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PY Zimughan-Ogunbajo, 13 NIIT Road, Yenagoa (2026)

02/10/2022

Still celebrating Nigeria 🇳🇬

Shoes & clutch from Poshpavilion

28/09/2022

Permit me to share a personal story.

🙂

One experience that never leaves me and makes me appreciate the never-ending love and mercies of God, is an incident that happened to me as a Corper at the Nonwa Gbam Tai camp, Rivers State in November of 2011.

One fateful morning, on the 3rd day of camp, I had an asthma attack. It was so bad I had to be whisked out of the camp in an ambulance with a corper doctor to accompany me to the Braithwaite Memorial Hospital (BMH) in Port Harcourt.

In the back of that ambulance I could barely breathe. I kept struggling and reaching for my face to remove imaginary "cobwebs" that were forming around my nose and mouth. That was how it felt at the time.

I remember the look on Dr. Ugona's face as she sat with me in the back of the van; she was really light skinned and I saw her face turn red with obvious fear. There was also uncertainty in her eyes but she managed to mask it with smiles and small words of encouragement.🙂💛

I also remember feeling my breath leave me- it was a struggle. Then at some point I'd beckoned on her to please rub my palms for warmth; they were cold. She touched my feet and same, then she shrieked with fright and called out to the camp commandant who had joined us in the ambulance, but sat at the front passenger seat, "find any hospital here in Eleme, we won't make it to BMH...we won't make it to BMH, we need oxygen now! Please, any hospital...we need oxygen."

I was afraid but was too tired to mutter any word. I could only say a prayer in my heart, asking for God's mercy and to not die.

Glad to say we were in luck as the ambulance driver soon located a private facility and I was immediately admitted and placed on oxygen.

We all thanked God.

Dr. Ugona could finally breathe down, my family had been contacted and my older cousin living in Port Harcourt, was already on her way to see me.

I soon became stable and was taken off oxygen, then I remember sleeping afterwards.

Later that evening, Dr Ugona would leave me to go back to camp with the ambulance and my cousin had gone back home to pack a meal or so, but then the devil struck.

The male nurse on duty was ending his shift and had decided to check on me before leaving for home.

I remember I was uneasy at the time because he fiddled with the IV flow regulator briefly and I also remember feeling he was just "showing himself", but I was too tired to say anything to him. Instead, I had just laid there watching and mostly grateful for life as I'd been at the doorsteps of death only hours ago.

Barely 5 minutes after he left, I'd started to wheeze again and very badly.

I couldn't call for help, but a lady whose daughter had just had a baby and in another ward, heard the sound of my breathing and ran to mine, only to find me struggling and gesturing for help but with no words forming.

By this time my chest heaved as I struggled to control my breathing. She rushed to me, touched my palms, they were cold; my feet, same.

She then started rubbing on them for warmth however she could, then screamed for a doctor or a nurse. She had yelled with everything in her that day; she just couldn't let go of my palms.

A young lady nurse soon rushed into my ward, but seeing me, she went into full blown panic mode. Next I heard was, "oh God, not on my shift. God not on my shift. Patient will not die on my shift."

Wawu!

I kept using hand motions to call for her help, but nurse kept praying and circling in one place.

The patient relative with me was saying stuff like, "nurse, call the doctor... don't stay here like this na... please do something...where is doctor?"

Nurse sha managed to respond that the doctor had stepped out and continued the drama of, "not on my shift."

Seeing that help was not forthcoming, the lady with me rushed out to phone the doctor.

Thankfully, he was not far away and quickly rushed in to my ward. However, it was shocking for him as he met the nurse still circling at a spot and saying, "oh God, not on my shift."

I remember seeing a visibly angry doctor, followed by questions as to why the nurse didn't first reach for the oxygen mask which was lying right next to my bed.

It all happened in seconds as the doctor at the same time had quickly put the oxygen mask on me and reached for the infusion set on the drip stand. He then asked who had tampered with the IV flow regulator and the other lady with me replied that it was the nurse who just ended his shift.

I remember the doctor telling the nurse that a patient could just have died for something that would have been avoidable.

