Let's talk about breast

It‘s eleven years today since I lost my Mum and best friend; She was more of a best friend than a mother, not a day goes by that I don’t miss her. It was our routine in the evenings for me to fill her in on how I had spent my day… boys, and all, I terribly miss that.

Some years before she died, we noticed that her breast produced some sort of discharge she had told us, it was because we(my sis and I) refused breast milk, now I know it was a symptom of cancer that was waiting to take her life.

Mum was so stubborn, she refused to go to the hospital to find out what was wrong with her; When she eventually did, she said: "I would rather die if God will not heal me". This put a wedge in our relationship that was hitherto perfect, I told her since she had made up her mind to die, it was better for me to put some distance between us so when she dies I won’t be distraught. I regret that statement and that I actually put some distance between us. Being the angel that she was she would hold on for me before she breathed her last, for that, I am eternally grateful. In moments when I feel as though I have failed woefully at being a loyal daughter, I think of that act, and I know Mum forgave me, I’m still trying to forgive myself though.

In this eleventh year of her death, I’ve decided to talk about that part of her body that she neglected, and I can only hope that you’d pay attention.

Fait attention

You could call them tits; boobs, jugs, oranges, melons, headlamps, knockers, tatas etc. or we could just call them breast. Some men are so fascinated by that supple mass of flesh on the chest of a woman such that, it is arguably the first thing they notice.

Soft, beautiful, bouncy, sensitive, sexy, curvy breasts are something everyone pays attention to men can’t seem to think beyond the pleasure it would give them and most women are far too concerned about the fitting it would give in a dress or how much attention it would attract.

Breast is the cause of many a woman's insecurities; some women are so concerned about the size of their breast that they would go to any length to see it perfect, from temporary approaches of using Wonder bra’s to give an illusion of a fuller breast or a more impressive decolletage  to creams that are supposed to reduce or increase the size of the breast and more permanent measures like breast augmentation, breast implant and breast reduction. Let's just say breasts are getting a lot of attention, but are they getting the requisite attention?

Women need to learn about loving their breast It’s yours' don't be afraid to explore;  know the exact size shape colour, touch it to know how it feels normally stand in front of a mirror, strike up different poses and take a real close look at it, that way even the slightest changes won't escape your notice, if there is something wrong with your breast, you should be the first to know.

There is a couple of problems that affect the breast regular (once a month) Breast Self Examination (BSE) would help you nip any potential problem in the bud.

Breast Self Examination is easy, stand in front of a mirror, raise your right hand above your head with your left fingertips close together, gently massage the sides of your right breast, start outside; inside the armpit, and gently work your way to the nipple, or start from the top (a few inches below your collarbone) and finish off where your breast stops. Lift your left hand above your head and repeat the process for the left breast.

“A breast self-examination is done to detect breast problems, such as a lump or change in appearance, that may indicate breast cancer or other breast conditions that may require medical attention” WebMD

Most changes and lumps in the breast are harmless abnormal growths.

‘Benign breast tumours such as fibroadenomas or intraductal papillomas are abnormal growths, but they are not cancerous and do not spread outside the breast to other organs. They are not life-threatening.

Still, some benign breast conditions are crucial because women with these conditions have a higher risk of developing breast cancer’ (American Cancer Society)

Breast changes may also occur because of pregnancy, menstrual cycle, or birth control pills in younger women, and in older women; ageing and menopause. The point is whenever you notice a change see a Physician because "every woman is at risk of breast cancer and the key to survival is early detection".

The issue is not Beans

I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I am one of those people who have an issue with Beans, you’d hear me say something like 'I don’t like Beans because it gives me heartburn' or "it makes me stool", sometimes I’d say things like "it makes me feel bloated". Hmm! all of these reasons are true, but what I’m not so sure of is whether this is an acquired problem or one I have always had.

I believe I acquired it and here is why.

I was nine years old, and I was staying with my aunt at the time. My aunt has four children, and she also had a house help whose name is Charity.  Two of my cousins are older than I am, and I am older than the other two. The two older ones and Charity are of the same age bracket while the other two and I are also of the same age bracket.

