Chinyere's Questions

  

Celebrating Christmas

My brother Ikenna wanted to open his gift box on Christmas Day – 25th of December 2020. My mother did not allow him to open it. He began to cry. 

“IK, wait till tomorrow. You should open your gift box on Boxing Day,” my mother told my brother. She hugged him and cleaned his tears with her hand.

“Mummy, Chinyere wanted to open her gift box too,” Ikenna pointed at me.

“No, mummy. It is not true. I just looked at the box,” I quickly told my mum.

My mother would have frowned at me if I had not explained why I touched my gift box. 

My mother made us behave properly always. She made us greet older people every time we saw them. She taught us many things including covering our mouths when we coughed. We should not pick our food to eat if it fell on the floor. We should wash our hands with soap and water after using the toilet.

“Chichi, your younger brother watches what you do. Do the right things always,” she told me. Ikenna stopped crying after our mother spoke to me.  

My name is Chinyere Obi. That Christmas period, I was seven years old. Ikenna was five years old. We hail from Imo State. My father is a printer. He brought many new books home every day. He made me read some of them. Ikenna could not read well yet. My mother is a teacher. She teaches English language in our school. Ikenna and I attend Debo Nursery and Primary School.  

We are Catholics. On Christmas Day, we went to St Kizito Catholic Church, Iju, Lagos. After church, we visited the beach. We ate our Christmas food on the beach. We met many people there. 

Ikenna and I touched the beach water with our feet. The water was very cold. We saw much water at the beach. We walked on white sand on the beach.

When we got home from the beach, I helped my mother in the kitchen. We made Akpu and Oha soup. Ikenna liked the food. He ate a lot of it. 

“If you want to open your gift boxes tomorrow, the two of you should go and sleep now,” my mother told us. The time was 9:30 pm. The two of us went to our bedroom.

Ikenna and I shared the same bed. He snored when he slept. His noise disturbed my sleep. 

We could not wait to open our gift boxes the following day.

Chinyere’s Questions

I woke up at about 5 am. It was Boxing Day – 26th of December 2020. Ikenna was still sleeping. I brushed my teeth and took my bath. Our parents would not let us open our gift boxes if we had not taken our bath.

I woke Ikenna to take his bath too. When I touched him, his body was hot. 

“Ikenna, stand up,” I tapped his back. He did not move.

I tapped him again. He sat up and started shivering.

“Daddy! Mummy!” I ran into my parents’ bedroom. “Ikenna’s body is hot; he is shivering too,” I told them.

My parents jumped out of their bed. They ran into our room. My father picked Ik from the bed and touched his body.

“Ikenna has a fever. Chichi, give me the thermometer,” my dad told me.

I ran to the first aid box for it. He put it under Ikenna’s armpit. My father said Ik’s temperature was 39.6 degrees.

“That is too much,” my mother said. 

“What is that, mummy?” I asked. She did not respond.

“Daddy, when will we open our gift boxes?” I asked.

“We will take Ikenna to the hospital first,” he replied to me.

“Stop asking questions, Chinyere!” my mother shouted. “Get dressed; we are going to the hospital.”

My father drove quickly to our hospital. We saw Dr Caroline.

“Mr and Mrs Obi, happy Boxing Day. How may I help you?” Dr Caroline asked.

Ikenna was shivering. He sat on my father’s thigh. “Ik is sick, doctor,” daddy said. “He was fine yesterday. He woke up with a fever this morning.”

“Daddy, what is fever?” I asked.

“Chinyere, this is not the time for questions,” my father told me. He did not answer my question.

“Chichi dear, fever means the body is too hot,” Dr Caroline answered my question. She touched Ikenna’s neck. 

“Okay.” I touched my neck. “I don’t have a fever; my body is not hot,” I told the doctor.

“You are correct, Chichi,” the doctor smiled. She touched my neck with the back of her right hand. “No, you don’t have a fever.” 

The doctor took a thermometer from her drawer. She put it under Ikenna’s armpit.

“We checked it at home already. My daddy got 39.6 degrees,” I told the doctor.

“Really? Let me check again,” she replied to me. “His temperature is 40.2 degrees,” she said.

“It is higher now,” my mother said. She was not happy.

My father put his hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Ikenna will be fine,” he told her.

“Doctor, why did the temperature change from 39.6 degrees to 40.2 degrees?” I asked.

My mother looked at me angrily. She felt I was asking too many questions. Dr Caroline looked at her. “Let Chinyere ask her questions, ma.”

