The First Week in Hospital

On arrival at Mwaiwathu, Rev Chienda was dripped with quinine and with glucose, to ensure that he was covered for malaria and that he was receiving adequate nourishment. He remained unconscious throughout most of the day, until late in the night when Professor Wirima ordered that he be fed via a tube instered through his nostril. Almost miraculously, he came round in the middle of the night and began to speak.

The following morning he was able to recognise the people that visited him and would enter into simple conversations with them. On Saturday, 16th April, Professor Wirima order a head scan (ultra sonic) which was conducted at the same hosptial. The scan results were taken to Dr. Kampondeni's clinic in Limbe the following day for interpretation, and it turned out that he had bled in the brain, as a result of hyperternsion.

These results confirmed Professor Wirima's suscipicion of a stroke. However, he (the Professor, that is) was hopeful that the released blood would get absorbed into the body fluids by natural processes. After all, the bleeding had taken place in the brain's ventricles, leaving the actual brain tissue untouched.

On Saturday, 16 April, my mum tried to persuade the patient to take some food, and his response was, "These are visible objects which do not represent the reality. The reality is Jesus." After some time, he went on to say, "Everything that you do, whether it is offerings or whatever, must be grounded in God's word. It is God's word that is the sure foundation for everything."

The following day, 17 April, he could still speak with those that came to see him. When he saw family members during the evening visiting hour, he said to my youngest sister, Tertia, "Can you tell everybody the real purpose of this gathering." She tried to ignore him, but he kept demanding that someone should "in a nutshell state the purpose of the gathering." One of the ladies present was Mrs. Gareta, wife of the late Rev Gareta, who had been a very close family friend. She responded by stating Psalm 23, reciting the entire Psalm, as the purpose fo the gathering, and he noded his head, apparently in approval.

After the visiting hour, I stayed with him for the night. Noticing that everybody had left, he said to me, "Are you the one that disbanded the group?" I responded by telling him that the visiting hour had expired. After a brief, quite moment he spoke to me again, saying, "Do we have 'Ife Timakufunani' in Chichewa (in reference to Hymn No. 30 in the Chichewa Hymn Book)?" Then he went on to sing the first verse of the hymn in local tune. Afterwards, he became quite and stayed quiet all night.