Thread by @merynomsa

I'm so heartbroken💔, I'm so angry. My cousin died today in a hospital queue in excruciating pain waiting to be served. It isn't only how he died, but how he lived that breaks my heart to think of & is hard to accept. Even as I spoke to him on the phone in that queue, I didn't...

Think it was his time to go. Coz how is it that life could be so tragic for him & end just right there! How can life enslave him to a chronic illness for all his adult life in a country like ours #Zimbabwe & just give nothing back to his last breath. I have to tell his story...

My cousin Thokozani was an amazing human, a tall gentle giant in his prime about to finish his teaching diploma when he fell ill. He was diagnosed with kidney failure & with all that shock & no explanations he had to start living on dialysis just to be alright.

As a family we knew nothing about this & learnt a lot about the plight of chronic patients in #Zimbabwe Thoko needed galons of meds for dialysis that could only be bought in Harare & you can't imagine how expensive they were. Our hosps are in a state, patients even have to buy

Their own dressing even a drip...imagine needing life saving specialized treatment on a weekly. Not to mention he would get to #Mpilo our biggest govt hosp in #Bulawayo & find the machine isn't working or there is this or that problem. His life became hell in an instant

Thoko once had to be fitted with a fistula on his arm to easily connect him to the machines. It wasn't done well & his arm started to swell up uncontrollably until it was the size of a thigh. He was in pain, it was heavy, life was uncertain & new costs for surgery in SA

Were created for him as a result...when he was already struggling & in debt. He couldn't be helped in Zim where they had botched him. I remember feeling extremely helpless & convincing him i could get him help to raise the money thru crowdfunding. I took some pictures & we hoped

A campaign would help. But gathering up money & international payments in Zim at the time was so complex & virtually impossible for the ordinary person... we struggled. By the grace of God, his surgery finally happened and his arm & life returned to some form of normal.

Thoko struggled to finance his treatments, relatives struggled to take him on as a responsibility. One time he was so weak & in need, he sold his phone in desperation to pay for his next session. Through all of this, he was such a good & cheerful person.

The disease alienated him, dialysis takes hours of sitting & afterwards you're so weak & in pain. Some relatives' true colors began to show in how they treated him. A friend once lent him money to pay off his college debt (not a lot at all) & when he couldn't pay back promptly...

He lost his temper on him & it was so bad, elders had to be called to mediate & help him. I can't imagine how his mental health was, how alone he must have felt living a life like this. He struggled to get his teaching certificates coz the institution for some reason wanted to...

Only hand them out the next year... see he was desperate to get a job anywhere outside of Zim so he can afford his treatments. At this point he had a social welfare letter to help in subsidizing his costs but it was useless. When he finally motivated for his cert & permission...

To not be deployed in the rural areas on the grounds of medical reasons. He got a job & lived for dialysis. Until on Sat at 5am on his way to dialysis he got mugged for his phone & wallet...he fell & hurt his knees. They started to swell up & he was in pain he couldn't get thru..

His entire appointment. He couldn't move. He had to be carried & was in pain whenever he was touched, his whole body was in pain. Today he needed life saving dialysis & medical attention & he died waiting in line for hours. He was in so much pain I could hear it thru the phone...

Yet I was so hopeful coz that couldn't be the end of his life, better days had to be coming. He & I were working on finding him opportunities to leave that country. He wanted to change his life & study something that gave him meaning. He wanted to tell his story & advocate for...

People like him in Zimbabwe. He was hopeful each time that he's life, his suffering would be vindicated & be given meaning. But life is meaningless 💔
Do they know that in just taking a fragile man's belongings, they killed him? His hopes, his dreams, his cause,all he had fought

So desperately to live for
Today last year a friend died after a brutal stabbing. And today this year this happens. Life in it's beauty is just so tragic & ugly.

Thank you all for your love & support in this hard time. To hear about the shared traumas & the tributes to Thoko, I appreciate it 🙏🏽
I can't thank you all sufficiently, be blessed. Grief alone away from home is hard you all made me feel supported.
God bless ❤