function. They connected me to an oxygen machine.
What their Emergency Team does is always to rush the patient to the relevant hospital closest to where they picked him. And that was what they did. Al Shifa in the Shahra Mansur area of Makkah was where they took me to.
Now, I had never heard of them. I was enamoured by hospitals with names like Saudi-German, Abeer and others. But because Allah (SWT) is He who knows, He made them take me to Al Shifa, which I now realise is one of the best hospitals in Makkah, with a staff so dedicated and in love with what they do. The nurses, whom I will talk about subsequently, in sha Allah, are professionals and know their job.
There, they put me on a mechanical ventilator, or life-support machine, to resuscitate my lungs. It worked. A life-support machine does for you what your lungs cannot do for you. And that was how it was till March 3.
The lungs picked up. The doctors – Doctors Tema, Nazeeh, Imdad, Hassan and Ahmed Alsaid – all great guys whose humanity is beyond the medical profession – were happy, even ecstatic. They had just saved a life! I will talk about them by and by, in sha Allah.
Then, a twist! They tried weaning me off the life-support machine three times. It failed three times. My lungs still could not take breathing through the nose. And they feared going for the fourth time. Next option? Tracheostomy.
A tracheostomy is a surgically created opening in the neck leading into the trachea (windpipe) to establish a secure airway, clear airway obstruction, or for managing secretions. A tube is inserted into this opening to facilitate breathing, bypassing the mouth and nose. And so, that was how it ended.
All this, as I said, was because of lung infection. Saudi-German Hospital had prescribed an antibiotic for me that I used for about three days before I was hit on the 13th.
Whereas Saudi-German had prescribed Augmentin, a commonly prescribed, broad-spectrum antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections like sinusitis, pneumonia, ear infections, bronchitis, for me, at Ash Shifa, the doctors used the following very strong and expensive antibiotics on me: Levofloxacin, a potent, broad-spectrum antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections like pneumonia, bronchitis; Cefforen, an antibiotic used to treat various bacterial infections in adults and adolescents, including chronic bronchitis and pneumonia; Meropin, a higher-end antibiotic and Tazocin, an antibiotic used to treat serious bacterial infections.
Other antibiotics they used on me were Cefepime, a powerful fourth-generation antibiotic used to treat severe bacterial infections, including pneumonia; Metronidazole, a powerful antibiotic antiprotozoal used to treat a wide range of infections caused by anaerobic bacteria and parasites; and Amikacin, a potent antibiotic used to treat severe, multi-drug-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections (e.g., Pseudomonas, E. coli) in the blood, lungs, bones and joints. It is administered via intravenous (IV) or intramuscular (IM) injection, usually for 7–10 days, and requires monitoring due to risks of kidney damage (nephrotoxicity) and hearing loss (ototoxicity).
Incidentally, my kidneys developed a problem, but they were taken care of before any further damage was done.
Despite all these drugs, three “stubborn” germs, including E. coli, the doctors told me, refused to die. And they told my family, while I was intubated, and confessed to me when I came back to life, that they had given up on me.
“Any other person,” they told me, “Would have died.”
It was then they used a new drug made by Pfizer, in America, Zavicefta (ceftazidime/avibactam). It is hardly used in hospitals. The drug is a combination antibiotic designed to treat serious bacterial infections, including hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP). Approved for treating adults with complicated intra-abdominal infections, complicated urinary tract infections, and hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP), including ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), it is specifically designed to treat infections caused by aerobic Gram-negative organisms, which are often resistant to other antibiotics.
Because of its potency and high value (it costs about ₦2,500,000 while the others were about ₦1,000,000 up), hospitals in Saudi were not allowed to keep it. They had to apply to the Ministry of Health, which would then supply them. It was their last option.
And since they had given up on me, they said: ‘Let’s use it; if it works, fine, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’ I was about the first person the drug was used on there. They used it for ten days and that was how I turned back from the gate of the other world.
Till I left the hospital, all the doctors and nurses were calling me “Gimba the fighter.” They would come and say, “You are a fighter”, “You are a strong man,” “Warrior”, “You are a hero.”
Some of them went as far as googling my name, where they saw my pictures and write-ups and started following me on Facebook and Instagram.
I became a mini-celebrity there. One of the doctors, Dr Imdad, a Pakistani, would always come around to soothe me. “Allah brought you back because of the good things you are doing to your people, we see all the things,” he would say.
But I have to thank Allah (SWT) who lent me more time, the duration of which I do not know, from His limitless time that only He knows. He and His beloved Prophet, Muhammad Mustapha (PBUH), and his pure progeny were always in my mind.
But my being a “fighter”, “strong man”, “warrior” or “hero” all came as a result of imagining and drawing strength from the faces of two great Yobeans, who have fought and are fighting for the people and to put Nigeria aright the way they see it. I drew my strength from them, and you will see why in the next edition, in sha Allah.
Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and CEO of Neptune Prime.