My elder cousins and Charity were in the habit of complaining about the portion of their meal; they were teenagers at the time, I suppose it was understandable. On this day, my aunt had cooked a pot of beans with soft, ripe Plantain (my aunt is the best cook in the world), she dished it into our plates; we all had our personal plates, you knew which food was yours just by looking at the plates.

As was their custom, they started grumbling about the portions they got. All three of them left their food on the table, as though they meant not to eat it. My aunt was on her way out, she pointed at the plates on the table and told my younger cousins and me that if we were hungry before she got back, and the food was still on the table, we were to take a plate each. She pointed at the plates we were to take, mine was Charity’s.

Perhaps it was meant to be a joke, but I took every word out of her mouth as The Law.

She went out, and we also went out to play with other kids in the compound. I’m sure it was not up to an hour forty-five minutes before I went back into the house, got settled on the table, pulled Charity’s plate of Beans close to me and was ready to do damage to it. I only got as far as the second spoon before Charity met me with her plate of food in front of me. The look on her face when she saw me, I wished the ground would just open up and swallow me.

She asked me to kneel down holding the plate of Beans over my head, and I must not swallow the one in my mouth. She left me in that state and went out to fetch my cousins and my playmates. I was crying so hard and wishing I would just die, the humiliation was more than my nine-year-old heart could bear.

My cousins prevailed on her to leave me alone, and she did, I was asked to eat the Beans if I was still hungry, imagine that! How could anyone possibly be hungry after such humiliation? Well, I couldn't have even if I were hungry because by then I had developed a sudden hatred for Beans.

My earliest memories of heartburn or any other issue arising from eating Beans are all after this incident.

Maybe I have always had an issue with Beans or maybe not.

Abused

When a woman loves a man

She puts her heart at his feet

And her head in his hands

So he steps on her heart and

Turns her head whichever way he chooses

When a woman loves a man

She eats his words and

Drinks his praises

So he feeds her stones

And gives the praise as bait

When a woman loves a man

She gives him a collar

And a whip to go with it

So as a dog he pulls her close

And as a horse lashes her forward

When a woman loves a man

She gives him all that she is

And all that she could ever be

So that having seen her all

He can spit it back at her

When a woman loves a man

She truly does

And then, she let him own her.

But how can this be love?

Colours of Emotion

Which way does the tide go
 Like brown rustling leaves
 With black clouds hanging
With no shades of grey
A day with no colours

As I laid on my bed
And closed my eyes
I hear a howling sound
Like that of the wind
Rushing out of an entrapment
And while I yet wondered
What had chased it,
It hit me!,
It wasn’t the wind
 It was the sound of breathing
 Of desperate anxiety
Wondering how soon before this gloom ends

Which way does the tide go
 Like the sprouting of lush green leaves
With patches of bright red and loud yellow
 A singing heart
On a perfect day

While in limbo,
In that blurry space,
Between sleep and consciousness
a sonorous voice
Said all so sweetly
 "soon it will be spring
There will be fresh buds of emotion
 the beauty of a perfect sky
And alas! a harvest of love"

News of my death

It was a sunny day in September, nothing about the day had struck me as exceptional, and nothing could have prepared me for the events of that day. Now when I think back to it, it occurs to me that I am among the lucky few who have been alive to hear the announcement of their own death and fortunate enough to witness what a notable loss and bereavement their demise would be to their family.

The decision…

I had just graduated from the university, with no hope of going to Youth Service anytime soon. I had an extra year on hand before Service, not from any fault of mine; it is no great secret to anyone who knows the "premier University of Science and Technology" that they had a tendency to be slow in the compilation and submission of names to the National Youth Service Corps Commission.

Things were the way they were. The restless energy of youth combined with a lack of finance arising from the fact that I was no longer a student and as such no longer drew sympathies from relatives in that they felt the need to give me money, I set my mind to look for a job and earn a little money for myself.

