Abimbola Craig, the Skinny Girl in Transit actress, has spoken out about the painful procedures she underwent following her brain surgery in 2014.
She stated that she believed she would die after the procedure.
In a new YouTube video, she discussed her experience after doctors discovered she had a brain tumour that required surgery.
However, the removal of the tumour caused a different problem. Craig realised shortly after the procedure that she was reacting to the pain medication.
Craig 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.”
After researching the medication’s side effects, she discovered that she was experiencing insomnia, hallucinations, and depression. After calling the hospital, she was allowed to switch to a less effective pain medication, but she had already lost 10kg.
Craig recalled a particularly agonising procedure she underwent following her surgery, the lumbar puncture.
“I remember my last ER 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 contracted malaria during her trip to Nigeria. She was immediately treated for malaria and was on her way to recovery.
“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.”
