Kiyingi after the bomb blast (L) Kiyingi during his three-month recovery at Mulago Hospital (M) and Kiyingi now (R). PHOTOS BY FLAVIA LANYERO.  

The nearly slurred speech is punctuated with a stammer; it makes listening to him a test of patience. And yet one year ago, Timothy Kiyingi was never like this. A bubbly university student, he spoke fast and freely. All this changed on July 11, 2010, when together with two friends, he went to Kyadondo Rugby Club to watch the football World Cup finals. He remembers that he sat at the back row and was enjoying the match.
Beyond that, he has no idea what exactly happened. “When I woke up I thought I was at home but the place did not look like home. All I could see were lights, the ceiling and doctors moving all over,” he tells me.
In coma
What Kiyingi did not know was that he had been in coma for a fortnight. He does not know how much relief and joy his family had the morning when he finally opened his eyes and began studying his environment—the Mulago Hospital Intensive Care Unit.
Besides the lights, ceiling and movements, Kiyingi also realised that his legs were numb, they could not move. He also had tubes strapped all over his head and occasionally picked out laments from those visiting, pitying him. But what Kiyingi wanted was not pity—he just needed someone to tell him what was going on. There was one problem though, Kiyingi could not talk and therefore could not get answers. “When I wanted attention, I shook a little and a doctor or relative came,” he says. “They could ask questions and all I did was nod. Many times, their questions never tallied with what I wanted. I got angry—but since I could not speak, I learnt to live with it.”
Live with it. That is what Kiyingi did for the following three months in Mulago—shifting from the intensive care unit to the general ward and later the private ward. He might be alive today but beyond the medical intervention, Kiyingi’s mother, Ms Catherine Mayanja, is convinced her son’s survival was a miraculous act, close to one of those Bible “resurrection” stories
When news came through of the bomb blasts, she says, they were informed Kiyingi had been killed.
Quickly, as some family members dashed to look for the corpse, others began the burial preparations. In fact, a tent was erected in the compound to seat mourners as they awaited his remains. “Nobody knew that Timothy would end up alive,” says Ms Mayanja, the head teacher of Nabagereka Primary School in Kampala. “Had you seen him after he was discharged, you would thank God. Even the consultant surgeon conferred with us that his chances of recovery were very low.”
You have to understand where Ms Mayanja is coming from. In what seems to defy science, for four hours after the blast, Kiyingi was not breathing despite efforts by doctors to resuscitate him. And because many people needed attention, doctors “set him aside” to attend to the more responsive victims.
As some doctors plotted to send “the corpse” to the mortuary, Kiyingi began breathing! All on his own! “This was God’s work,” says Ms Mayanja, visibly happy. “God had a purpose for saving Timothy.”
When he began breathing, Kiyingi was placed in ICU—his home for a month. It was here that he underwent a series of surgeries.
First, they had to remove shrapnel from his head—his brain to be exact. To cover the wound on his head, doctors sliced flesh from his thigh for this purpose. As this happened, Ms Mayanja endured the sight of two other victims dying in ICU. Only Kiyingi stayed on battling to live. “The doctors later told us that they didn’t want to scare us but they also didn’t know that he would survive,” she says with a deep sense of humility. “But deep in my heart I knew that the God who saved him then would save him now also.”
With some improvement, Kiyingi was moved to the general ward and later the private ward. It was in the third month at hospital that he begun to communicate through writing. He was discharged in a wheelchair, with his legs still paralysed. In January this year, Kiyingi underwent the final surgery where his hip bone was removed to cover his exposed skull. The operation was supported by Amref.
It has been tough sailing for Ms Mayanja, who says the family has spent on average Shs300,000 weekly to hand back life to their last born. But looking at her son’s recovery, no amount of money would worry her. The calm Kiyingi is now undertaking a certificate course at Katwe School of Business Studies, a course he says will enrich his CV as he waits to resume his Bachelor’s degree in Food Processing Technology at Kyambogo University.
After applying for a dead year last year, he can’t wait to get back to class this September.
Kiyingi says he is not traumatised, attributing it to the fact that he blackedout after the blasts and actually did not see a lot of mayhem. He also chooses to focus on the future, asserting that a sad past should not derail him. He also now pays close attention to faith matters. “I learnt to trust God because everyone who hears my story says God is great. I am puzzled why he put me in a coma and back to normal. I am still waiting for him to speak his purpose to me,” Kiyingi says, adding that he also learnt to appreciate his friends who were key in finding him after the accident and locating his family
Convulsions
He is not the perfect fiddle yet. Kiyingi suffers mild convulsions which make him shake profusely—in the process allowing a free-flow of saliva but with medication, which should last the next two years, he hopes to become his old self.
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