A couple of weeks ago I was in Ikorodu. I wish I could say it was a vacation (gosh I really need a holiday where I just lie down, do nothing, stroll, go shopping, get waited on hand and foot, now I'm digressing), but it wasn't a holiday. My Dad was scheduled to have an eye surgery and I was the designated driver, bell boy and handyman for a 3 day period, lol. Not that I was complaining, but it's just so ironic that no matter how feminine I get, I'm still the boy in my family.
I however made sure that before running out of the house I tucked my 600D into my backpack. For some reason, I knew that I wanted this Ikorodu trip to be different from all the others. I definitely didn't want to be sitting and worrying the whole while.
The only updates I could do were on Instagram and directly from my iphone.
These were the first the moment we settled into the room
After posting the pic on Instagram, I whipped out my camera and decided I wanted to see the blue skies in HD.
This was the first picture I took. It was taken from the bathroom window. I never thought such blue skies could be found in Nigeria and was ecstatic to think that perhaps I had actually been led to take my camera along for the trip.
My first try at capturing the sunset. Not sure I did a great job of it though. I sneaked into one of the unoccupied rooms in the hospital to take this as there was no way to see the sun set from my Dad's room.
I did a lot of fiddling to get it - resting the camera on the window ledge, adjusting the settings countless times, trying manual zoom when auto zoom didn't quite work out. Finally I got it. When I saw the motion blur a light bulb went off in my head "aha, that is how all those dreamy pictures are taken" and I promptly forgot the settings I used to achieve it.
The Second Day
I stepped out to the balcony of the hospital and apparently the sun rises from there. I tried to capture blue skies like the day before but got a jumble of clouds instead and this grainy image on my iphone.
I then decided to wait for the sun to come out and oh was I amazed.
the sky darkened and the sun was slowly but steadily rising behind the clouds. I gasped. It was such a beautiful sight and my camera did this sight no justice at all. The mix of blues and oranges, teh cloud pattern *sigh*
I waited for just the right moment and BOOM! there it was - bright, beautiful, blinding but glorious.
I was glad to see the sun that morning though. It was the day of the surgery so there was an under current of tension. My Dad's sugar level hadn't gone down despite over 40ccs of insulin and they didn't want to give him too much 'cos they had done that the last time and had to give him sugar cubes during the surgery.
It started raining right before they came to take my Dad away for the surgery and stopped for a bit.
Then began again about 3 minutes before the room door opened and they were done.
It was a miracle really and my entire family gives God all the Glory. I'll tell you -
Normally the surgery is about 45 minutes to an hour but it took over 2 hours for the surgery. We prayed from the moment my Dad left the room till they opened the door to bring him in after the surgery. During the prayers, the Associate Pastor leading suddenly asked that we pray for the cataract to come out of my Dad's eye. Normally, it seemed strange but we prayed all the same. Later on when my Dad was telling us how it went, he said there was a time the surgeon had to force out the cataract but it just refused to budge. He had to tell her to calm down, they waited 20 minutes and she poured the solution that loosens again before it came out.
What else can we say if not God at work?
The Third Day
The next morning was still a bit dreary because of the rain the day before but still beautiful.
We were scheduled to leave but with my Dad's sugar level still in the 200s, they said no and we had to stay an extra night....which cost more money that we had planned, lol. But there was no way we were rushing off when the hospital hadn't cleared a patient who just had surgery.
With my new lease of life for video, I did one just to say thank you to everyone.
The Last Morning
With my new lease of life for video, I did one just to say thank you to everyone.
Social Icons