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From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Blessing Chimereucheya Onwughara, 29, is from Uratta, Umuoha, Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area of Abia State. Growing up, Blessing had it rough and tough. Born out of wedlock by a poor farmer-mother, she had a limited formal education.
After primary school, Blessing decided to learn a trade in order to eke a living. She learnt to sew clothes and became a seamstress.
Blessing told this reporter that after she was done with her cloth-making training, she rented a shop at Amaekpu Isiahia, in Isiala Ngwa North of the state, where she began to ply her trade. According to her, she was doing fairly well in her profession when she suddenly fell sick early last year.
Blessing said, initially, she thought the ailment was the usual typhoid and malaria sickness, which is common in the country. However, to her surprise, as days turned to weeks and weeks into months, instead of getting better, the sickness worsened.
So, it dawned on the lady that she was in bigger trouble than she thought. She had been hit by an ailment that not only affected her health in the most devastating manner but could have also turned her to a societal nuisance.
Daily Sun ran into Blessing at a healing home in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of the state. Looking healthy but home-sick, she narrated her ordeal to the reporter.
She said: “My mother gave birth to me out of wedlock and the man that was responsible died when I was still very young and the whole burden of raising me up rested on my mother, who was a farmer in the village”.
On what brought her to the home, Blessing said: “I was sick early last year. Initially, I thought it was typhoid and malaria and started treating them locally.
“As I was taking medication, instead of getting better, the sickness was getting worst. At a point, I began to experience strange happenings in my body. I was unable to recognize people and things anymore.
“The thing got to a point where I was unable to recognize anything in life again and all of a sudden it turned out I became mentally deranged.
“At times, I would have money on me, I wouldn’t know when I give all out and it became so bad that I was unable to sew clothes anymore for my customers. Life became unbearable and miserable for me.
“I had a shop at Amaekpu Isiahia. But when the sickness started, I had to relocate to our house, until the matter became worst. At the height of the sickness, I never knew what I was doing. Sometimes, I would be discussing with someone and be talking incoherently. At times, I would be giving people money and throwing away the money remaining in my hand.”
It was under such debilitating conditions that Blessing was taken to the healing home in February 2022, after she had been taken to other places for medical attention, without success.
As God my have it and through His mercy, Blessing was by June cured and declared fit to go home.
“I was brought here since last year February, and by June of the same last year, I was cured and declared fit to go home,” she said.
Blessing has been cured, discharged and desires to go home, but more than one year after, she is yet to leave the place for her home. There is no money to pay her bills.
She explained: “Though I have been completely cured and discharged, I could not go home because of the medical bill, which is N400,000 that I have not paid. I have been here for over one year now because my mother could not raise the said amount and nobody has come to help me”.
Despite what she is passing through, she was all praises for the owner of the home who she said treated her all the while without asking for any cash deposit.
Efforts to reach Blessing’s mother to find out why she abandoned her daughter at the home for the past one year proved abortive. However, a women who claimed to be a relation to Blessing and who spoke under the cover of anonymity said what the family has able to raise is N50,000 and called for assistance.
Blessing,who said she wanted to go home and be useful to herself and society again after her escape from the jaws of death, is appealing to the Governor of Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, and other well-meaning citizens of the state, as well as corporate organizations, to come to her aid by paying the medical bill so that she can go home and reunite with her people, since God has completely healed her.
Blessing wants any donation for this purpose to be sent to these account numbers: 3019115642, Akasike Vitus Emeka, First Bank, or 1445622211, Chidera Okechukwu, Access Bank. Blessing could also be reached on 09123890046.
