New Telegraph

Our lives, our pains: The struggles of physically-challenged Paralympians

A marriage with a physically-challenged partner comes with its difficulty but the trial is almost unimaginable when both partners are suffering the same form of disability. That is the fate of Shade and Tolulope Taiwo, who despite their disability, chose to enjoy marital bliss and used their infirmity to project the image of Nigeria in a positive way.

Fate brought them together in their pursuit of excellence for their Fatherland; they are both Paralympians who have used their power and strength to win laurels for Nigeria. Shade had a similar story path to grief and later to greatness with her husband; she was not born with disability like Tolulope but stroke of luck and quackery in the health sector changed their course of lives. Shade was healthy until she was three when she was hit by a dreadful disease, polio; her parents’ attempt at tackling the disease ended in fatality as she was wrongly treated which resulted in her permanent incapacity.

“My mother told me that I had polio when I was three-year-old; she took me to a hospital where I was given an injection but instead of getting healed I became deformed,” she said. Taiwo, the husband recalled: “I wasn’t born with any form of disability. I am the third child in a family of seven.

My older and younger ones don’t have disabilities. We were all born in the northern part of the country. “According to my mother, when I was seven years old, I was affected by polio, which was made worse when a nurse injected me wrongly.” They both had different course they intended to pursue in life following their deformity and at the beginning, sports was not in the picture. Shade went to study Computer Graphics after she left secondary school but was introduced to table tennis and later powerlifting where she has become world record holder on two occasions. How did these two couple meet? Tolulope provided the answer when he said,” It was a funny thing that we ended up as a couple. We had always been friends because we do meet at national competitions.

“She represents Plateau State while I represent Edo State. I am very free with the ladies and as a result of this, I am close to many of them. In 2011, we met again at a national competition and I engaged her in a conversation. “During our conversation, she left me to receive a call, which took her a long time.

I then asked myself, ‘what have I been waiting for that I haven’t spoken to this beautiful lady about marriage?’ When she returned, she apologised for taking my time and I jokingly asked her who it was. “She replied that it was her boyfriend. I then told her that I would like her to be my girlfriend. She laughed and thought it was a joke.

I never left her since then and she eventually accepted and we’ve been together ever since. “Before the 2012 Paralympics, she told me she was pregnant. I was happy because I wanted her to be my wife. So, after the Games in London, we got married.” They so much love this country that she encouraged his wife to compete at the Olympics even while she was pregnant and Shade even broke the world record in the process. For a couple who are physically-challenged, it is interesting to know how they manage their day-to-day lives. Their engagements as national and international athletes have not been quite rewarding financially. Even more than most of their abledbody counterparts, these physically-challenged athletes have found life a bit difficult in terms of coping with parenthood and meeting their financial obligations.

“There are a lot of challenges,” Shade said. “In our five years of marriage, we have two children – boys – who are healthy. The first one is four while the other is almost two years old. “Taking care of them could be very challenging on its own given that both parents have disabilities but I have some relatives staying with us, which has helped to ease the burden. “Financially, it has been challenging as well. I do not earn salary from Plateau State but my husband does from Edo State which is not enough but we are grateful to God for His mercies. Another challenge is that of training. “From our house in Ikorodu to the stadium in Surulere, Lagos, we spend more than N1,000. If not for the Bus Rapid Transit policy, which gives people with disabilities free rides, it would have been more.

We really need help to ease these burdens.” They are more worried about the neglect of people with their conditions not only by the governments but people across the strata of the society. The couple would never think about resorting to begging to make ends meet; they believe in hard work to realise their ambition but begged the government to support people with their kind of conditions. They believe specific programmes geared towards uplifting their lives could encourage more of their kind to aspire to become responsible citizens of Nigeria despite their deformity.

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