Twenty-three-year-old Isaac Mwesigye views himself being alive today as a miracle. Having spent his childhood in-and-out of hospitals, the worship leader and musician at Divine Grace Church, Ndejje, says his mother’s prayers was the only rope on which his life hang until his eventual miraculous healing. He narrates his ordeal to Lilian Ntege.
Conceived after eight years of childlessness, Mwesigye calls himself a miracle child.
“I am a miracle child. God has given me a second chance to live. He also gave me voice and I am so glad to use it for His worship,” Mwesigye says.
As we chat, Mwesigye was calm and composed. You would think he did not go through what he describes as hell.
With full confidence, he could not stop talking about God’s power in his life.
He says his mother told him that he caught pneumonia at birth, which put him in coma for six consecutive days, before he could get better.
As he grew up, doctors could not understand the cause and treatment of his strange condition.
Mwesigye would get burning headache, lose consciousness and faint any moment. At times, he would get paralysed and not walk.
When he started school at two years, afternoons were a nightmare. He used to get severe headaches, and at times pass out.
He endured this until one time on his first day in primary seven when he fainted and lost consciousness for long.
“Everyone thought I had died,” he says.
After gaining consciousness, he realised he could not stand or feel anything on his legs anymore. Paralysis had struck!
“It was such a traumatising moment. I was walking well, then out of the blue, I could not walk anymore,” he says.
His mother took him to a clinic in Zana trading centre, before he was referred to Mulago National Referral hospital.
Various tests including CT scans were done, but they still could not reveal the exact problem. He was eventually referred to a neurologist, who recommended a leg massage.
His mother always fasted and prayed for his healing because she believed since doctors had failed to diagnose his illness, God was the only option.
They spent three months in hospital. They could have even spent more time had he not started walking again.
Getting worse
“I had thought this was the end of the sickness. Little did I know that I was going to deal with it for some longer time,” Mwesigye says.
He always fainted while at school. This robbed him of happiness in his childhood.
“We would go to hospital for months, then recover, go to school, then fall sick again. It was like a cycle,” he says.
At a certain point, his family got used and stopped taking him to the hospital.
The school administration also advised his mother to let him stay home until he was completely healed, but he insisted on going because he did not want to disappoint his sponsors.
With time, doctors realised that he had a brain disorder which was triggered by emotions.
Whenever he got excited, angry, afraid or stressed, he fainted and eventually got paralysed.
He only revised his books each time he was healthy, which was occasional.
“My life was so hard. These attacks worsened and every time I fainted, they thought I would die,” he says. “But my family did not give up praying.”
He sat for his Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations while he was on drip, with a standby doctor. Fortunately, he passed.
His healing
Mwesigye and his mother got into serious prayers and fasting, where they spent most of their time seeking God.
“We prayed so much and fasted. We also asked other people to join us as we prayed,” he says.
Meanwhile, he was still receiving treatment and therapy.
His doctors advised him to take time off school and move to a calm environment that was less triggering.
He moved to Rwanda while he kept in touch with his mother as they prayed.
He emotionally explains that “Eventually God came through.”
Last year (2021), he realised the attacks had reduced. Since then, Mwesigye has not fainted again.
He believes it was God’s power that healed him completely.
Advice
He encourages Christians not to lose hope in God, regardless of how difficult life can be. Life can change and God redeems all the time we think we already lost.
Mwesigye has dedicated his life to worshipping God because it is Him that kept him alive.
