"I Have Been Living Without Kidney For Three Years" --Emma Ugolee

Following the death of Nollywood actor, Muna Obiekwe, last Sunday,
after a protracted battle with failing kidney which finally gave in on
Sunday, an air of gloom descended on the industry, prompting many to
question their lifestyles and warning colleagues to do the same.
Tributes began to pour in for the deceased, just as colleagues
exchanged messages of love, sharing the loss and embracing in a sombre
camaraderie that only could come from losing a dear one.

Amid the tears, the sobs and sheer disbelief is a man who must feel
the loss than most people. Not because he is a kin or of same family
with the deceased but because he suffers from the same ailment from
which his colleague has just passed away. To him, death is never far
away. He had come close to seeing it many times but has always won.
The man is Emma Ugolee, former on-air-personality.

"Too many phone calls last night only with everyone just checking to
see how I was doing. It all made sense when news filtered in that Muna
Obiekwe had just died from a disease I've battled for over three years
now. The general concern being the psychological impact of being
reminded of the likelihood of one's demise owing to the
unpredictable and deadly nature of living without a kidney," he
recalled his experience a night after Muna's death.

"For closer friends, aware that I had lost 10 associates to this
struggle. Three being in the last Three months and that each one lived
with issues less complicated than mine. Calling me was like checking
up on a pal on death row," he observed somberly.

But Emma Ugolee, as much as he may see himself on death row, isn't
sitting helplessly, expecting the hangman to come with the noose. He
has hope and he shared it with colleagues:

"Now it was time to return the calls and assure every single one that
the unfortunate event is no reason to lose faith," he said

"It's no proof that I must toe a similar line. That I am not holier
than those whose journeys have ended and thus wise enough to
understand that logic does not explain the sustaining power of grace.
The fact that a pattern surrounds you, does not mean your future has
been moulded by it. Your faith, your vision, aspiration and motivation
must tower above your environment all the time. What around you shakes
your faith in you? What around you weakens your resolve to try? What
tempts you to want to conform? Nothing, should be the only answer you
know," he counselled.
--Vanguard