I ( babyosisi) got to hear about this lady when a mutual friend sent me a link to her blog as she battled stomach cancer.
Like her friends I prayed and wished her the best but alas she succumbed to death last week.
May her soul RIP and may her family be comforted
All those who knew her personally spoke very highly of her
Gone too soon.
Nigeria has lost an intelligent woman
This is a tribute from the Huffington post written by Ademola Bello



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ademola-bello/folasayo-dele-ogunrinde_b_3304757.html

Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde, award-winning Nigerian writer, visual artist, performance poet, public speaker, filmmaker and actor is dead. She passed away in her home in Houston, Texas on Saturday, May 18 around 1:30 a.m. after a courageous and protracted battle with stomach cancer. She was 45 years old. She received treatment for stomach cancer from oncologists who are affiliated with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her brother Mr. Ayodele Ogunrinde confirmed her death saying she was surrounded by her 74-year-old father who flew in from Nigeria and other relatives when she died.

Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde was born March 2, 1968 in Lagos, Nigeria. She was the first child and an only daughter; she is survived by four brothers and both parents. Ms. Ogunrinde was a consummate artist who has exhibited her work widely in the United States. She performed solo with a live band or recorded music blending vintage Afro-folksy and Afro-jazz music, contemporary jazz or instrumentals with her spoken word.

After graduating with a degree in Animal Science from the University of Ibadan in the mid- 1980s, she gave up her career as a Scientist to pursue her innate interests in acting, modeling, writing and the visual arts. While studying at Ibadan, she was mesmerized by an undergraduate Theatre Arts student's production play she saw and it influenced her to switched career and write her first play as well. She is the author of a 1989 British Council/Association of Nigerian Authors award-winning play, The Woman With a Past (Heinemann Books, Nigeria). She is also a recipient of the Christopher Okigbo Poetry Prize.

But in the year 1995, Ms. Ogunrinde relocated to the United States where she pursued a master's degree in Animal Nutrition from the Iowa State University. She has a patented innovative artistic mixed media style in the United States. She is the author of Conversations With The Soul At 3:00 A.M. a collection of love poems and art photography. A performance poet, she had been captivating audiences with passionate rendition of this collection prior to publication. Her performance work balances indigenous musical and lyrical traditions from Africa with adapted influences from European, American and Asian sources, to reveal a hybrid expressive impulse that elaborates on issues of vulnerability and power.

Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde, was an engaging and provocative artist; she described herself as a divinely inspired artist. Her work also explored issues of domestic abuse, rape, and dominance-submission tensions in heterosexual relationships. She impacted so many people's lives positively. She was a very spiritual and devout Christian. The family has assured that her works will continue to be preserved and celebrated throughout the world.

A memorial service will be held for her in Corpus Christi Catholic church Houston, Texas on Saturday, May 25, 2013 before she will be flown to Nigeria for the final funeral rites.

Reviews from her work
This is from 2011

The Houston-based artist, Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde, recently presented two short films and two poems at UT Austin's Visual Arts Center to a crowd consisting primarily of undergraduate women (with a few professors and graduate students sprinkled throughout the audience). Her work for the evening explored issues of domestic abuse, rape, and dominance-submission tensions in heterosexual relationships. Her primary agent of confrontation was showing women who upset established power relations in traditional, male-dominated relationships. Her films were aggressive and disarmed the audience (I saw some women consistently shift uncomfortably in their seats while a few actually pulled scarves up to partially cover their eyes) with realistic, disturbing images of violence first against women, and then by women as a means of empowerment. It was this second theme that I found particularly problematic: for example, Dele-Ogunrinde's second film portrayed a woman imprisoning and raping a man while her second poem discussed ownership of her husband's penis (possession and objectification). Although I admire her work and found her to be an engaging and provocative artist, the short films and second poem do nothing to discuss an end to domestic violence or issues of human ownership in interpersonal relationships. The works merely show women who are now guilty of the very violence, possession, and objectification they fight to overcome. The result: the perpetuation of violence and human objectification, not its abolishment.

Dele-Ogunrinde's first film, The Woman with a Past, opens with a woman living in abject conditions, mirroring what the film tells us visually about her character. She is unkempt, dirty, drinking cheap alcohol from a bottle, and a cigarette quivers at her mouth and threatens to fall, unraveling the tenuous balance she has between life and death, misery and hope. She drags a child's toys from the lighted inside space of family and domesticity, now completely chaotic and strewn with litter and mess, to an outside space of darkness, both literally and figuratively. The inside and outside spaces feel suffocating as you watch the film while the camera focuses close on the woman, isolating her and preventing us from open space and air or an understanding of her environment. We feel captive. The woman then saturates the toys with her own vodka and discards of a final item: the picture of a smiling, baby girl.

