Justina was my first cousin who lost her husband in her forties, i invited her to look after my kids while i travel for further studies.Her late husband died from lung infection that was not treated as she onjy took him to a prayer house for prayers, even as we gave her money to take him to a hospital.
I noticed that her eating habit was not what it should at her age,she loves fats a lots. A jar of margarine i bought for my kids, she finish in two days.when we bought beef, after trimming the fats off, she would cook and eat with my kids, off course animal fat is very tasty.
When i came back from my trip, she decided to stay back in town and start petty trading.meanwhile she stayed with her last child with me while the others were staying on their owns. I helped her get an apartment and she started trading in a caravan placed by the fence of my house.
My friends and i run an NGO that educate women on breast and cervical cancer, we move around market places, meeting houses, churches educating women and taking them to see doctors in case of problems. i often invite her to attend meetings with us, she was doing that. She started traveling without informing me especially when she started attending deeper life church. I would express my unhappiness at her trips without telling me, yet she never stopped. The last time i sawher,she visited me on a sunday, then took off again for the next three months, there was no contact. Even her two sisters had no information on her. I kept on calling them,til one called Justina´s son who informed her that her mother was vacating with her and wouldnt want to be disturbed.
I kept on urging the sister to pay the son a visit since both of them live in Abuja, she went visiting the son.She meet her semi conscious, that same day she moved her into a hospital and they were referred to a specialist hospital,she went into a coma and passed on within two days on been moved there of cervical cancer.
I reflected on the stories she told me about her late husband who had a lot of relationships with women, how she had contracted sexual infectionsthree times from the husband. This was treated in a pharmacy store without tests and no follow up tests after treatment by the usually untrained pharmacy attendant.i started thinking of HUMAN PAPILLÖMA VIRUS, this virus has been known to be the major cause of cervical cancer. It has been reported that more than 20 million Americans are carrying the active virus right now, just think of what the figure should be here in a developing country.Currently there is vaccine for HPV.
Am not saying that i could had saved her life,but she had listened to our NGO preached about early treatment. She knew where to go to for help, but would not open up to me when she noticed things like bleeding when not seeing period or bleeding after menopause, which is very bad and should be checked at once and then pains in lower stomach etc. This is the problem with a lot of people,they just believed that if you just ignore ill health, it would just go away. But things dose not work that way at all. We should always educate our husbands on the importance of safe sex practices.Prevention is better than cure. There are also some unsafe sex practices. MICHEAL DOUGLAS the famous Hollywood actor, had just been treated for throat cancer, people were shocked so to say, when he blamed HUMAN PAPILLOMA VIRUS for his throat cancer. His ex wife made it clear that he did not get the HPV from her. This means he has been using his mouth and tongue on some one´s genital organs....yak
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