“Ikenna’s temperature may continue to get higher if we do not treat him in time,” the doctor answered my question.

The doctor lifted my brother from my father’s laps. She lay him on a bed in her office. She looked into his eyes, mouth and ears. She told Ikenna to open his mouth. She looked into it. 

“Chinyere, get my stethoscope from my table,” she told me.

“What is a stethoscope?” I asked her.

The doctor pointed at it on her table. “Stethoscope is used to listen to the sounds in the chest and tummy,” she said.

I ran to her table and picked it.

 

She placed the round end of the stethoscope on Ikenna’s chest. She put the two eartips at the other end into her ears. She touched many places on his chest with the stethoscope. She listened to the sounds in Ikenna’s chest. Dr Caroline pressed my brother’s tummy. She listened to the sounds in his tummy too.

“May I listen to the sounds too?” I asked the doctor.

“No, my dear,” she told me. “You can’t hear the sounds yet.”

“Why can’t I hear the sounds?” I asked.

She told me that I would need to read my books well to become a doctor first. “Only doctors and nurses can hear the sounds in the chest and tummy.”

“Mr and Mrs Obi, Ikenna  probably has malarial fever,” the doctor told my parents. “We will take a small blood sample from him and do some tests. I need to know if there are other causes of his fever.”

“Ikenna ate too much Akpu with Oha soup yesterday. Could it be the cause of his malarial fever?” I asked the doctor.

Dr Caroline laughed. “Akpu with Oha soup does not cause fever. Mosquito bites could infect us with the parasite that causes malarial fever,” she answered my question. 

I wanted to ask her what she meant by “parasite.”

“Ikenna needs to be admitted in the hospital,” she told us.

“Okay,” my parents said.

Dr Caroline told me that Ikenna would not go home. “He will take his medications here in the hospital,” she said.

“Let us go home, Doctor. We want to open our gift boxes. We open them on Boxing Day. Today is Boxing Day,” I told Dr Caroline.

My parents laughed. The doctor laughed too. “Chinyere, you will open your gift boxes soon. Let your brother get well first,” the doctor said.

“Do you have gift boxes too?” I asked her.

The doctor laughed again. “No, I don’t have gift boxes.”

“Why didn’t anyone buy you gifts?”

She shook her head slowly. She did not reply to my question. “Let us take your brother to his room,” she said instead.

The time was 7: 20 am when Ikenna was laid on his bed in one of the rooms in the hospital. There was another boy in the room with Ikenna. 

The doctor put a blue plastic on Ikenna’s hand. She pushed two injections through the plastic. She gave my brother another injection in his buttock. He cried then slept.

Opening Our Gift Boxes

After some time in the hospital, Ikenna sat on his bed. He asked for food. He ate bread and jam. His body was not hot anymore. The doctor checked his temperature. It was 36.9 degrees.

“Ha! The temperature has changed,” I told the doctor. I touched Ikenna’s neck. It was not hot.

“Yes, it has. He is better now,” Dr Caroline told us.

She said that Ikenna could go home. 

“Will his body become hot again?” I asked her.

“No. If he uses his tablets, he would be fine,” she replied to me.

“Chinyere, take care of your brother at home. Make sure he uses his tablets.”

“I will.”

“That’s good, Chinyere,” she hugged me.

“Doctor, thank you for answering my questions,” I hugged her again.

Ikenna walked out of the hospital with us. He had become well.

When we got home, Ikenna was the first to open his gift box. He found a Superman costume. He loved the Superman cartoon. He was happy. He danced around the sitting room.

“Chichi, open your gift box. Let me see your gift,” Ikenna told me.

My parents were looking at me as I removed the wrapping papers on the box.

I looked into my box and found a black stethoscope. It looked like Dr Caroline’s own. They also bought me a doctor’s coat. “Yee!” I jumped. I liked my gift also. 

“Thank you, daddy and mummy,” I ran around the sitting room.

 I wore the coat and put the stethoscope around my neck.

I walked to my mummy and raised my finger, “Mummy, may I listen to the sound in your chest?”

They all laughed at my question…   

Get your children to also read these three short stories. 

About the Author

Ademola is a Consultant Family Physician and writer. He is the medical director of Nathaniel Health Consulting, a family hospital in Matogbun, Ogun State. 

He is an author of many books including storybooks. He regularly writes on health-promoting topics and encourages positive behavioural change in his articles. He can be reached via demolaorolu@yahoo.com.