#NoBraDay (Breast Cancer Awareness)

It’s a #NoBraDay. It’s all about Breast Cancer Awareness for every female. 

There is this story written by my very good brother, Akan Imoh, the KOWA party candidate for the Lagos State House of Assembly (Ikeja Constituency II).

Read, enjoy and learn from the story:

BRASSIERRE

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PROLOUGUE

With hot salty tears forming long cooked lines on his face, he slowly opened a part of the casket, brought out something from his suitcase, a piece of fabric. His hands were shaking, he couldn’t stand still; everyone froze, a murmur of silence went round the graveyard…the tears couldn’t stop, his eyes shone with pain…as he dropped the fabric into the casket.

BRASSIERRE

He would never forget the day he discovered the burden she had been carrying. He was always been seeing her checking out herself in front of the mirror and he thought it was just a girl’s thing. Then on one very unfortunate day, he saw it. He saw the tiny dots, looking like rashes around her left nipple. His heart didn’t skip a bit, it totally stopped working. He couldn’t believe this. He was grieved in his soul.

They stared at each other for minutes, the unspoken words passing between them. She was sick, she was dying; his Queen was dying.

Sex with her used to be awesome. Newlyweds, they had all the time and space to enjoy sex. He would always fall into a very deep slumber after everything, and she would always complain about it. She mostly loved the cuddling and romantic talk after sex, but he was each time too tired for that; so he’ll always try His best to stay awake for as long as ten minutes…then his snoring becomes beautiful. As he thinks about this, a sad smile plasters his face.

She was just not a wife; she was His blood. He had always felt no one would ever be able to fathom and unravel the deep layers that characterized him. But, hell no, she could read him like a book and understood his being. She spoke to him in silence with long drawn looks of unspoken communication. They were actually one soul, separated into two bodies. Like light, she brightened His soul; like water, she refreshed His body.

He would never forget the day he tore her bra. They had just had an explosive moment of intense love making; He mistakenly tore her bra in the process, it was breathtakingly exhausting; and he wondered how on earth she could still want to talk. He collapsed into a deep sleep beside her…only to wake up hours later with a black bra on his face. The two cups used to cover both eyelids…that was her way of showing how angry she was.

He decided to make amends. He decided to apologize, he knew he had to make things right. He stopped by the cloth-store that evening to buy something for her. He wanted to do it right, he felt he should replace the bra he tore. So he got her a beautiful lace bra. The bra did the magic. She loved it. He had never seen her eyes glow so much. She didn’t say much, but smiled sheepishly; ‘that’s my baby’ he thought to himself …she shows her excitement in absurd ways.

He was glad he bought the bra; it became a symbol of strength during the next few years. It became a binding force between him and a woman he deeply loved.

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The doctors said his baby was dying. They told him she was suffering from Stage II Breast Cancer. He couldn’t understand the medical jargons they were feeding him with. They said it was a rare medical condition, especially as she was still a very young woman. It was like he was in a haze. His head was jammed, his thinking was clouded, and his eyes were blurry and misty. At that moment, he stopped being a man, as he broke down in tears. They cried for hours. ‘Why would this disease pick my wife, out of millions of others to ravage her body’….he wept in pains.

The next few years pushed them to their limits. He saw her grow frightenly pale; he saw her loose the glow that was once her makeover. He saw her fight every day for her life.

She always looked at him with pity, in her little thoughts wondering why he would be cursed with such bad luck.

As each day passed by, the battle got tougher. He prayed to his God, he cried…everyone came around to support, but it was all in vain. Her body wasn’t strong enough to cope with the demands the treatment placed on it. She gave in to death on one morning.

He was in the room when it happened. The doctors shooed him out. They thought he would make trouble. They were wrong; he had no strength to mourn. He had no will power left of him. He just wanted to walk down home, lie on the bed and never wake up again.

Two years, two years fighting an enemy and the battle was lost. She was gone, gone forever…gone forever.

EPILOGUE

He got a call from the Doctor that there was a piece of fabric found under her pillow and that according to one of the regular nurses who treated her, she always demanded that the fabric should never be removed from under the pillow.

He went to the hospital to pick up the fabric; HE went to the hospital to pick up a black lace bra….the same black lace bra. Tears rolled down his eyes uncontrollably.

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#NoBraDay

Early Detection is the key to fighting Breast Cancer!