I had heard that I could get a job in Bonny which needed neither a particular skill, exceptional intelligence, nor qualification, it was a matter of "come as you are" and this appealed to me greatly. My cousin and I made arrangements to depart for Bonny immediately.

Bonny …

As treasure hunting tales go, this was no different. The high hopes with which we got to Bonny quickly dwindled into sour disappointment. We had a couple of aunts and uncles in Bonny but in the quest to be truly independent, and because we wanted to enjoy the town without  any interference we decided not to stay with any of them, and chose instead to stay with a distant cousin whose existence we had no knowledge of until a day before the trip.

Tonye stayed in a log cabin (Bacha) on the outskirts of the town in a place called 'one-man village'. When we first beheld our new abode, it was only natural that our bravado should falter,  nothing could have prepared us for what we met, our newly found cousin took us around his humble abode (no pun intended). It had a kitchenette and a bathroom, the toilet was in an out-house shared with several other people, the living room which was also the bedroom was utterly devoid of any furniture, on one side of the room was his luggage and a sleeping mat. We had gone on the trip with a terribly large luggage containing both our clothes and we were also hoping to make enough money to get some more. Our present environment was perhaps the first indication that things might not be quite as rosy as we had gone expecting, but we had set out to conquer the world and couldn't let a small thing like sleeping arrangements stop us.

As it is with human nature, we adjusted to the environment, albeit not perfectly, but enough for it to be the least of our worries.

The hunt...

With the stories we had heard, we thought finding a job couldn't take more than a week, we were in for a surprise.

Day after day we went to the Bonny Employment Bureau, and day after day we went home dejected. Not even the fact that we had gone armed with a recommendation letter was doing any magic, we were getting disappointed and discouraged, our purse also felt the impact of our two weeks stay with no additional income.

After about three weeks of mostly the same routine; go to the Employment Bureau, meet other people who we had become familiar with over the weeks, "gist" a little, go out for lunch (at this point we had forfeited the luxury of breakfast), and then return home wondering why people took pleasure in lying (keeping in mind the person who had given us the ludicrous story of an easy job).

The death...

On the Sunday of the fourth week, we decided there was no need to go to church, by then we were totally broke but still too proud to go back to Port-Harcourt without the oil money we had gone seeking.

It was in that broke, dejected and almost hopeless state that we were napping when all of a sudden I heard the insistent ringing of my phone, but because I had slept without food and was quite angry with the world at that moment, I was not in a great hurry to take the call. After it had rung five times I finally picked up the call, it was my uncle, my mother's brother, who before that day had never called me.

‘Hello',  I said.
‘Toku’? he responded with a question in his voice. My mind became instantly alert, I knew there was something wrong although I could not tell the nature of it. He asked if I were alright, I answered in the affirmative. Before we could continue further in the conversation my battery went flat...

Ngeri and I played out possible scenarios that could have led to the call, we were still on it when her phone rang.

It was her mother, my aunt, she sounded strange as though she had been crying and could barely speak.

She asked Ngeri how my death had occurred, Ngeri put the phone on loudspeaker and responded 'Mummy, what are you talking about? Toku dey here'

I quickly piped in that I was there, though I was totally at a loss as to why anyone should think I was dead.

Well, after we had reassured her that there was nothing wrong with me except perhaps hunger, she told us how an "anonymous someone" had called 'Sisi' my eldest aunt while the poor woman was attending a Church service to tell her, "Toku is dead."
when she queried "which Toku?" the person had responded, "how many Tokus do you know?" Your niece Tokulanye Ibaningo is dead".  And went ahead to end the call brutally, every attempt to put a call through to her was futile.

My aunts and uncle immediately called an emergency meeting and were discussing how to get the corpse back to Port-Harcourt, it eventually occurred to them to call our phones, the network conspired with the bearer of the false tale to make it all seem true, and they were told both our numbers were "not available", they kept at it until my number finally went through, I reluctantly picked up the call and heard the news of my death.