The following scenes, which constitute the heart of the film, show the same woman, living with her husband who abuses her and blames her for not carrying on his lineage through the birth of a male child. He beats her repeatedly and rapes her as she falls into a tormented despair on her own bathroom floor, alone and isolated. The images are disturbing, painful, and difficult to watch.

Finally, the woman is back in her apartment we saw at the beginning, holding her female child. Her narrative voice envelops the audience, and we begin to understand a greater dimensionality to the woman's emotional response to her entire ordeal. She at once loves her child but also blames her for not being born a male. The child becomes a symbol of the innocent but guilty. At the opening of the film Dele-Ogundrinde discussed a problem in Nigerian society still prevalent today in which male children are favored over female children to the point where female children are emotionally discarded by their parents. The husband tortures his wife in his own pain but the film also alludes to the woman's own later abuse of her female child in a complex web of interplay between the dominant and the submissive. The film excellently calls acute attention to multiple issues: emotionally abusive favoritism of male children by Nigerian parents; domestic abuse toward women; and abuse toward children. The mother in the film is supposed to be a sympathetic character, but at the same time she carries on the chain of abuse toward her daughter, who does not survive the story. The abused becomes the abuser, another aspect of this situation that I find films and literature investigate with less frequency and fervor.

In the second film, a woman of Asian descent appears to be stalked by a white male on a NY subway in The Hunt. However, within minutes the woman has bludgeoned and imprisoned the male in her concrete, basement lair. Her dogs wrestle and play happily on the floor and a mannequin sits comfortably on an ottoman and provides companionship to the woman who enjoys riding her bicycle through the open space of the huge concrete area (reminiscent of the ground floor of a parking garage in terms of how the space is laid out). The man is gagged and restrained in a white-sheeted bed; photographs of his own face and body dangle above him similar to a mobile hanging from a newborn's crib. He struggles, but the woman continues to enjoy her casual bicycle ride and ignores him.

The climax of the film arrives when the woman slowly and carefully spreads lubrication onto a bat, gently lays the bat on the bed near the man, and begins to unbuckle his jeans. We hear him scream, and the woman is then back on the NY subway, another stalker-victim male sitting across from her, presumably preparing/being prepared for a similar fate.

This film feels less realistic than the first and reads closer to the horror genre than a fictional account of actual events; nonetheless it is extremely interesting, engaging, and superbly edited. It is also disappointingly problematic. Women continue to be stalked, raped, and abused regularly. My own undergraduate university campus installed safety telephones about ten years ago because campus-based rapes were so prevalent the university was forced to either lose students too afraid to go to the library or provide some means of protection. Dele-Ogundrinde's film underscores a disturbing, violent danger women face; however, the protagonist of this film is a deeply unwell individual who exploits rape and violence in a sadistic, revenge-motivated game. She does not overcome violence, she embodies it and becomes the dangerous. Although the film calls attention to issues of rape and stalking, it also inadvertently supports them. Violence is again perpetuated.

The third piece I will review is a poem Dele-Ogundrinde wrote and recited. She says that her husband can own her as long as he understands that she owns his penis. The next few minutes she spends speaking slowly and more softly, explaining to her audience how she will treat the penis, for example she'll caress it, love it, treat it with kindness, etc. As she recites her voice quickens pace, gathers momentum, becomes louder and louder, tenses and builds with each line. Her words also build, moving faster and faster toward a climax, and although she began talking about holding the penis, she now exclaims that the seas will part for it and women will write poetry about it. Finally, at the climax, she breaks into a Nigerian song; her voice is booming, clear, full.

The poem is light-hearted after the films we just saw. It provokes giggles, the tension in the room seems to subside a little. Dele-Ogundrinde smiles and her warm charisma spreads over us. I want to appreciate the humor in this poem while simultaneously understand the power-dynamic of her central theme. However, what I hear is a slippery situation in which one form of possession is condoned while another is borne as a "balance" to the first, but this only serves to emphasize the dysfunction of both. Although women often struggle in heterosexual relationships where the man assumes entitlement and ownership of her, establishing the woman's possession of the penis and lauding its objectification is counter-productive. The issue of possession and objectification are reversed, but still forcefully present. One cannot beget the other.

