Mrs. Ssendagala Barbra Atwiine left her home in Gayaza on Tuesday, March 21 heading to her herbal store in Mukono.
As the day went by, she became dizzy - a feeling that prompted her to visit a nearby clinic where they promised she would get better.
An earlier scheduled appointment with a client at Naguru Police Headquarters was in waiting so off she moved to make a product delivery.
While climbing the ladders at Naguru, the 32-year-old mother of three collapsed and died suddenly. A Postmortem report into her death revealed that she died from after effects of using the "Chinese" contraceptive pill.
Her husband, Mr. George Ssendagala is struggling to come to terms with the sudden and unexpected loss of his beloved wife, who was a vital part of his life - while at it - also spreading awareness about the pill so other women do not fall victim to the same.
Who is Barbra Atwiine?
Born on September 18, 1990 in Itojo Village in Ntugamo District. She was the sixth of the nine children born to Wilson Katungwemsi and Margret Mbabazi. She attended Kinoni Girls School and Itojo Secondary school for her ordinary and Advanced levels of Secondary Education. She graduated with a Bachelors of Art in Education majoring in History and Divinity.
She however never pursued her professional career, she carved a career in Business, launching an events company - Bliz Africa Network and a Herbal medicine Stores under Blossom Health Care company - where she was director together with her Husband.
Meeting her Husband
In 2009, while in her Senior Five back in Itojo, her place of origin in Ntugamo district, Barbra met George and the pair fell in love.
As fate would have it, she got pregnant and had to leave school. It is at this point that she went under full care of George Ssendagala, who would later marry her off in 2019 - becoming husband and wife.
After giving birth to their first child in 2009, George decided to take Barbra back to school in 2010, at Itojo Secondary School where she re-did her Senior five before finalizing Senior Six at the same address in 2011.
She would later join Makerere University to pursue a Bachelors of Arts degree in Education to which she graduated in January 2016.
Over the years, the couple further birthed more 2 children, bringing the total to three - all girls aged 14, 12 and 7 respectively.
On November 23, 2019 - the pair finally became husband and wife in a glamorous wedding at the Kampala Sheraton Hotel in Kampala, having made their vows at Gayaza Catholic Church.
Looking back, George describes - with love, the fifteen years he lived with his wife as the most amazing years of his life.
Love for the Chinese Pill
In all her pregnancies, Barbra underwent cesarean sections during birth and at all incidences, she risked death.
After giving birth to her third baby, Doctors advised she put a stop to conceiving because medically, it would put her life at more risk.
In agreement, her only choice was using family planning to prevent pregnancies. Before resorting to using the Chinese pill earlier this year, Barbra had used other alternatives of contraceptives - however they gave off side effects that in the long run negatively affected their sexual life.
Low sex drive and severe sexual dryness topped the list of these side effects to which she feared for her marriage. As a result of saving it, she sought a contraceptive that would react better with her sexual hormones and that is how she landed on this deadly pill.
According to her husband, they had some issues as result of the family planning effects in their love life and to bring a change, Barbra sought this illegal pill without his knowledge.
"It was only a month later after she started using them that she informed me about the shift from injections to the pill" George says.
"Have you noticed a change in our sexual life?" she asked to which he replied in the affirmative.
It is here that she opened up which kind of pills she used. She further explained the hardship in acquiring the pill and how it was a tug of war in setting a hand on them since it was on black market.
Since it had brought a change in their sexual life, George did not mind questioning the pills' only presence on the black-market - "It slipped my mind, even when I am a strict man" he says. This was early March, weeks before Barbra's death.
Nearing Death….
George says that after Barbra's revelation, he subconsciously started feeling her absence even when she was in his midst. He did not see a future with her like he previously did.
"The feeling of her absence persisted in something that forced me to open up to her about it" he says adding that then, it seemed like a joke and they only laughed and brushed it off with each asking the other who of them would leave the other first.
He recounts that in one of her responses, she asked him whether he had found another woman given his rant of not feeling her presence.
George recounts that amid the seemingly loose conversation, she made a request -that if she ever died first before him, she would love to be buried next to her mother who died close to a decade back!
In response, George hesitated, reasoning that he had married her off, why then would his wife get buried at her family side and not his?
Due to his unending love for the wife, George recounts that he granted her Request and she was very happy - she took her joy to social media where she posted the news of her final resting place to which her family picked it up.
Looking back, he feels God was only showing him that his time with the love of his life neared an end!
Barbra had complained of general body weakness and dizziness for about a month but George took it lightly owing to the fact that she was fasting, a feeling of a sort was expected.
3 days before she died, George recounts that she told him about how she almost blacked out at Naguru, the same place she died. She was a regular there since she had clients there that she often made deliveries to.
On the fateful day, they had agreed that she first goes to hospital for a checkup which she did before turning wheels to Naguru to make another delivery.
George, who was on a journey to Fort Portal at the time of Barbra's death, says that they had talked for a few minutes and he was meant to revert back to her immediately about some issue.
To his dismay, in a space of 5 minutes, he was told by someone who picked her phone when he called that she had collapsed and died. She was rushed to a hospital in Naguru before being transferred to Mulago.
"I was in Zigoti, along Mityana road on my journey to Fort Portal when I only returned to Kampala, Mulago hospital" he says.
At City mortuary Mulago, George was asked whether his wife ever used the China Pills? - "She has clots in her lungs and they were brought by those pills" the doctor who did a postmortem on Barbra's body told him!
Coping up
Since her passing on March 21, George says it has been a whole lot of nightmares in his homestead.
"Our last-born daughter Abigail keeps getting weird dreams about the mother and it gets emotional as she tries to explain them to me" he says.
While alive, George promised Barbra that if she ever died before him, he would attend mass on a daily prayer in her memory and he has lived up to the promise, he says it has kept strengthening home since her demise.
He notes that after her death, he embarked on a drive to create awareness about the dangers of the Chinese contraceptive pill - a move his family was against asking him to let his wife and their daughter rest in peace.
He however retaliated saying that he had a mission his family did not understand - "The people who died of the same before my wife, could have played this role to save my wife but they did not. I chose to do it to save other lives" George says.
He adds that since he came out, he has received thousands of messages from women and young girls who are thanking him for opening their eyes.
Babra died on March 21, 2023 - she was buried at her family's ancestral home in Itojo, Ntugamo district on March 24 - next to her late mother as per her request. She is survived by her father Wilson Katungwemsi, husband George Ssendagala, 3 daughters - Stella Nankabirwa, Ritah Namawejje, Abigail Bukirwa and 8 siblings.
