Raila: The night I went into surgery

Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Friday spoke for the first time of the anxious moments before a head surgery that kept him out of office for a month.

He revealed how he looked his wife Ida in the eye before the surgery and told her he was at peace with himself if that was to be his last day on earth.

That was minutes before doctors wheeled him to the operating theatre at Nairobi Hospital on the night of June 28.

Mr Odinga, who had instructed his staff and doctors to provide the public with regular updates of his condition while in hospital, recounted how his condition was initially diagnosed to be malaria before other tests confirmed he was suffering from pressure being exerted on his brain.

The PM was addressing an audience of some of the country’s top medical brains, aspiring medical doctors gathered for a lecture by renowned American brain specialist, Prof Anne Osborn.

With a touch of humour, he informed the assembled doctors and students that he had attended the lecture not in the capacity of a Prime Minister but as a patient.

In Lecture Theatre Three at University of Nairobi’s School of Health Sciences, he recounted his journey before, during and after his illness.

According to Mr Odinga, what had started as simple headache persisted prompting him to seek medical assistance.

“I was prescribed with anti-malarials but the headaches persisted.”

At one time, Mr Odinga said, a friend suggested that he could have had a problem with his sinusitis.

“I consulted an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and was told that I am fine.”

At one time the headaches subsided only to return two days later forcing him to take a battery of painkillers to ease what had become nuisance headaches.

“I would take two painkillers in the morning, two at midday and another two in the evening,” he told an attentive audience.

And with six tablets a day for two weeks, Mr Odinga said the headaches did not subside and he decided to seek medical attention at the Nairobi Hospital.

Upon examination, he said the doctors were concerned about his health that they could not allow him to go home.

“Even after the diagnosis of the chronic subdural haematoma, I asked if I could get a second opinion from another doctor,” Mr Odinga said jokingly.

The Prime Minister said it was tough for the doctors to release him to go home given the medical findings from the CT scans.

Asked whether he had injured his head, Mr Odinga narrated that he had hit his head while in the car though the pain was momentary. But it was no easy psychological task for the legendary Agwambo to go under the scalpel.

The doctors took him through the condition that he had been diagnosed from and the treatment plan, including surgery and recovery.

Surgery to take 40 minutes

The surgery, he had been told, would take at least 40 minutes to relieve the pressure.

“Before I was wheeled into theatre, I looked at my wife and told her if this was supposed to be my end, so be it,” Mr Odinga remembers the last words he uttered to his wife Ida before the surgery.

After this brief conversation, the Prime Minister only remembers waking up in the Intensive Care Unit four hours later before he was transferred to a private ward.

“I woke up to the same room where my sister-in-law had been admitted a week earlier,” he said.

He emphasised that the health of leaders should not be hidden form the public as it leads to unnecessary speculation.

He recalled that world leaders like former US president Bill Clinton, who kept the Americans abreast on his state of health.

“There is no secrecy in sickness.”

Mr Odinga envisioned Kenya becoming a country of choice where people would tour the country in search of medical treatment, otherwise known as meditourism.

Meditourism describes the rapidly-growing practice of travelling across international borders to obtain health care.

“We plan to equip the major hospitals in the country with state of the art equipment as part of Vision 2030,” he said.

Prof Osborn is a distinguished professor of radiology at the University of Utah and is one of the world’s most prominent neuroradiologists.

Prof Osborn is a household word among radiology residents around the world, who praise the quality of her lectures and describe her as a woman who lives in her own timezone due to her dedication to nurture doctors interested in the field.

The 67-year-old don is a celebrated researcher and doctor for creating awareness on the linkage between HIV/Aids and the brain.

“HIV and Aids is a public health concern worldwide but its manifestations, especially in the brain, can be quite different depending on the environment it presents.

Prof Osborn in her research goes ahead to describe the relationship between drug resistant TB in a HIV positive person as “a deadly intersection,” especially in poor countries where the cases are on the rise.

Neuroradiology is a medical subspecialty that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of brain, spinal cord, head and neck using x-rays, magnetic fields, radio waves and ultrasound.

Neuroradiologist are physicians who have specialised in the field and have undergone rigorous trainings and fellowship under the supervision of trained neuroradiologists.

Kenya has only one neuroradiologist though there are general radiologists trained at the University of Nairobi.