Get Ibuprofen, not a CONDOM!

It was a hot Wednesday afternoon, the OPD was unusually empty, more like the patients had gone on a ‘strike’ and just as we mostly do, we gathered ourselves around the nurses table and started chitchatting.

Many things were discussed, ranging from marriage through to business and finally to trivialities and petty ‘konkonsah’ about some happenings around us.

Among the stories was what a colleague narrated about a friend, who once embarrassed himself after he invited a beautiful damsel to his house one evening.

Normally, I would have laughed such stories off but this particular one caught my attention possibly because it resonated my personal ordeal some 3 or 4 years ago, when I was posted up North to head a small Health Center in a suburb of Jirapa, Upper West Region.

Clearly, the gentleman had been chasing this lady for only God knows how long, so when the opportunity finally came for him to host her in his house, the excitement and anxiety alone caused him to forget he had a ‘brain’.

It was around 7pm when he heard a soft knock on his door, he yelled, who is it! and he quickly ran to check whether the CONDOMS he had kept in the wardrobe were still there.

He then went and opened the door, it was Anita, the lady he had been yearning for all these while.

While standing there, dressed in a navy blue straight dress ending just above the knees, she spoke in a seductively soft voice “you said you wanted to see me, now I’m here”.

Confused and short of words he offered her a seat and welcomed her to his ‘ghetto’.

Synonymous to a major boxing competition where the amateur boxers pave the way for the major event of the night, a convo started between them to set the ball rolling and to clear the way for what is to come. Greater things!

Fast forward! After sometime, their voices became inaudible and ‘things started knocking things’, this is a breakthrough, the youngman was in ‘paradise’.

Suddenly, what was intended to be an encounter full of sensational ecstasy became an awful spectacle when the young lady started screaming in pain. She had developed an Acute Bone Pain, a SICKLE CELL CRISIS in which there is poor supply of oxygen-rich blood to the joints thereby causing an unbearably excruciating pain at the joints. ‘Chaarley’, what a moment to be up in a creek without a paddle.

Being a medic himself, all he needed to do was to give the lady some pain reliever to bring the pain down and later let the lady visit the hospital, but unfortunately for him, there was none available.

Like trying to find a needle in a haystack, he searched thoroughly through his Condom ‘infested’ wardrobe but could not find any painkiller. It was a crunch time for him now, He had no choice than to rush the lady to the hospital he works.

Now come and see “asimesi”, dressed in khaki shorts and some wretched T-shirt sweating profusely as though he had been given the whole of Ghana’s Flagstaff House to scrub. The guilt was all over his face, while standing helplessly as he observe the night nurses attend to his “bae”.

The news were all over, he trended in the hospital the whole year for the wrong reasons.

Something he wishes never happened in his life! He vowed to get ibuprofen!

Moral of the story: Always keep a first aid box, you never know the medical history of who you invite to your house. You may be dealing with an asthmatic, a sickle cell, a diabetic or anything.

To the guys and ladies out there, know your partner’s health status, even if it’s “hit and run” lol.

Play safe!

Thanks for reading!

The writer is a Clinician and a Public Health Enthusiast.

Email: uk.victus@gmail.com

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