Long story short, the IV fluid was meant to go into my body really slowly. The busybody nurse who had to show he was working even at close of his shift, came to increase its flow (perhaps so it finishes quickly, without knowing he had set on a mission to kill me).

Why am I relieving this story today? I saw a video, where a father was lamenting as he had lost his son to medical negligence.

His broken heart was evident from his voice in the video. I heard the father say the last words from the little boy were, "daddy, my heart!" 😓

My own heart broke into several pieces. The pain of losing a child is not something that can be explained.🥺

Many times I've imagined what it would have been like for my parents to have come to Eleme to receive what would have been their daughter's co**se. The pain would never have passed.

This story again has reaffirmed my concern for our healthcare system especially in the face of present realities, losing some of our best hands to 'japa'. May God help us all and may we never be victims of unfortunate events such as this.

May God heal the hearts of the grieving parents of the deceased little David and grant his soul eternal rest. Amen.

-PYwrites
(C) 2022

14/08/2022

So, I should have dropped the conclusion to my last post, but I got really busy and ended up putting it forward.

Here goes👇

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Our thoughts soon become our words, consciously or unconsciously. They go on to become our actions and then progress to become our character.

Again, guard your thoughts!

📌"Be very careful about what you think. Your thoughts run your life."
-Proverbs 4:23 ICB version.

📌NIV says above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

When jealousy is allowed to fester and take root in a person's life, it's almost always difficult to come out of it. In the end, it self destructs its host.🚫 🔻

Truth? There's really no need for it because the people you might be jealous of may have only just reached their breakthrough after years of mistakes or they may have put in serious work to arrive where they now are.

They may be struggling seriously in other areas, or just like with the story from my penultimate post, they could be wishing they were you.

📌It's always best to be genuinely happy for others in their happy moments and put in the needed effort to get to your peak.

Gratitude, contentment, kindness and a positive sense of self worth will help us combat jealousy.

All of these helps love thrive and there's no greater feeling than living a life of peace, devoid of heaviness in your heart.

It's best for your mental health too.✅

THE END!

Do let me know if you found this post helpful.

Happy Sunday lovelies!🤩❤

-PYwrites

10/08/2022

I'm thinking of what to write today and then it hits me, lets talk about jealousy as an emotion. ✍

⚠️One of the things we must really guard against in relationships is jealousy.

These relationships could be with our friends, associates, siblings, partners, neighbours, colleagues at work...just anybody!

We may think it's impossible with us but jealousy is an emotion that can quickly build.

It's so strong that once a window opens up, it can quickly take root and begin to grow with great speed.❌

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

As much as you try to be a better human, be intentional about the thoughts you internalise, the energy you absorb and the things you wish for in the next person.

I strongly believe that people do not always go into relationships with the aim of destroying (I've had to doubt this a lot of times though); it's mostly the windows they opened that allowed in the wrong kind of emotions and vibes then soon they become the people to guard against and "pray" out of all our lives.

Guard your thoughts.‼️

A harmless win you chose not to celebrate but rather compare can be the very first window to invite in jealousy and its resultant effects.

A sudden break for another that you chose to imagine they've left you behind, can be that window.

A shaky situation that eventually finds a balance and leaves you upset can be that window.

A promotion at work that came from hardwork and commitment to growth can become that window.

A new job, a raise, new house, new car, vacation, new baby, even successful japa... just anything can create that channel to invite in jealousy that takes root; before you know it you are plotting evil or you're consumed with passion and hurting yourself.

(To be continued in another post; it's a lengthy piece). Sha let me know if I should drop the continuation or I should carry my wahala and go.😅

I'll be glad to read your thoughts on this.🙏❤

-PYwrites

05/08/2022

A friend shared with me once how she had visited her married younger cousin in Port Harcourt and the cousin at the time had four kids, two boys and two girls. She was a great mum but had stopped working when she got pregnant with her last baby; she couldn't cope with her 9 to 5 and family life. She however did a bit of freelancing whenever she found the time and then had hopes of going back to complete her masters degree which she left halfway into marriage and childbearing.
🔻
My friend at the time already had two masters degrees and a doctorate. She had an amazing job, a nice car and cozy apartment and longed to be married someday.

