The Tumour Baby

Mama had always warned me against losing my virginity. How I should remain chaste and avoid the flirtatious gazes from the boys in our streets, not just the boys, she had also warned me against getting too close to Uncle Uchenna, Papa’s elder brother, she spoke about the time she saw him bite his lower lip each time I walked in to the living room to greet him. Ever since Papa died, his brother Uche has always taken it as his responsibility to move properties from our house, and since my mother never birthed any child aside from me, Uncle Uchenna has reminded her how women had no say in their community, and his brother’s property is automatically his.

“Uncle Uchenna is a very lustful he-goat,” Mama said one day as she peeled my ear as she had her thumb and her index finger stapled to my left ear. I was thirteen at that time, and I had no clue what the word ‘Lustful’ is, but if Mama frowned at it, so would I.

“Yes, Mama, he's a lust..fool,” I said carefully in my pronunciation.

“You must avoid him,” she warned.

“In fact, you must no longer be seen around him. These dresses you wear that hug your body tighter than Christ hugs your soul, you must burn them,” she said, as she pointed at the clothes I hung on the rope.

“My clothes are there for you to wear; make sure I don’t see you wearing anything else other than the clothes in my wardrobe.” She said as she finally let go of my ears.

Mama has been my deepest confident, she too drew closer to me when we lost Papa to an illness the Prophet in Mama’s church identified it as an attack from their enemies, she was steadfast and very prayerful concerning her husband’s health, despite not having any exposure or being literate as she ought to, she made sure to strengthen her relationship with God and every problem was taken to him in prayers.

Perhaps God did not hear Mama’s prayers that night I woke up to her loud cry. Papa’s head was cradled on her lap, her hands held him firmly as her eyes filled with tears, shut tightly in prayers, her nostrils streaming with catarrh and her lip letting out the question no one would dare answer.

“God, whyyyy!”

 She spoke less after that night. I was too scared to console her. I was just an infant; I needed an explanation as to why Papa was put in a box and covered with soil deep into the ground, or why Mama’s head reflected the rays of the sun and why she was dressed in black. Mama never told me why we visited Papa’s new home in the soil, and why she spoke and he never responded. But everything made sense as I grew older, older enough to know Mama is a widow and old enough to find blood dripping down my thighs in between my legs.

Mama was not literate enough, but she made sure my education and well-being didn’t suffer.

“You are now a woman, if a man touches you, you will get pregnant,” Mama warned.

Pregnancy scared me. I knew I would never go to the University if I got pregnant, so I did not need Mama to warn me twice, I fled away from men myself.

Men in all shapes and forms scared me, the simplest,

“My colour,” made me mutter ‘Blood of Jesus’ as many times as possible until I felt clean.

The day one grabbed me by my wrist, I could remember screaming at the top of my lungs for him to leave me alone, which he did and had a bewildered look on his face and wondered how a girl my age would act like a mad woman. That was his mystery to resolve; my screams were in fear that he had touched me and now I would be pregnant. The only way I could confirm was if my period never came, so there I was, worried sick and joined Mama in prayers for my period to come.

Mama was happy I prayed with her, because that was the only thing I never did, but I prayed ceaselessly for a different cause, and the night my prayers were answered was the same night my problems began.

At first, my period came with mild cramps, ones I could easily manage without anyone knowing, but that night it felt different, pains beyond my tolerance level were being exerted on me, I managed to sleep and woke up the next morning to a pool made of my own blood, and I was drowning in it.

“Mama!” I called for my mother in my loudest cry; I was sure I had woken up my neighbours, but I did not care.

Mama came as soon as she could. Surprisingly, she wasn’t scared, and that made me feel a bit relieved, because Mama would take care of me, Mama always took care of me. She took me to the bathroom and washed me all up. She gave me an even thicker cotton wool to use as a pad and said I should change the moment I felt soaked. But I felt soaked every now and then. My previous period would allow me to change just twice a day, but this time, I could barely leave the house without the fear of being stained, urging me to run back home.

The heavy bleeding were accompanied with severe gut-wrenching pain, pain that Mama’s local remedy could no longer salvage, one time Mama witnessed me in crisis, I was moving Mama’s crate of eggs to her store and when the pain struck, I fell to the ground instantly, the world shrunk in my eyes, Mama’s voice loomed in the background, the environment felt like an experience in a deep-freezer, like I was floating on the sea, I wished I had experienced it for long because I could no longer feel pain, but my wish was short-lived as I had woken up to an aching pain on my head, I fell really hard and I hurt my head in the process.

