Why You Should Not Sit Through Long Flights

Mr. Funso was a well known researcher. His area of specialty was ornithology, and they were just four ornithologists in Nigeria. His work was well documented worldwide as he was the only one to have documented three new bird species in Nigeria. This meant a lot of travel and speaking engagements at bird conferences around the world.

He was an authority.

He was fifty four, more of obese than fat as he lived a lavish lifestyle which he could afford.

“You need to be more compliant with your medications, take your exercise seriously coupled with the lifestyle modification changes we recommended”, the doctor advised him. Hypertension can be a monster when you least expect it, and its worse when it is uncontrolled”

He had gone for his routine medical checkup.

The doctor continued, “You survived a stroke before and honestly, if it hits you again, you might not be that lucky. Here is your refill prescription” the doctor extended his arm.

“Thank you, doc,” he replied as he struggled to get out from his seat.

The next conference was in Australia and he was the keynote speaker. He was going to talk about the Red-billed Firefinch Lagonosticta Senegala. He had booked his tickets way ahead of time and contacted his colleagues to find out if they were also attending the conference, but it turned out that he was the only one attending from Nigeria.

It was a long haul flight as Australia was very far, and he slept most of the time during the flight. He only woke up to eat the inflight meals that was served, and he made sure that he ate everything. He enjoyed the meals and wine. Flying business class sure came with some of its perks.

“Are you not going to walk around? You have been seated all day since we took off from Nigeria.”, the man beside him asked.

Funso looked at him, smiled and said, “Don’t worry sir. I am fine”.

“Ok, if you say so”

Dele extended his hands.

“By the way, I am Dele Martins”

“I am Funso Bamtega” Funso replied.

Dele’s eyes widened.

“Are you by chance the ornithologist?” he asked.

“Yes, I am” Funso replied.

They got into a long conversation about birds. Funso became pressed and made to use the restroom. He ended up spending more time as he had the urge to also defecate. He flushed and came back to his seat. His breathing seemed a bot faster than normal which Dele had noticed.

He coughed once.

Then again and then again

Dele threw him a look and wondered why Mr. Funso was sweating like this.

Then Funso coughed up blood and at the same time cried out.

“My chest! My chest!”

The air hostesses came around and luckily, one of them had some training in medical emergency management, and quickly commenced him on oxygen. The pilot had to perform an emergency landing at Perth International Airport, and he was rushed to the nearest hospital where treatment was commenced.

He was diagnosed of pulmonary embolism. In seconds, a thin flexible tube went into his thighs and up to his lungs where the blood clot was extracted. He was subsequently discharged after strict counselling.

Originally published on twitter from my handle @ronikpe with the hashtag: TalesOfDrRon

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