She told me she thought her cousin was doing really great and that she admired her cousins strength and was unsure she'd do so great as a mother when she eventually had her own kids. She went on to share her challenges with finding the right partner as most of the men she met were either intimidated by her academic qualifications or just felt she was desperate.
🔻
Funny thing was how she admired her cousin and longed for the kind of life she had, while the cousin admired her and wished she held off marriage and childbearing and completed her educational pursuit before ticking those other boxes.

We had a good laugh talking about the imbalance of life and man's insatiability.
🔻
Reminiscing on this memory the other day, it struck my mind how we all have our seasons. Sometimes we win early, record successes and big stories early on in life but it's not so for everyone.
🔻
For some others, it has to be years of mistakes or struggles or pain or regrets, disappointments, trials and even no wins all together. But then, boom! One day there could be a comeback, a turnaround, a moment of reawakening and then a race that leaves the individual with no window of looking back.

However we look at it, just like in the story I shared earlier, both people won.
🔻
Some people will have to leave high school, go right on to be intentional about every stage of their lives, maybe because of their contacts and experiences or sheer determination; while some will have no experience of life, having enjoyed soft landing from home, meet a harsh world, make mistakes, sometimes not even mistakes but make choices that may in the future seem to stall or tarry their growth in their own eyes. They may end up thinking they have failed or are slow but what's certain is that they have made progress too even where it feels like they haven't.
🔻
It's the reason why one person goes right on from university to pursue a masters degree and then on to a PHD, land a great job and then keeps on winning from then on, while another pauses after university, gets married, starts a family, maybe pauses for a while to build same, records seemingly small wins and then it looks like they haven't really done much with their lives. Disappointment soon sets in and then depression in some cases because of the overwhelming feeling of them having failed.
🔻
I just want to remind you if you're feeling low because life seems to have stalled or slowed down because of family, work, mistakes etc etc, that you are doing a great job, regardless.
🔻
We all have different times and seasons in life and we cannot all be at the same place at the same time. There aren't any timelines to success. Once you set up to thrive, you can. Sometimes, the one you admire for having "arrived" is still in need of something you have or wish certain aspects of your life were theirs. Some other times they also wish for their own next big thing.

📌Breathe!!! You're doing just fine where you are. Just believe and don't give up. You got this!👊

-PYwrites

22/06/2022

🔴I promised to drop the continuation of my last post. I'd hoped to do so before now but the week was packed to the teeth.💯 This adulting matter, we really need to review it. Phew!😅
🔴
So so so, back to the gist... There are ways to make things better to ease that overwhelming feeling when you begin to tip to the edge of depression or you actually find yourself there.
🔴
As I said in my last post, you will be doing yourself the most favour when you know that it won't get better in one day. As with most healing and recovery, baby steps are vital. You will burn out if you burden yourself with guilt over trying to get it right in one day, so breathe and trust the process.
🔴
There will even likely be bouts of slips here or there. So while you could feel or truly be in high spirits one day, the very next you may be overwhelmed beyond your strength. It is totally expected so don't sweat it and beat yourself up for it.
🔴
Some of the sure ways to cope with depression or totally overcome it are:

1. Speak up. Sharing is therapeutic so long as you're doing it with the right person, your mood will lighten and you will feel lots better. Sometimes the overwhelming feeling is because you've magnified many things in your mind. Those little liars in your head - the voices you hear - just continue to weigh you down and feed you lies to keep you in a perpetual state of sadness.🗣🫂

2. Declutter. There's peace that comes with a clear space. Many people attest to the fact that decluttering helped clear their minds too.💭

3. Regular exercise. Just like decluttering, exercising regularly helps you cope and frees up your mind in more ways than you imagine or know. It could be brisk walking, jogging, dancing, swimming, cycling and so on, for say 10 minutes.🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏌‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️⛹🤾

4. Meditation. Breathe, dear friend, breathe. You deserve the peace that meditation brings.🧘‍♀️ 🧘‍♂️ 🧎‍♀️🙏

5. Psychotherapy. There's something beautiful therapy does. It may come with a price but it is definitely worth it.✅
✍

6. Gratitude. This one takes a great deal of intentionality. Once you make gratitude a habit, it brings a certain joy from within that's mostly never there when you become overwhelmed with worries and anxiety. Gratitude makes you see newness and beauty in just about everything. An easy way to do this is to keep a gratitude journal. This way you get to document something you are grateful for on a daily basis or whenever you find the time to journal. Once you start this, you will find that in the midst of great chaos and worries, there's beauty you still see around you.🤩