She had a look on her face, I haven’t seen that look since Papa died, that sorry look of a defeated Anambra woman who just lost hope. Mama wore it like a mask, like all her fears had come true. Her eyes met mine and she immediately wiped the tears on her eyes and took in more of the hospital's air, and asked if I was fine, she told me to wait for her to get the doctor.

The doctor examined me, that was the first time I had seen a stethoscope in real life and not in the pages of my Macmillan, that was also the first time I had laid on a hospital bed and had needle pierced in my wrist that drew liquid from a bag that hung above my head by my bedside, and that was second time I had seen Mama look defeated.

“Mama, if it's about the eggs, I knew they broke when I fell, I promise to make up for them,” I assured her.

She let a false smile linger on her lips and nodded for me not to worry about them, hinting that there was a bigger problem to worry about.

I looked at the doctor, and he knew my eyes asked if I was about to die. He let out a playful laugh, one that eased the atmosphere. His laugh eased me as the tension I felt that arose from my legs stopped halfway in my stomach, and slowly went down.

“You would have to focus more on yourself and not the eggs.” The Doctor said as he fixed his glasses and looked through his books.

“You have Uterine Fibroid.”

I did not receive any warning when that news hit me, Mama squeezed my hands tighter as she kept nodding with that false smile to everything she heard the Doctor say, I only heard echoes, like the walls in the ward I was in had zoomed out and no one was there except me, the tension that had dropped came rising again, this time faster as I could hear my heart pound from my chest.

That night we got home, the distance between Mama and I had closed in, but the one between me and her had only begun growing apart.

I worried that the fibroid came because that man had held my wrist. I wondered if it was deadly, and the fear of leaving this world grew stronger than the fear of living with the painful symptoms this fibroid came with.

My strength failed me as I found myself weeping. Mama used her handkerchief to wipe tears from my eyes and patted me on my back to console me.

“Mama, will I die?” I asked in a tearful voice, looking at her, all lost and eager for answers.

“God forbid! My God will not allow you to die. We will resume prayers, and everything will be fine.” Mama said.

But I knew her God had allowed Papa to die, and I wasn’t just going to sit around and wait for my turn to come; I shoved matters into my hands and decided to live life through a lens of timely grace.

The next morning, while heading out to the cyber café to check if the University of Lagos had given me admission to study Nursing, Mama had warned me not to tell anyone I had a fibroid, so people won’t run away from me, especially men. Despite advising me to be chaste all this time, Mama suddenly feels a 19-year-old is mature enough for a husband.

When I got to the cybercafé, I checked if I had been admitted, but my portal still read, ‘Admission in progress’. The café attendant congratulated me and told me to check back next week, that I will receive good news concerning my admission. His optimistic nature was contagious, so everyday I looked forward to the Tuesday of the coming week to receive the good news.

Mama, on the other hand, had something deeper in store for me. She asked me to get dressed and made sure to put my thick afro hair in a scarf. We were going to church. But church on a Friday was too odd, even for her. She insisted it was the answer to our prayers, but I don’t remember praying for anything aside from my admission.

We got to church, but it wasn’t the one we went to every Sunday. This one looked disoriented, chairs scattered all over, because the members kept knocking them down as they fell under the influence of the minister's anointed hand.

I looked at Mama but she was too fixated on the man in the altar, praying that he would miraculously single out my issue and deliver me.

But he never did, rather he went around laying his hands on everyone. Mama was too obsessed with religion that she forced herself to the ground even before his hand landed on her head.

After the service we joined the bandwagon of people who wanted to see ‘Daddy’, Mama was the one who called him that, when she narrated my plight to him, he had told her I was engaged to a spiritual husband and his sperm had impregnated me in the spiritual world, that is why the tumour baby is growing in me, he never called it fibroid, he never saw it as a medical condition that needed medical attention, rather another means for him to make money, and instill religious fear into our hearts.

He advised Mama that I was to be left in church to pray and fast for seven days and seven nights, and the only thing I would say was, “O Lord, Deliver me!” He promised Mama that my healing was inevitable, and how people with far worse conditions received their healing, he made reference to a member with ‘in-grown wickedness’, how she got her healing after the prayers, mind you, in-grown wickedness was what he renamed cancer as. Mama had heard of the testimony, and that was the reason she brought me here.

Right after the session, I had seen Mama hand him a fat envelope of cash. She appreciated him and asked me to stay back, without anything but a stern warning to pray.

