The doctors found a couple lumps in my wife’s breast on Thursday, and took a biopsy right there and then. Then came the wait…
At the same time, on the other side of the planet, my brother was on the last leg of a two day flight to visit his girlfriend’s parents (and quite possibly ask for her hand, but I digress). The last flight was overbooked. They tried good old fashioned bribes. Palms were greased. 500 Naira was spent. But it didn’t work. The plain took off without them, and the greedy bastards kept the bribes.
They told my wife to call at three for her results. She called at five after, and the doctor told her to call back. It took an hour, but he called back. No cancer! That was a damn fine thing to hear on a Friday night. I think this scare finally has her quitting smoking all the way.
That night, my brother was composing an email.
Had a close call yesterday… Mayen and I, along with her brother and sister were in Abuja, and were on our way to Uyo where Mayen’s family lives…(Her brother and sister are awsome and I was having a great time with them). We were going to go to the airport to take a flight on Sosoliso Airlines to Port Harcourt… The driver was late (WHich is kind of normal in Nigeria - Its known as Nigerian time, but we had factored the fact that he would be late into our timeline) the driver ended up being really late so we were behind schedule… we also ended up being delayed at a bank and traffic was bad because their was a meeting of their congress there…
The people at ChanChangi were very nice and ended up selling us tickets for the following day giving us a ride back to a hotel in Abuja, when we got almost to our hotel and the director of ChanChangi airlines gave his driver a call and had him hand the phone to us (Mayens Sister) It turns out that the flight we were trying so hard to get onto crashed with everyone on board being killed, and the director of ChanChangi was letting us know the we were the luckiest people he had ever met. Everyone on the plane that we had seen get on that plane was dead including a bunch of kids in their pleated skirts that had gotten on while we were trying to get in… We were in shock, and I still can’t believe it the whole thing is almost too much to imagine…
The next day everyone at the airport knew who we were and it was weird because everyone was a little awed by our luck (In Nigeria luck carries a lot of weight, and we were sort of a spectacle which was nice (and a little bit unnerving), there is a mystical aspect to luck that is taken seriously by a lot of people) So people were calling us lucky English and other things like that. It was the most unreal experience of my life, I can’t believe how lucky we were and how close I came to dying on a plane.
Apart from that horrible tragedy the trip has been great and I am really glad have met them all. We are having fun and everyone is very happy that we are alive… Mayens poor sister in law knew which flight we were taking and heard the news before we had a chance to call her so when we did call there were lots of praise jesus shouts in the background.
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and thanks be to god for all of you.
Bob
Sometimes 24 hours can have a lot of bad lurking in the wings. Sometimes 24 hours can have luck. I hit the lucky 24.
Holy shit.
I think that kind of thing would be worth five *thousand *naira. Definitely a fortunate day, there.
Wow.
Khadaji
December 12, 2005, 3:52pm
3
Hooray.
That is good news all around. And I truly hope that your wife quits smoking too.
lieu
December 12, 2005, 3:58pm
4
Yes, sounds like a sigh of relief is most definately in order. Good luck to your wife in quitting once and for all.
As soon as you mentioned Port Harcourt… ugh. Those poor kids. Your brother sounds amazingly composed for just having endured such a close call.
Nurse Carmen , I now have goose sized goose bumps because of you! I’m glad your wife and brother are great; they both won the only lottery that really matters.
