Founder of AprokoDoctor.com, Dr. Chinonso Egemba, popularly known as Aproko Doctor has revealed to everyone that cares to listen how he survived a life threatening tumour in is brain.
He said; “Throughout December of 2022, I was fighting for my life. Today I stand here before you to share my story. It has been a long road to recovery but each day is better than the last.”
“I was an MC at an event on the 1st of December with a fellow doctor talking about how research in Africa has helped Pharmacy.”
“I was having one of the headaches that I’ve always had. It’s one of these headaches but it wasn’t getting any better… I told my wife, I think there’s something wrong with this eye and the first thing she said was God forbid. And I said amen and went to the bed.”
“On December 3rd, that was my mum’s birthday… I went to the top view of the field and I kept trying to check myself as a doctor and I closed this (right eye) and I realised I couldn’t see with this (left) eye. I called my ophthalmologist (a medical doctor who specialises in eye and vision care) that I can’t see.”
“When the results of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging came out, they said on the 5th of December that I had a tumour sitting in my head. It was sitting on the optic gland around this eye and was also affecting this (right eye). To the point where this (left eye) I couldn’t see with it and it was also closing.”
“Then because of the position of the tumour and the height and how risky it was at that point, they said they need to go through the skull. They had to open the skull, take out the piece of the skull completely, go through the brain so that they can know what they want to do. It felt like my whole life had ended.”
“It was Dr. Tayo Ojo, a neurosurgeon here in Nigeria that did the surgery. So many people begged me to leave the country and get the surgery done but something kept me back here because I still had trust in us. We just need more investment in our health sector.”
“There were people who asked me why I did the surgery in Nigeria. At some point, I had no answer for them because I just think that we have good hands here.”
“It wasn’t necessarily the funds. I think it’s more about trust. I did not trust the foreign doctors I was going to see. But I knew that we could do it here.”