Popular Nigerian filmmaker and actress Abimbola Craig, best known for her work in ‘Skinny Girl in Transit’, opened up about the challenging recovery process she went through following brain surgery in 2014.
She revealed her initial doubts about surviving the surgery in a candid discussion.
In a recent YouTube video, Abimbola Craig shared details of her journey after doctors discovered and removed a brain tumor.
Unfortunately, she faced unexpected complications post-surgery due to adverse reactions to pain medication.
She said:
“Four days after the surgery I started feeling weird but I couldn’t explain what it was that was wrong with me. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep and I also started losing my appetite and started losing weight.
I thought maybe it was the strong pain medication I was on.”
Upon researching the side effects, Craig realized she was experiencing insomnia, hallucinations, and depression.
The hospital allowed her to switch to a less potent pain medication, but by then, she had already lost 10kg.
Craig recalled a particularly excruciating procedure she endured after her surgery, the lumbar puncture. She said:
“I remember my last visit. I was still throwing up so much that Mum tried to reach my doctor but couldn’t.
At this time I was doing a lumbar puncture, I had 4 that day. Lumbar punctures are like spinal taps. So they tell you to bend and take fluids from the spine and the reason why they did this is because they still didn’t know what was wrong with me so they thought I had meningitis.”
After conducting tests, It was discovered that she had simply contracted malaria during her visit to Nigeria.
She was immediately treated for malaria and was on the road to recovery.
Abimbola Craig continued:
“10 years after my surgery, I am alive. I am healthy and doing things I never thought I’d be able to do again. I thought I was going to die, not even from the brain surgery. It was during the period of the lumbar puncture, not sure if I had meningitis and all. I literally thought I was going to die.”