Dele-Ogundrinde was a captivating artist, her films intense, her poetry performance unique and engaging. I appreciate that she uses her artistry to raise awareness in regard to domestic abuse, rape, objectification, and power struggles in heterosexual relationships. However, I think the primary problem is that she overcomes one kind of violence by introducing another, and thus in each scenario the violent act is only perpetuated. Also, the victim becomes the abuser, adding an ensnaring emotional dimension. While it is helpful that Dele-Ogundrinde shows us how the abused can become the abuser, which is a very real and possible outcome, I think the pieces only convey this ambiguously at most.

http://mrswhich..com/2011/03/review-of-folasayo-dele-ogundrindes.html

This was her journal entry that introduced her to me
Moved me to tears
Moved me to prayers but God knows best
She is now free of pain

[size=18pt]Her story in her own words [/size]

Like many people I know, I was on the treadmill of life minding my own business, making plans, getting the most out of my life when suddenly I was stopped in my tracks and told to take on a role that not only seems surreal, but seems like I was asked to play a role in someone else’s life, that of a cancer patient.

On Nov 30th 2011, I was admitted to the hospital from the ER when I went in for severe abdominal pain after eating some rice. Prior to this, I had noticed my inability to eat a full meal – one mouthful after my brain tells me I’m full resulted in a sharp pain in the left side of my abdomen. I thought this a bit unusual since I know the stomach is supposed to expand to take in more than the brain agrees with when we insist on ignoring the gauge that says we are satiated. While I did not consciously ignore this, I thought it might be something as benign as an engorged liver since I was on an Iron rich diet at the time due to being anemic. So I went on a fast to detoxify my system and it seemed to work until I decided to break my fast on that November night.

At Memorial Hermann Hospital, I was subjected to a battery of tests and the first thought that came to the attending physician was lymphoma but this was pending a confirmatory pathology report . He said It was no big deal and I would be OK after a few rounds of Chemotherapy. The lab report came back negative - no malignancy. It was all a terrible mistake. The diagnosis came back as Chemical Gastritis. 6 days later, I was discharged on a liquid diet, was prescribed some meds and told to gradually re-introduce solid foods.

With no improvement and declining ability to eat, I was growing weaker by the day. By January, I was not even able to ingest 1 oz. of liquid at a time, not even water. This was quite terrifying but I kept hoping things would get better. I was planning shows for my new musical band for Feb 1st, going about as if all was well with me. By now I had lost a considerable amount of weight and while some looked at me and thought how lucky I was to be so svelte, only one friend saw through this and thought something was seriously wrong with this picture. To cut a log story short, she came over to my apt. on Jan 30th to check in on me, I was too weak to even get to the door to let her in, and she took one look at me and called 911. That call literarily saved my life. At the ER, they could not find a vein in me for hours to put in an IV line, and when they eventually got my lab results out, they said I was so severely dehydrated and malnourished I could easily have slipped away and died within a week!. The starvation mode may have also been why I didn’t realize how bad things were, it had affected me mentally as I was so disillusioned about my reality. This ER visit resulted in my hospitalization which lasted about 3 months. This thus began my journey into uncertain territory.

It took three months for the doctors – dozens of them, to come up with a diagnosis. Three valuable months. I was put through a battery of tests, zapped with what I consider too many X-rays, CT Scans and a PET Scan, 3 major surgeries and having to make tough decisions that could mean life or death during this “incarceration” at the hospital. All the tests came back inconclusive and definitely no malignancy. During one of my later endoscopies what was growing in my stomach was so rapid and had resulted in complete stricture of my duodenal ducts – which is where the liver and pancreas dumps its secretions. So I developed a severe case of jaundice and had to be fitted with a tube that drains my liver into an external bag I wear around my thigh. I still have to wear this bag. The other goal for the doctors was to try to keep me alive on elemental nutrition via TPN through a piccline that went from under my arms into an artery that feeds directly to my heart. The thought was scary, and there was a very high risk for life threatening infections. But at this point, this was the only choice available. I was on TPN - A $2000 diet a day – for 2 months. At my lowest I weighed 94lbs!. I am gradually regaining the weight now and I am 102lbs. Without adequate weight gain I could not have surgery. Eventually, they felt I was strong enough to have some exploratory surgery that will hopefully shed more light on this “mystery” illness. By this time I had become a “VIP” patient at the hospital, with every specialty coming to prod and probe and using this as a potential teachable moment for their students. My case was presented at conferences and meetings in the hope of finding some doctor who may have had a patient present with similar symptoms. 7 pathologists up to this point had looked at the slides from various endoscopic samples to no avail. The first exploratory surgery was for 9 hours, this also included putting in a feeding tube through the upper part of my small intestine bypassing my stomach, as both my upper GI and lower GI were no longer connected. This is how I would be feed from now and am still being fed. Hopefully after my treatment is over I would not need this – keeping my fingers crossed as this is no way to exist. The surgeon I was informed later backed out of making an incision because my stomach was too fibrous and thus too dangerous to open up since he wasn’t sure how he would close it back up. So 9 hours, no result. Other things were done during this procedure that was as a secondary result of all that was going on in my stomach affecting other parts of my internal organs.

