Rising Above: Lucy Mueni’s Tale of Courage and Grace

I don’t know about you but from where I am stationed, I’m in a seasoned weather basin, trying to adapt to the ever-changing weather moods. Today is a really cold morning, the coldness seeps into the room like an evil spirit, trying to freeze my body. So, I pull up my blankets and curl into a ball, well aware that my back could start aching in the process. It’s in this position that I reminisce on how I got here.

If you were to ask me, seventeen years ago, where I saw myself in ten, maybe twenty years, I would have masked my face with a smile and gladly answered, “CEO of my own company.” I was young and ambitious then (don’t get me wrong, I still am). Puberty had already knocked and I was on the cusp of womanhood. I was an intelligent (still is) and a vivacious girl full of life.

I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was on a sunny Saturday afternoon in December 2006, when I lost my balance while cleaning and fell. Falling is a normal thing, most of us have slipped and fallen at some point in our life. But my case was different, I didn’t know it by then, but a few months when hell broke loose is when I knew that that wasn’t an accident but the first sign of impending paralysis.

The hospital visits were met with the wrong diagnosis, with some doctors even speculating a minor fracture on my spine. All the painkillers I swallowed and the injections were useless, instead of getting better, I got worse. Accidental falls happened too frequently to be referred to as accidents. Within a month, I could hardly lift my leg and within three months, I couldn’t walk but depended on the steady hands of my father to carry me.

It was at this point, that an MRI revealed a tumor compressing my spine on T7-710. The solution to this problem was a surgical procedure.  Even though the surgery was successful, healing was a painfully slow process. I spent the better part of the year 2007 at the hospital. I was a KCPE candidate but I barely made it to school for the most part. Though weak, tired, recovering, and having acquired a limping gait, and had to use a walking stick. I sat for my national exams and when the results were out, I knew that despite the setbacks, I was a born winner.

The spine is a conglomeration of very delicate bones that you do not wish to mess with. You can have a broken tibia, a dislocated hip, or a shattered humerus and still get back in shape (don’t get me wrong, these injuries are as painful as they can get and are a pain to heal from) but nothing comes close to a spinal injury. Just one small mistake or accident and you are in serious trouble. That is what I found out in 2018, almost twelve years after the surgery when paralysis began to slowly relapse. It was as if time had stopped and everything was moving back in reverse, back to when I had the first fall.

I didn’t understand at first. I was, at work. I had graduated and was now a certified hydrologist. For those who are unfamiliar with the field, this job involves lots of fieldwork, and somehow at the back of my mind, I knew I chose this career because I always wanted to be on my feet. to not be confined in a chair, a bed, or an office.

At this point, I was in denial, it was real, my legs were weakening but my resolve was intact. I wouldn’t give in to paralysis. I was determined to fight till the end. But what happens when instead of it getting better it only gets worse?   I felt at the very lowest, it was then that I started questioning everything, why this was happening to me, what I had done to deserve such kind of torture. I searched for answers day and night, looking for something to calm my reasoning. Everyone wishes they could have done things differently and I wished I could time-travel back into the past, but even if I did what would I have done?

Being back at home put me in a pot of mixed feelings. The negative side of it was losing my complete mobility and I can assure you that it is one of the most heartbreaking feelings for a person born without any disability. The positive thing about being home was that I was closer to my family. Here, I fought to stay sane (This we shall talk about on a different blog) and I did, one thing though, it wasn’t easy.

Fast forward to 2021, some good friends of mine with whom I graduated from campus paid me a visit at home. Afterward, they started a movement to help me walk again. All along I had been sensing that somehow the problem with my spine could be fixed if I had proper surgery. I was taken to the Brain and Spine Rehabilitation Centre (BSR) in Parklands in Nairobi for preliminary diagnosis by one of the most experienced neurosurgeons in Kenya. After an intensive checkup with modern medical apparatus, the surgeon discovered a scar on my spine. A decade-old scar.

Apparently, during one of my earlier surgeries, a tumor had developed on my spinal cord and the doctors who had operated on me in the consequent surgeries failed to completely remove it from my spine. Over time, the tumor increased in size and eventually blocked the relay of information to my lower spine. That is how I came to lose my ability to walk in 2018. According to this experienced neurosurgeon and contrary to popular beliefs, my paralysis was not due to the fall alone. The doctors had messed up with my spine, and that had been the genesis of all my problems.

The news was a psychological blow that hit like a punch. Imagine failing a national exam and you can’t retake it a year later due to obvious reasons. Then a few years pass and you discover that you failed not because you did not work hard enough, but rather because the examiner made errors when marking or grading your work. Hurts, right? Now imagine something similar being done to your body. I bet you would find it easier to forgive the examiner than the doctor, right?

I was furious. I wanted to sue the doctors who had operated on me before. They had removed my spinal discs and left my spine exposed.  As a result, the scarring was exerting pressure on my spine and the unremoved tumor fragments grew and exerted pressure on the T7-T10 section. Those doctors deserved to be punished and their medical licenses revoked. My anger only stopped short of wishing them bad things in life. I am a person of remarkable compassion and I have always believed that two wrongs can never make a right.

I had reconstructive surgery to try to repair the mess the doctors had left in their wake. When the surgery was over, I was surging with a new ray of hope. Perhaps this was the big break I had been praying for. That the terrible agony I had endured when I was paralyzed would soon be a thing of the past. How wrong I was. So far, healing has been a mirage and this whole ordeal has been a nightmare that seems to have no end.

My faith that things will one day be okay and my desire to be undefeated has been my biggest strength. To deal with a situation like this, you have to have an unbroken spirit. You have to accept things the way they are instead of trying to live in denial and be in a constant fight against things you have no control over.

So how does it feel to be a paraplegic? No proper life, no fun, right? Wrong. Being a paraplegic does not define my personality or mean that I’m permanently miserable. I still enjoy life and exude a zeal and sense of humor. Disability, as they said, is not inability. I am capable of doing so many things and that is because I refuse to be defeated. My spirit remains unbroken, and that is the most important thing in my life.