That night I had begun my prayers in a small room that housed nothing but a bed and a light bulb that lit it up. Then he walked in and told me he would make my case easier, and he would make God answer my prayers. He pulled down his trousers and told me to lie flat on the bed with my legs spread apart. I don’t know if a spell was cast upon me, but there was a controlling voice that made me obey without any resistance.

The church was his house as the house was his church, for seven nights, he made his way with me, and I only felt weaker and dirtier after each night. I had no will of my own.

On the seventh night after he was done, he used his hands to squeeze my chin, and gave me a spine-chilling glare that imprisoned my will, as I looked into his eyes, they burned as hot as flame.

Something in me died that night. I had lost every courage to report him to Mama, ‘what exactly would she do?’, I thought to myself.

The next day, Mama came for me. When I saw her, the tiny thread that held us together was cut loose. I wanted nothing to do with her at that point. I felt too dirty to speak, too scared to look above the ground. For the rest of the month, I had spent my time hidden deep inside the darkness of my room, sobbing each night and hoping my next period was less painful. My next period came, and it was far from mild. I went to the chemist and told him to give me something to help soothe my cramps, as they only grew worse and unbearable. He gave it to me and had told me to take one of it every morning, but I took two, because one did nothing for me. Five days into my period, I would always visit him to buy more. My period lasted longer than usual, and this time it came with blood clots the size of my fist.

After weeks of sulking, I went back to the cyber café to check on my admission progress. The only good thing that had happened to me in a while, I was admitted to study Nursing. Mama was happy to see me happy, but sad to see me go, and had reminded me of how God has delivered me from the tumour baby, and how I should draw closer to him as the devil roamed freely in the University, Mama who had never been to a University knew how and where the devil operated, but she couldn’t see the devil in the eyes of the minister that defiled me, who would tell Mama that the fibroid was still there, but my body was growing to fight the pain?

I bid Mama farewell, as I sat comfortably in the bus at the park that would take me Lagos, she didn’t go with me, I insisted she let me figure things out on my own, and for her to finally leave me alone, I promised her to be close to God and always call her with the new android phone she had got me.

The University of Lagos was one experience I wished I had sooner, not to get far away from Mama or all the sorry experiences I had faced in Nnewi, but to get closer to the knowledge of what the tumour baby was all about and how it can be cured. In my years in uni, I had grown acquainted to the educational aspect of Nursing and not the practical one, I noticed I did not have the liver to witness blood, but my brain had sharpened and I was bright enough to accommodate numerous books on health issues women faced, from PCOS, to Endometriosis, to Cervical Cancer, fibroid and a lot of health issues many women suffered and were unaware of.

I had found out that the man who grabbed my wrist when I was younger wasn’t the one who gave me fibroid, rather it was Mama’s genes, as she genetically passed down the tumour baby to me, that was also the reason I was the only child Mama ever gave birth to, and why she had so much cotton pad in her possession and why she wasn’t too scared when the news broke, and why she had warned me to never tell anyone of my condition, as she feared no man would want me. All these were confirmed when I paid for Mama’s abdominal scan; not one, not two, but multiple fibroids were found in her uterus.

Mama had done the opposite of what she ought to do; unlike Mama, I did not keep quiet and hide the tumour baby from my husband, whom I met at one of the conferences I was invited as a guest speaker, when he was still a resident Doctor.

My numerous articles on women’s health had garnered me recognition, from page to podium, I would talk tirelessly on how women should focus more their health, and how the societal stigma attached to certain problems women face are only there to keep women suffering in silence.

The pregnancy bump I had gave women suffering from fibroids all the encouragement they needed to get their own fibroids removed and move on with their lives, and when I eventually gave birth to a set of twins, the whole community of women I was leading all had tears in their eyes and loads of congratulations in their mouths. Mama was particularly the happiest, as she had feared a long time ago that I would not be able to conceive because the fibroid came early. 

Illiteracy will always have the upper hand in situations that can easily be handled, but with the right knowledge and direction, things wouldn’t have to escalate. Mama had never believed she would be able to feel comfortable in her body. Once her fibroids were removed, it became her testimony.

I maintained my promise to Mama, I did go closer to God. I needed the strength to forgive and let go of everything that made my heart heavy. I knew that was one problem only prayer could solve. Everything has been fine since then.

But most nights when the pain rises from my abdomen, I would remember Mama’s defeated look, the words the Doctor said to me that left me broken and the prophet’s spiritual claims. But regardless, the tumour baby is quieter now, deep down, I know it hasn’t completely left me. Maybe it never will.