It was sometime in January 2011, I was ill and assumed it was malaria again. You see, I am one of those people who get ill with malaria at least 4 times in a year even though I still wonder how , considering the fact that everyone around me never gets malaria. Like someone once said, maybe there are special mosquitoes who prefer me for lunch and never leave any bite marks. Anyway, I left my office which used to be off Alfred Rewane and headed towards Obalende to First Consultant hospital.
It was my first time at that hospital and after a few minutes of waiting at the doctor’s waiting room, I heard a voice, a feminine but strong voice coming from the corridor towards the waiting room. Every staff around me immediately started “forming serious” if you know what I mean, so I was quite eager to see who that voice belonged to. And there comes in a petite woman with a pleasant disposition in a white Doctor’s coverall and I watched as she walks into the Doctor’s office.
So I get called up into the doctor’s office and initially it was just like any other appointment until she sent me to the lab for some tests. On returning to her office for a review of the results, well she gave me the best news ever, I was pregnant, but that was not all she said, she gave me a lecture. Yes I said it, a proper lecture on how lucky I was as I was newly married and still under 30, and said quite a few things about not taking it for granted and prioritizing my health and the safety of the baby over everything else.
That was my first encounter with Dr Stella Adadevoh, and I really did not appreciate her style and just took it for granted (until I had another bad pregnancy experience with another doctor)
A couple of years after this, I had my second encounter with Dr Adadevoh. Being an asthmatic patient from a young age, I had often times handled my asthmatic attacks with a puff from my Ventolin inhaler, and for those few episodes that I had to go see a doctor, they just nebulize me and I get sent back home.
On this occasion however, it was different simply because the doctor on duty was none other than Doctor Stella Adadevoh. After she instructed the nurses to nebulize me, she once again called me into her office and yes, I got another lecture. This lecture made a huge difference in my life. She had taken the time to print out articles for me on recent medical breakthrough in treating asthma. She then introduced me to a different kind of inhaler which was more for preventing asthma attacks instead of treating it when it already happens. I used this for a month and “viola” I could do practically everything I was once limited to do because I was asthmatic.
Today, I can engage in High Intensity Impact Trainings , and run laps(something I had never in my life been able to do before that lecture).
When the Ebola crisis broke out and I heard about how she insisted that all protocols was followed and refused to let Patrick Sawyer out of the hospital, I was not surprised at all.
What I saw when I met this woman was an embodiment of what I want to be. My mother raised me never to be mediocre and instilled in me, the need to see an opportunity to make a difference anytime someone needs my help. This has nothing to do with giving money. There is so much we all have to offer but we are rather blinded by the “am too busy syndrome”
I want to inspire people and have a positive impact on everyone I come across. In Nigeria where mediocrity is the order of the day and where most people just coast along in a never ending rat race, I want to be remembered when I die for the impact I have had and am sure most of you want to as well.
There is so much to emulate from this woman, and as Nigeria clocks 56 today and everyone is celebrating her independence, I chose to celebrate a Hero.
Please take a minute to remember this rare gem and say a prayer for her soul.
On a final note, take a minute to listen to Beyoncé’s “I was here ” while meditating on the lyrics.
When you die, what will be the proof that you lived? What will you do???
RIP Dr Adadevoh, we truly lost an angel.
