Nigeria
Warm Wishes and Recent Efforts (January 1, 2024)
Happy New Year to our friends and donors, particularly those who continue to support our work through prayers and encouragement. Gauging by how 2023 went, I can predict that our support of medical missions in Nigeria in 2024 needs to persist to lessen the burden of medical and surgical illnesses. Due to that necessity, we continue to live out that primary aspect of our vision including sponsoring medical trips to Nigeria starting in Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.
We just participated in a mission to Akwa Ibom State in collaboration with the Ikot Eyo Development Association in Diaspora and the World Surgical Foundation. We are grateful for the privilege of participating in this excellent charitable medical initiative. Additionally, we were able to donate materials to the Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria in Akwa Ibom State to support their free cervical cancer screening program.
MWAN-AKS president, Dr. Ekaete Mbatt, expressed gratitude for our generosity while recognizing the importance of the cytobrushes, disposable speculums, and multipurpose latex gloves to their conducting of screenings. She further made mention of her desire for MWAN-AKS and the foundation to continue to work together for the sustenance of community health.
Instances like these are why your donations are vital. Thank you for your continual support, and a well and joyful 2024 to you and yours.
Sincerely,
Itoro E. Ibia, MD Executive Director
Mental Health Awareness
How Does One Continue to Live On? (June 14, 2021)
That is a question that I have asked myself just about every day after the sudden death of my husband, Ekopimo Ibia (Imo) five years ago. I have had to wonder and ponder about it a lot because I had never considered my life without him before his death. I had known him and been with him all of my adult life till he died thirty two years later. In my psyche, whether good or bad, we seemed almost fused together. It was difficult to think about myself without thinking about him as being part of it. The more I have thought about it, the more I have come to see that I am learning anew the process of continuing to live every single day without him.
The most unhelpful way to handle a situation like this is to allow oneself to feel helpless in the grieving process and potentially think that there was nothing one can do to support oneself and family who are going through this. Research and my personal grief journey shows there are some simple strategies that are helpful. I wish to share this with you in a way that fits with the general theme of using our loss and grief of Imo for the greater good—just like Imo would have done.
Understand what you’re going through.
The first step is to update your understanding of grief, and bust some long-held and unhelpful myths. For instance, there’s little evidence suggesting we always go through the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—made famous by the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler. Despite how well-known this framework is, bereavement researchers agree that the five stages model needs to be retired. They argue that it is too simplistic and does more harm than good, by making grieving people think these stages are common and then they judge their own experience if it doesn’t fit.
Grief is as individual as your fingerprint; it looks different for different people.
Just as every life is unique, so is every death and every person’s journey to assimilate that loss into a world where their loved one is no longer present. It is also important to know that when a loved one dies suddenly, loved ones are left to cope with symptoms of trauma as well as the grief of the tragic loss. This is a double whammy because one then struggles with both the grief of losing a loved one as well as the trauma of the very tragic circumstances surrounding the loss. In my case, I recall that my husband’s medical condition caused multiple syncope attacks with cardiac arrest. Because everyone knew that I was a physician, I was never asked to leave the room while he was being resuscitated during these episodes. In the heat of the moment, I did not think to leave either. For months thereafter, I had to work through the replaying of these very traumatic scenes in my head with the help of a psychotherapist.
Talk, talk and talk about it.
Talk about your loss and tell your story but only when you are ready. Do this without judgement, with the help of a therapist, trusted friends and even as part of a guided group like a grief share—a Christian church-based grief group. In using these settings, you are less likely to encounter the ignorance that many express in their comments in their attempt to be “helpful” after your loss. This is because “a central process in grieving is the attempt to reaffirm or reconstruct a world of meaning that has been challenged by loss,” explains Bob Neimeyer, the leading researcher on the role of meaning-making in bereavement. Neimeyer’s work has demonstrated the importance of meaning-making through talking for adapting to the loss of a loved one over time. Talking through what has happened, going over the “event story” and the “backstory”—sharing details of the event and how much this person meant to you with a trusted friend—is an instrumental part of meaning-making. If someone you know is grieving, it is better to just give a listening ear and let them talk. Many grieving are usually desperate to tell the story of their loss. Avoid the temptation of forcing the person to talk if they are not ready but keep the invitation open by letting them know that you will always be available when they are ready. Resist the temptation of telling your own personal grief story except they ask you about it.
Build a legacy. Create simple rituals.
This is something that we can all do when we lose someone we love. Take some time to intentionally reflect upon their legacy by asking yourself these questions:
What did your loved one teach you?
