Potentially Sick

We are all potentially sick.

However, some people are in worse states.

It’s better to know how potentially sick you are.

I am wondering if anyone in our peculiar environment is among the 20% of the world’s population the WHO claims do not need a doctor. I had read that somewhere years ago. I don’t know what the statistic is presently.

Well, I know that sickness does not just happen.

The body gradually breaks down before a person eventually succumbs to sickness. In other words, there’s usually an incubation period within which the body tries to give signals that it’s under stress or attack.

That was the way I was over 25 years ago.

I had visited my former company’s retained hospital and the MD informed me that my BP was rising, and advised I took things easy. He also warned he might put me on a mild sedative drug if I came back with the same state.

I think I wasn’t too surprised, except that I had not reckoned that the occasional malaria fever with headache I was then suffering was a signal from my system that all was not well.

I was in my middle 30s then, and the doctor told me not to worry too much. After all, everyone my age suffered the same problems because of our work and economic environments. I agreed. I didn’t worry, and my BP was on normal the next time I visited his clinic.

Then I left ‘secular’ employment few years down the line.

My divine calling seemed to have worsened my condition. I had plunged myself into the work of God, as everyone who knew me then would testify. I had protracted night prayers and all that. I also prayed for divine health, which God answered.

However, the occasional malaria fever and headache I usually had now became more frequent, with new symptoms like occasional serious runny nose and upset stomach, which ran when I ate spicy meals.

In addition, I discovered that the lower back pain that had troubled me for years without yielding to medications, became chronic.

Each time I stood and preached or taught for 2 or more hours, my waist gave way. The pains could last for two or more weeks.

I was introduced to an elderly Christian Pharmacist who recommended a stronger pain killer, but that couldn’t help me. And he was surprised.

Then I started having occasional dizziness, especially the following Monday after weekend ministrations in church or other preaching engagements.

It was the period that men of God cold just slump on the pulpit and pass on to glory.

Ah, I became apprehensive! No, I was scared, and an inner voice warned me to do something fast. But I didn’t know what to do than pray.

Sometime after, the PFN Surulere Chapter, Lagos, elected me into their executive leadership. And one of our leading church member Pastor, organized a Health & Wellness Seminar, and requested that every pastor should come with his wife or her husband. That seminar was my moment of epiphany.

I made notes which I carefully studied afterwards.

My wife and I implemented everything we had been taught in that seminar, beginning in the evening of the seminar day.

No, it wasn’t easy to suddenly jettison all we’ve been eating for years. Our bodies complained, just as our children wondered what had come over their parents.

Well, since they were still very young and depended on what their mother served them, they could not register a protest.

The results we got were not rapid, but we didn’t look back.

However, few months later, I realized my waist didn’t complain after standing and preaching for over two hours. It was indeed new to me.

I had bought all the bulletins that were available for sale in that seminar. I now started to hand them over to people I talked to about diet lifestyle change.

I started searching for more information on how herbal foods – vegetables and fruits can heal the body. That was my launching pad.

Few of those I guided in those early days began to testify.

My passion increased till now.

I have even stopped blushing when my close pals openly call me herbalist. In fact, that name fired my desire to seek to be certified with the National Association of Traditional Medicine of Nigeria.

I have become a perpetual student of Natural Medicine.

I want to help people recover their health without the use of chemical medications, which have a lot of side effects that could actually result in wore health conditions.

Yes, your food can become your medicine. You only need to be guided on what to eat.