So the next step was for the GI doctors to try to convince the surgeons to try again, which they blatantly refused. They said, we can’t touch her – too risky. So the GI doctors decided to do something called an endoscopic ultrasound to drill through the stomach and try to get a cross-sectional / column sample. This was done on my birthday!. What a way to spend my birthday. My brother Wale had flown in from Seattle to spend my birthday with me, but I was quite groggy from the anesthesia. We sill somehow managed to make it a good visit.

Pathology report came back again no malignancy, inconclusive. The doctors were now really backed against the wall. So once again, the GI doctors had to go back to meet with the 3 major surgeons to try to plead on my behalf as I was running out of options. They feel that whatever is going on is serious and urgent as it was growing so rapidly, I had no lumen in my stomach and it had become one solid mass. However, they cannot treat a situation they don’t have a diagnosis for. One of the surgeons finally agreed to do a full thickness biopsy but had a long session with me where he had to explain in full details all that could go wrong. I asked him a ton of questions about what he would do differently this time to minimize my risk. His back up plan is to plug my stomach with a G-tube if he can’t suture it back together. Fully understanding all that is involved, I signed the consent form. I was given just a few hours to make all of these important decisions. This was also just 4 days after my last surgery. I had barely recovered. Surgery went well, sample was sent to the lab while I was still under anesthesia to make sure the Pathologist has all he needed because the surgeon swore there was no way he would operate on me again. Pathologist was happy with the sample and I was stitched back up successfully with no need to plug the hole with a G-tube.

It took more than a week for the result to get back. Two solemn doctors walked into my room and I just knew the news was no good. So I told them, please level with me. “You have stomach cancer, and it is a pretty aggressive form of cancer” –this I later found out to be true: The type of cancer I was Signet Ring Cell Adeno -Carcinoma. This from of cancer I have, they say only occurs in Africans and Asians. Not at all common in the West. I was stoic, didn’t flinch, but had so many questions. Why did it take so long to come up with this diagnosis, what had all the previous test specific for cancer missed this? Why didn’t some of the doctors clue in on the symptoms I was presenting?. Why why why? But never once did I ask why me?. My oncologist later said, this had nothing to do with my lifestyle, as anyone who knows me know I ate healthy, mostly organic foods, I don’t even use a microwave at home to heat up my food!. He says it possibly could have been a virus that attacked me while I was growing up in Nigeria and possibly denatured some cells and caused a mutation - which then laid dormant for many years until something triggered them off to act “rebellious”. So no, it was no fault of mine I developed cancer, just luck of the draw – could have been anyone, so why not me? Right…perhaps it chose me because I have a fighting spirit and have a lot to live for, so for sure I’m not going anywhere till my God-given days are up…which I suspect won’t be for a very long time as I have many many projects and dreams to fulfill. This is a battle of my life for my life, and as much as one is never prepared for this type of news or circumstances, when the news hits you, you muster all you can within you to make you battle ready. My first response to the doctors who broke the news was Ok, so it is Cancer, how do we fight this? In a sense it was a relieve knowing what we are now faced with, as opposed to months of uncertainty. They were surprised I wasn’t hysterical or crying, the tears came later in privacy, but my first reaction was that of, after everything my body had been subjected to in the 3 months leading up to my diagnosis – all the pain, anxiety, unpleasant tests etc, many times, not even feeling I inhabit my own body, what could be worse. Please bring it on! Let’s just get rid of the disease.

