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>***The Scorpion***

I knew something serious had happened when I heard him call ***Inya,*** our native language way of calling a woman dear to someone. 
Immediately he struggles to make his way into the house. Hubby fondly likes to call me *Inya* when We are about to have some serious conversation or when I offend him. Only that this time something tells me that I haven't done anything wrong.

Hey babe, welcome back, how was work today, I responded with all the courage I could summon. 

*Work is fine but I'm in pain.* Could you believe I was bitten by that thing today when I branched to inspect the crops at the farm? I struggled a lot before I made it home tonight.

With his voice failing him and strength eluding his reach, he slides onto the sofa and lies down facing the ceiling.

I looked into his eyes, and they were as red as burning charcoal. Without him telling me, I could already guess what had bitten him.

A few months back when we found a scorpion at the back of our home, he told me a story about how the painful poison from a scorpion bite had made him incapacitated for three days many years ago.

When he relays this painful experience, I pray he never has to experience such again due to how excruciating it sounds. Or worse, it bit me instead. 

But today it seems like that prayer was not answered or perhaps God is trying to teach us an effective way of curing the scorpion's poison. 

I touched his skin and it seemed like life was sniffing out of it, his temperature was as high as it could get.

![IMG_20220512_090809_576.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/funshee/23uQxocbHJwhrqiP5Uf3xtQjGSUSDbC1LsbMkoYJv72Lyp657ncGbTzgFnZ1cigzrQAZf.jpg)

Were you bitten by a scorpion? I asked just to confirm my suspicions.

*Yes, and worst I was not able to kill it as it escaped before I could find a stick or something.*

But are you sure you saw it? I just had to ask. I never thought that a bit from Scorpion could make someone so miserable in a very short while. 

I have been bitten by them before a couple of times and I didn't feel a thing, some say I was just lucky that they never passed through any of my veins.

They may be right, as the one that bit him was exactly on a big vein on his leg and this might cause the poison to circulate through the blood very fast.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it was a scorpion because I saw it clearly, if I hadn't seen it I would have doubted it. 

That's what I needed to hear, to be sure of what had bitten him. I dashed out of our house to talk to our next-door neighbor and seek help from them as I had no idea of what to do to make his pain disappear.  And it broke my heart to see him in such pain. 

>***The search for a healing and the lucky part***


Immediately I relayed what happened to our neighbor, a very wonderful family we are so blessed to have as a neighbor. 
She told me of the leaf we could give him for the pain to go away and luckily for us, it was available in a house two blocks away.

I ran as much as I could, grabbed some of the leaves, and returned home while praying in my heart that it would work as effectively as I was told. 

Coming back to the house, I gave him some of the leaves for him to chew and swallow the juice while I collected the shaft and put it at the site of the bit, as directed by my neighbor.

Less than ten minutes later, he said that the pain was gone, and in a twinkle of an eye that was how he escaped from the painful experience. 

>***An unexpected discovery***

The following morning I was very curious about the miracle leaf that saved my family from a night that could have turned into a horrible nightmare and when I enquired from my neighbor, they told me it was a moringa(Moringa oleifera) leaf. 

![IMG_20231116_142957_897.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/funshee/23tSgyw8hUQjKBe3PpkNiPR7r6MPvVbhvrV8XYMWRrJbeH8JbfvE62FCEtHDS4AktxRtH.jpg)

I heard so much about the great health benefits of the moringa tree (Moringa oleifera)  in early 2019 while I was still in Lagos. Every Tom and Jerry was very much interested in having it then as an in-house plant but I paid very little attention to it. And now, due to this healing experience I had with it, a few weeks back, it has become among those medicinal plants that I love, and cherish very much.



>This is my entry into this week's [creative nonfiction prompt](https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@theinkwell/creative-nonfiction-prompt-60), in The Inkwell community.

  <sub>All Images are mine, taken with my Tecno Spark 8 Plus</sub>


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