Dr. Chinonso Egemba, also known as Aproko Doctor, a Nigerian medical expert, has revealed his battle with a brain tumor.
He revealed this in a video posted on his Facebook page on Monday, in which he recounted how he had to fight for his life over the last month.
According to Aproko Doctor, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor on December 5, which caused him to go partially blind.
The medical expert also spoke about his road to recovery and how Tayo Ojo, a Nigerian-based neurosurgeon, has been instrumental in the journey in the video shared with his over two million Twitter followers.
He put pen to paper. “I was fighting for my life throughout December 2022. Today, I stand before you to tell you my story. It’s been a long road to recovery, but each day gets better.”
“On December 1st, I was an MC at an event with a fellow doctor discussing how research in Africa has aided Pharmacy.
“I was suffering from one of my recurring headaches. It was one of these headaches, but it wasn’t going away… When I told my wife that I thought there was something wrong with this eye, the first thing she said was God forbid. And then I said amen and went to bed.
“On December 3rd, it was my mother’s birthday… I went to the top of the field and kept checking myself as a doctor, and I closed this (right) eye and realized I couldn’t see with this (left) eye. I informed my ophthalmologist (a medical doctor who specializes in eye and vision care) that I was unable to see.
“On the 5th of December, they said I had a tumor in my head based on the results of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging. It was sitting on the optic nerve around this eye, affecting it as well (right eye). To the point where I couldn’t see with this (left eye) and it was also closing.
“Then because of the position of the tumour and the height and how risky it was at that point, they said they need to go through the skull. They had to open the skull, remove the entire piece of the skull, and go through the brain to figure out what they wanted to do. It felt like my entire life had come to an end.
In a follow-up post, the doctor said many of his followers advised him to seek medical attention outside Nigeria but he stayed back because “I still had trust in us”.
“The surgery was performed by Dr. Tayo Ojo, a neurosurgeon in Nigeria. Many people pleaded with me to leave the country and have the surgery, but something kept me here because I still believed in us. “All we need is more investment in our health-care system,” he added.
“Some people asked me why I had the surgery in Nigeria. I had no answer for them at one point because I simply believe we are in good hands here.
“It wasn’t necessarily a lack of funds. I believe it is more about trust. I didn’t have faith in the foreign doctors I was going to see. But I knew we could pull it off here.”
