I had a friend who usually fell sick in our first year at the University.
His mother had recommended one prayer house for him, where he went on endless fasting and prayer at least twice a week.
He told me he began falling sick when he got admitted into school and moved to the hostel.
His mother believed that his uncles in the village didn't want him to go to school.
He believed it too, especially when a prophet said it in one of the prayer night he attended once.
One time he fell sick, he could not move, so we took him to the school clinic.
Some tests were conducted and some medications were prescribed for him, but he was still ill.
He was then advised to visit the teaching hospital and see a professional doctor.
By this time he had gotten so lean and worn out.
He cried a lot and even told the doctor that his relatives were after his life because he got admitted into the school.
The doctor looked at him and laughed.
He asked him the last time he went to a hospital to do a routine check-up.
As it were, he had never done so.
The doctor told him no one was trying to kill him, he told him what's happening to him is as a result of the change in environment.
He told him it would take time for his immune system to adapt to the current environment, all he needed to do was maintain good health habits, drink treated water and use mosquito nets to sleep at night.
In three weeks, my friend became strong and healthy and never fell sick again.
Our cultural and religious backgrounds have over time sustained our beliefs in the fallacy that illnesses can be orchestrated from unseen covens and witchcraft.
If you ask a typical Nigerian today, when they last went for a checkup, they will laugh.
Some of them fall sick and assume it's malaria, they saunter into a medicine shop and get malaria drugs and think they are safe, when in truth they are not.
The human body is very delicate and vulnerable, if trees and animals could fall sick and die, how much more humans.
A tumor may have developed in your brain or any part of your body unnoticed, and then one day you slump and die, if you are young, it'll be concluded that you were bewitched and killed by someone when it's a health-related case.
Normalize checking in with a Doctor from time to time.
Your health should be paramount.
Your job would be useless if you are dead, so find time to rest and exercise.
Eat fruits and drink plenty of water.
Live healthily.
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