During my first visit with the Oncologist, My brother Wale, came with me. He took one look at me sprawled on the examination table, unable to lift my head up – he said “ I can’t give you Chemo, you are too sick, you won’t survive the treatment”. Here I was, hoping that finally, the drug that could possibly save my life will be administered, and I was being told I could not have it. Just the knowledge that this monster inside of me keeps growing was very concerning, but the Doctor of course was right. So I was again admitted to the hospital for 11 days to get me well enough for my first Chemotherapy treatment.

By the second visit to my oncologist, I was an outpatient, still extremely weak and in a wheelchair, I visited with my dad – this day was the one day I got a bit depressed. The Doctor In front of my 74 year old father plainly said, with very little emotion that he thinks this disease will eventually take my life, but they will do the best to extend it. My cancer is Stage 4. He left the room shortly after that to consult with another Physician. The silence in the room was palpable, the thoughts swirling in my head and my dad’s head hung over us like a dark cloud preceding a terrible storm. I could see my dad face totally drained of blood, and the emotions on his face was too painful to watch. Finally, he broke the silence “ Folasayo, you will live, you will not die, ignore what the doctor just said”. That is my dad, always so positive even when facing the worst news. When the doctor came back in I said in a voice I did not recognize as my own “ Doctor M. what you just told me about my prognosis, while I respect your medical expertise, that is your own opinion, do your part and I’ll do mine, I will not die, you’ll see”. He said, “I just don’t want you to be too hopeful’. By the next day, I was back to my old self , somehow, I just never felt that death was in the cards for me. I am a divinely inspired Artist , and I have so many projects in the works, God and I are not finished yet.

Now that I’m seeing an oncologist, I have a clearer picture of my treatment plan. I had switched hospitals to a county hospital, for many reasons, mostly financial, but also because their Oncologists are all affiliated with one of the best cancer treatment centers in America – MD Anderson. The first phase of my treatment is 8 rounds of Chemo, evaluation, possibly surgery to remove my entire stomach, and perhaps more Chemo. It’s a long journey I’m on, if I say I’m not scared, I would be lying, but my faith sees me through the uncertainty of what life will be post my treatment – this is my main concern. I don’t know anyone without a stomach personally, but I’ve heard of people who have heard of others. I Know it will dramatically change my life, It would not be the end of the world or the worst thing that could happen to a human being - but my prayer too is for a miracle – for a cure. God works wonders, I am hopeful. Chemotherapy is tough, my own experience with it is unique to me, as is every other Chemo patient, but the first Chemo I had, my body was like “what the heck”!!. That’s all I’m going to say. I just had Chemo # 6 and the effects are a lot easier to tolerate. They give me the maximum dose you can safely give a human being every two weeks, and so far so good, I have only had to be hospitalized once for a Chemo-related event with dangerously low white blood count, and that has been addressed with an injection that costs $6000 a dose every time I get my Chemo. My body has become a very expensive commodity to maintain and keep alive…it’s surreal, but I’m truly grateful to be alive!.

People ask me, how do you deal with the pain and all? Honestly, I am tired of being sick at this point, but I have been able to revive my strength by asking God who has an infinite source of energy to infuse me with strength, and that has never failed. I also have a habit of visualizing myself laying helpless at the foot of the cross and imagine myself being infused with energy by the drops of blood from the wounds of Christ. My other ammo is to unite my pain with the suffering of Christ from the Garden of Gethsemane all the way to the cross and knowing that my Cross is light compared with

I could wallow in self pity and wish someone to wake me up from this dream, but it would serve me better acknowledging that this indeed now is my reality. Accept it, and make the most of what I term my second life. I see this in the light of the plight of Job in the Bible – My life will be abundantly richer when this is all over. This is what I believe. what He had to endure, yet He helps me to bear the burden. These visuals and affirmations in truth have been extremely helpful seeing me through.

I have had so much love, compassion and encouragement come my way from some of the most unexpected quarters, even people I have been previously estranged from. In this period, I lost my beloved dog Bibi, and my other dog is being fostered by someone I had never even considered a friend. This means a lot. I have had so many people reach out to me, I am so overwhelmed with how much I feel loved and how many people want me to stick around. My prayer is that all of this love invested in my physically, emotionally and financially will not be in vain. So I continue to ask for those who can to continue to assist in any manner they can and see fit. I have to beat this cancer, it will not take me away from my loved ones. I am confident in God’s infinite goodness and mercy. Thank you for letting me share this with you. Be blessed, and most importantly, enjoy every minute of your life and never take anything for granted, even the ability to eat, celebrate every meal and be grateful.


http://folasayo.weebly.com/my-story.html

R.I.P but is there no summary?