It was around midnight. I was fast asleep like every other child should be. Suddenly, I was jolted awake by screams from the sitting room. Something in those voices wasn’t normal— it wasn’t the usual noise of adults talking or scolding. This was panic. Urgency. Fear. I rushed out of our room, and there they were—my parents and a few neighbors gathered around my baby sister. She was just about 8 months old. Her tiny body was stiff, jerking uncontrollably. Everyone was shouting suggestions at once.

“Hold her down!” “Put a spoon in her mouth before she swallows her tongue!” “Get onions! Squeeze it into her nose!” “Put her legs over the fire—she’s cold!”

The noise was deafening, the chaos overwhelming. But what struck me most was that everyone was so sure—so convinced that those were the right things to do. Nobody knew what was really happening, but nobody wanted to be quiet either. As a child, I stood there, frozen. Something deep inside me—something I can’t even explain—was definite that everything they were doing was wrong. I didn’t have the words or the confidence to speak, but I knew they weren’t right. We later found out she had suffered a febrile convulsion—a fairly common condition in infants when their fever spike. In fact, if they had not interfered, her outcome could have been better. But what happened instead was a tragedy. The well-meaning interventions caused injuries that led to months of hospitalization, costly treatments, and eventually… her death. We lost her.

My little sister. And I lost something too—my innocence. That night, I became someone else. I didn’t just watch my sister suffer—I watched helplessly as ignorance cost her life. I made a vow that night. I didn’t say it out loud, but I meant it with every fiber of my being: I will become a doctor. I will make sure no child ever dies like this again—not on my watch. That painful night planted a seed in me, and this book is one of the fruits. Every page, every chapter, every word is written with her memory in my heart and with the hope that one mother, one father, one family will read and make better choices—so their child gets to live, thrive, and grow.

Then, I was shocked! I got into medical school and began to see that my story was not unique; I witnessed many other avoidable tragedies—young ladies getting rhesus sensitized and never being able to conceive babies ever again, children dying from simply growing new teeth, miscarriages happening in women treating malaria, healthy babies sleeping and dying in their sleep, and so many very odd experiences. What seemed like routine cases to my colleagues and teachers, were to me, deep personal stories of frustration, confusion, and pain—mostly caused by a lack of clear, accessible health information. Families were losing too many women and children to conditions that could have been prevented if people simply had the right knowledge. That realization birthed the desire to write a compelling book that is completely relatable to a non-medical reader, covering all common issues from singlehood through pregnancy to parenting.

That book is now here—My Family Companion. It is rich with real stories (shared by real people) of common issues that affect young sexually active singles, medical insights for choosing sex and marriage partners, tips for having safe pregnancy and deliveries, how and why babies get sick and die, including healthy ones who simple die in their sleep, and how to prevent these or what to do in strange scenarios, and so, so, so much more that will blow every readers mind.

My very senior colleague, who has done extensive health work across the world, read the book, and this was his review:

“As a doctor

As a writer

And just as a person

My Family Companion is simply the best, most relatable, ‘medically non-medical’books I’ve ever read.

Wow!”

—Dr. Val Oje