🔻🔻Caveat: This is not an exhaustive 'list'. I have just dropped very few but what I consider helpful points.🔻🔻

⚠️⚠️I must warn though; by all means PLEASE avoid drugs and alcohol when you're feeling low.❌❌ These will worsen the situation in many ways. Sadly, a lot of people see drugs and alcohol as the go-to solution when overwhelmed. It however does more harm than good.😥
🔴
Stay safe and remember to BREATHE! You're doing great.😊💪

PS: have you got any more helpful suggestions? Kindly share in the comment section. 🙏

-PYwrites

15/06/2022

Wouldn't it be nice to just turn off a switch when you're low and in your feelings? I bet you'd kill for that.😊

🔴

Sadly, depression does not work that way.😫 Hearing someone tell you to snap out of it or that someone has it worse won't make it go away.🤧 Not even an overdose of laughter during the day will automatically tune off these feelings when you retire to your bed at night.😥🤢

🔴

Still, it's possible to not only cope with depression, but beat it. 🥳💪

🔴

⚠️⚠️One way to view this is to accept the fact that it won't get better in a day. You can't just wake up and "snap out of it."😵 It's like hoping to wake up and snap out of malaria or a cancer without any help❌ Hehe. No, no, no!

♦️♦️To be continued.♦️

08/06/2022

What price are you willing to pay for your mental health? Are you placing a premium on your mental health?

To be mentally healthy is by far one of the greatest treasures you can have right now. It is not selfish to put your mental health and even your overall health first with intentionality. At the moment, we need to be mindful and intentional about the things we consume especially from the media.

What are you feeding your mind and intellect with? What are you listening to and even actually hearing right now? There is so much going on; so much that’s just enough to disrupt one’s mental space that it will be extremely risky to not protect one’s mental health at all costs.

The cost of any illness is expensive. We can argue that it may be expensive to take care of our perfect health, sadly though, it is even more expensive to ignore it and attend to our health when it is failing or has failed completely.

************

When life deals us several blows, it’s easy to breakdown from the weight and remain there. It would certainly be better to not get there at all. However, when it does, credit must be given to all those who have been there and have come out of the struggles and are now enjoying a stable mental health. They sure deserve accolades because that’s a mean feat achieved. A lot of people will not get back up on their own and sadly, so many people just continue to slip farther and farther away from there. We may never know when or if we will breakdown hence the need to be on our guards.

**********

This post is to remind you to be intentional about your mental health. Guard it however you may know how best to; cherish it; love your peace and do not let anything rob you of it. If you hate how you feel on the few days when you have a flu or a fever, then the feeling of having your mental health disrupted for even a moment is better imagined than actually felt. This is because you may never really manifest symptoms until it becomes an emergency and considering the stigma and even secrecy surrounding mental health concerns in Nigeria, it may not even be easy to realize a problem or seek solution.

Please, seek help and talk to someone if you feel a certain way. There’s always someone to listen if you can share. There’s just so much that people are dealing with right now and we could use each other for support. To be honest, right now, so many people understand.

So again, are you placing a premium on your mental health? I said I should ask you, yes YOU!

-PYmusings

08/03/2022

In line with the theme for International Women's Day, 2022: 'Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow', I join women the world over to advocate for inclusiveness.

The world will be a better place if we break all biases and collectively as well as intentionally work towards seeing people as humans, irrespective of gender, race or religion.

The solidarity you can show to women today is your choice to break the bias around you.

To every woman out there, you are beautiful, loved, vivacious, stunning, remarkable, amazing, smart, awesome, kind, brilliant, magnificent, gorgeous, resilient, charming, sweet, adorable; you are ENOUGH! Happy International Women's Day to all you amazing QUEENS out there!

02/04/2021

Good Friday!

