Philip Atawura, an assistant lecturer at the University of Media, Arts, and Communication (UniMAC-GIJ), has recounted his near-death experience in his battle against kidney failure.
Sharing his ordeal with Etsey Atisu, the host of The Lowdown, on GhanaWeb TV, Atawura recounted a scary encounter in which he believed it would be his last moment on Earth before departing for the afterlife.
According to him, one of his hospital visits for dialysis resulted in his admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He mentioned that during the dialysis, he began to see the white fluorescent bulbs as multicolored.
When his family and the donor surrounding him at the hospital checked on his perception of the lights, it confirmed to him that he was seeing things differently. His situation worsened when he went unconscious after feeling dizzy.
“One day I went for dialysis, and about 30 minutes to the end of the procedure, I wasn’t seeing the lights as I should see them. The color of the fluorescent bulbs had changed from white to multicolored. So, I asked the donor, who at the time was present with my fiancée and a couple who had joined us from Ghana, whether they also saw the changes in the light, and none of them said they saw any changes.
“I began to feel dizzy and I told them to take me off the machine. I was taken off, went to check my weight and everything, but when we left and got into a cab, I was still feeling dizzy so much that I told them I didn’t want to go home because I didn’t know what the outcome would be, so they should return me,” he narrated.
The doctors diagnosed that his blood pressure had abnormally spiked. However, being the fighter that he is, Atawura stated that he steadily recovered, waking up to find himself in the ICU.
“Before they even got to the emergency side, I had already gone off. I could hear voices but I couldn't see the people because the whole place was dark for me. According to those around, they had to run some tests and do some MRIs because part of my body was not responding to stimulus, and because of that, they took me to ICU because my BP had gone to about 270 and didn’t want to drop, so they anticipated it was going to have an effect on my brain. I recovered and began to see around 2 a.m. to realize I was at the ICU.”
His survival has become an inspiration to others who are equally battling kidney diseases in the country.
Watch the video below:
MAG/OGB