How has knowing them changed you?
How has your thinking or acting changed for the better for knowing them?
What impact have they had on your life?
How do you behave differently now because of their life and also because of their death?
How can you commemorate that? What can you do to keep that legacy alive?
I remember that I refer to Ekopimo Ibia Foundation as “my mourning project” because it has helped me immensely to continue Imo’s lifework of service to other people. It has incorporated his work in pediatrics, infectious disease and public health as well as our faith and my work in psychiatry. It is uniquely ours and has helped me make meaning of the loss as well as provide comfort that I am continuing his legacy in every way that I can. The loss of my Imo has made my family and friends a priority in my life over anything else. Who knows when the good Lord will say my time on earth is done? Legacy building does not have to be as complicated as starting a charitable foundation as I have done. One can also go about it in less formal yet more personal ways. In our family, we do things Imo liked to do: Our sons wear bow ties for formal Ekopimo Ibia Foundation events, I think about Imo whenever I cook his favorite Nigerian soups, Edikang Ikong and Efere Ndek Iyak. I even imagine what he would have said as he ate.
I keep our unique family traditions going. I have a walking trail that is uniquely Imo’s “long and short route” depending on how many miles he thought fit for the day’s walk. There are many other deeply personal rituals—too numerous to mention. I am sharing some of these to help you out there who may have lost a loved one, so that you know that there are uniquely personal ways in which you can keep the legacy of your loved one alive.
One thing is certain, Imo would have wanted us to delight in continuing to do good to as many as we can in as many ways as we can. Like he used to say, “be like a postage stamp, stick to your envelope till it is delivered and your job done.” We are doing just that with our new mental health talk series to minority and faith-based groups.
Sincerely,
Itoro E. Ibia, MD
Executive Director
Sources
1. Lucy Hone, PhD, is an adjunct senior fellow at the University of Canterbury and author of Resilient Grieving: Finding Strength and Embracing Life After a Loss that Changes Everything and the TED Talk 3 Secrets of Resilient People, one of the Top 20 TED Talks of 2020.
2. Robert A. Neimeyer is the author of Meaning Reconstruction & the Experience of Loss.
3. Joe Kasper, MD, is the author of the concepts of Co-Destiny, Positive Bereavement and the Bereavement Growth Cycle.
Fundraising
Impact Often Requires a Plan and Communion (June 20, 2018)
On June 9, the Ekopimo Ibia Foundation kicked off its monthly fundraising effort—in preparation for its next mission in November—by holding its inaugural Bow Tie Charity Gala in Herndon, Virginia. The philanthropic event was attended by approximately 100 friends and family who shared Ekopimo’s love of hanging out with comrades, bow ties, and charitable work.
Attendees told stories about how Ekopimo’s life and work affected them personally and professionally, learned a few dance steps from the Nazu African Dance Company, and also listened to several presentations about the plans the foundation has for sowing into the lives of communities in Nigeria and here in the United States.
One of the key highlights of the occasion was a presentation by Dr. Asuquo Inyang, a board member of the foundation. Dr. Inyang discussed the need for the foundation to host and participate in missions, and how without them many impoverished people who need basic medical care would never get that essential help. Another board member, Dr. Nsa Henshaw, shared a rendering of a preliminary vision for the foundation’s future efforts to champion the introduction of cervical cancer education and prevention—using the HPV vaccine. The health burden that is cervical cancer is highest in the countries, including Nigeria, who do not offer the vaccine as part of their adolescent immunization schedule. Ekopimo was a pediatric infectious disease specialist and would have willingly gotten behind these goals.
Even though the foundation is focused on participating and contributing to as many medical missions as possible, it hopes to serve in other capacities. Free physicals and surgeries, dentals, basic ophthalmology and gynecologic services, and health education are a few of the things the foundation hopes to offer moving forward. But that’s not all. Many of the foundation’s plans are very much in the idea phase. These plans include supporting and mentoring minority students in a high school-based physician scientist training program, teaching various communities about rare diseases, and introducing the complex and often overlooked nature of mental health to community and faith-based groups in an attempt to increase awareness and fight its stigma.
Some of the foundation’s ideas will require a lot of faith. There is so much good to be done in the world, and everyone affiliated with the foundation is keen on helping it become a catalyst for bringing this good to bear for more than deserving souls in Nigeria and here in the States. Making an impact like this is what Ekopimo spent his life doing, so in his honor, the foundation continues.