Nollywood actor Lanre Afod has opened up about surviving heart failure twice, describing how a doctor’s blunt words left him in tears and how his brother’s wife later stepped in to keep him alive.
The younger brother of Kunle Afod shared the story in an interview with actress Biola Bayo on her Talk to B podcast. He said he faced death more than once and lived to talk about it.
“I faced death twice. I saw death like this. I’m telling you, I’m a survivor,” he stated.
Lanre linked the illness to heavy energy drink use. He recalled that actor Ricardo Agbor walked in one day and warned him the drinks cause heart problems.
“He walked in and he told me it causes heart problem. It was like a month after that the sickness started,” Lanre said.
He added that he is now firmly against energy drinks because of what they can do to the heart.
The hardest moment came in hospital when a doctor spoke to him without softening the news.
“He said you are dying. I burst into tears,” Lanre recounted.
He admitted the words scared him even though he thought he knew God.
Family and friends surrounded him. He credited his elder brother Kunle Afod, relatives including Nikki, mama, sister Bola, and several cousins for standing by him. Actor Allwell Ademola was also among those who reached out while he was ill.
After he left the hospital, Desola Afod, Kunle’s wife, made a practical promise that helped him stay on treatment.
“She just told me, she said ‘for as long as they give you the option to, you should be using your pills, that’s what will make you use your medications. I’ll be buying it’,” Lanre recalled.
He described her as an angel sent by God.
He has since recovered by sticking to his medication and drawing on both the Bible and the Quran for strength.