Today, each year, I'm reminded of the great sacrifice Christ made for my redemption. On this day I am reminded of the truth in Galatians 3:13. For ease of reference I have reproduced below (extended to verse 15):

"13 But Christ has bought us out from under the doom of that impossible system by taking the curse for our wrongdoing upon himself. For it is written in the Scripture, “Anyone who is hanged on a tree is cursed” (as Jesus was hung upon a wooden cross).

14 Now God can bless the Gentiles, too, with this same blessing he promised to Abraham; and all of us as Christians can have the promised Holy Spirit through this faith.

15 Dear brothers, even in everyday life a promise made by one man to another, if it is written down and signed, cannot be changed. He cannot decide afterward to do something else instead."
Galatians 3:13-15 TLB. (TLB is a very easy translation and I love the simplicity of how it captures Galatians 3).

The overwhelming depth of love and undeserving sacrifice one man made just so I can share in the joys of redemption. I'll never be able to understand the depth or the motive. Glad God does not even expect me to understand, He just wants me to bask in the love and enjoy the richness and goodness of that blessing His son made for my redemption.

Yesterday at mass, I reflected deeply on the journey to the cross. I tried to make sense of it, tried to rationalize the love even with our failings as humans - in reality there was hardly anything. But just as adoration began, I beheld the most blessed sacrament and the tears flowed freely just as I pondered on the overwhelming love of a father. I realised in that moment that God knows man will never be able to please Him totally, He knows that I for one do not deserve His mercies, but He's just God. It's His nature. He is love; He is faithful to the promise(s) He has made; My sacrifice does not activate His love for me; He'd be God anyway! It's left for me to appreciate that deep sacrifice and do my bit to please my father. God wants me at my best just as He wants me and indeed everyone of us even at our worsts. All we need do is to keep trying and to keep showing up wherever or however we are.

*********************

I'm reminded each year on Good Friday that in my unfaithfulness, just as He promised, He is forever faithful. Times may be tough, the promises may seem unreal, the sacrifices for some on this day are at best unrelatable, they feel empty and unloved, life may have no meaning or at least there is not much to look forward to. It is understandable. Heck! It takes almost an idiot to believe in the existence of a supreme being he has never seen. True! For those of us who have been lucky enough, we may not have seen physically, may be unable to explain to the next man but then we have believed because we have heard and we have encountered the surreal presence of that supreme being. If it makes me and the rest idiots, it's something I know for sure that we are proud of. Some people are idiots for carnal love and they are doing just fine abi?hehe.

Well, my message today may just be for someone struggling to believe- in life, in themselves, in the next person, in love, in the great sacrifice altogether. One thing is for sure, God gives everyone of us graces, we are sometimes aware but sadly a lot of times many are unaware and thus suffer in pain believing they are not as lucky. The beautiful thing about God's promises is that it only needs to be activated by faith- even in the smallest measure. Sadly, in ones lowest moments, the hardest thing to do is pray or exercise faith. But we have hope in His promise that His grace is sufficient for us.

I wish that you are reminded of the overwhelming love of the father especially today; I wish that you find meaning in the sacrifice on the cross of Calvary; I wish that today you experience peace and comfort through your struggles and challenges, that even when it seems there is no hope, you will be reminded of the overwhelming tender and unending love of our Father and His nearness especially through your struggles.

For everyone struggling at this moment in whatever way- pain from grief, loss of any kind, failing health, TTC couples, relationship challenges, mental health troubles, financial struggles, job, school... etc etc, rest assured that you have been ransomed and it has been ratified by the finished work on the cross of Calvary. God sees through your struggles and He's taking the walk with you. He will surely meet your deepest needs and desires. Be assured also of my love and sincere prayers at this time.❤️

- PY Zimughan-Ogunbajo
(C) 2021

Image: Google free images

27/07/2020

We need to be kind to others. We may never know what the next person is dealing with. Sometimes the trigger is "little". This is the sad reality of our world today. Where lies our humanity? This is yet another death that should never have happened.

😢

PY Zimughan-Ogunbajo

02/10/2022

28/09/2022

14/08/2022

10/08/2022

05/08/2022

22/06/2022

15/06/2022

08/06/2022

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02/04/2021

27/07/2020

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