Last Friday, journalist Elizabeth Merab promised a cousin warmer banter and laughter on the next day's visit.
Her relatives were to visit her at 10am on Saturday at Aga Khan Hospital. That was not to be. She died in sedated sleep at 4.15am on Saturday of sickle cell anaemia.
She was aged 31.
Maybe the promise of leisurely banter in a life beyond will come to pass.
Her uncle, Tom Obar, told The Nation that when her cousin visited, "Merab was a bit jovial and they cracked some jokes."
"She told my son that tomorrow, Saturday, they would laugh more," Obar said.
He added, "We had arranged to visit her at around 10am to see if she had improved and if they discharged her, we would then come with her immediately to the house."
The family got a distress call at around 3am on Saturday and she died an hour and 15 minutes later.
Merab's story reinforces the often-repeated tale by US President Joe Biden that he has turned his tragedy-ridden life into purpose, informing his losses and wins.
She understood this concept and turned her life's pain of living with sickle cell anemia into purpose, becoming a distinguished health reporter.
She had worked for Nation Media Group for nine years covering infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine and drugs development until her death on Saturday.
Before she turned 10, she was always on anti-malarial drugs and hydration intervention to deal with incessant pain.
Her parents did not understand her persistent pains and thought malaria must have been the cause.
The periodic and regular pain would pop up in any part of the body. If it was one of her arms, it would run from her shoulder right down to her wrist.
It was like a persistent stabbing by an ultra-sharp knife.
“Making you forget you are an adult and roll on the floor crying. The pain grows from level to level. It wrestles for your attention like someone saying, ‘Hey, you will have to stop so we talk about this’,” she said in a 2021 interview.
But growing up with the condition, Merab’s second home was the hospital. She frequented the medical facilities, often as an inpatient to manage the pain.
But her strong spirit was undeterred by having a second bed at the hospital.
She turned the pain into purpose, becoming a journalist, and an award-winning one, focusing on science and health.
“My work as a health journalist stems from two points: curiosity because I want to learn new things, and secondly, from passion,” she said.
“It was my personal passion for health news arising from my interaction with doctors having gone to the hospital a lot."
Sickle cell anemia is an hereditary disorder that affects the red blood cell’s transportation of oxygen. The cells that should be round are sickle-shaped, with less area to carry oxygen. They can get clogged in joints and other parts of the body, impeding the flow of blood.
It can impede the flow of blood to vital organs.
The life-long condition causes periodic sharp pain attacks that make life unbearable until it is alleviated.
With the condition, you shouldn't be exuberant, or depressed because extremes affect blood pressure and can trigger attacks.
The difficulty of maintaining that balance and calm means sickle cell patients are prone to attack, given the realities of life.
Having doctors on speed dial was indispensable.
Her employer, NMG, understood this and expected that she would be on and off work, Merab said.
At 18, Merab went for a confirmatory test after being told by a number of her doctor contacts that she was too healthy for a sickle cell patient.
The test took seven days to give results, a long period of anxiety.
The result showed she was 94 per cent position for sickle cell, and she was crushed.
"It was a turning point,” she said, explaining the reality hit her hard, increasing the frequency and intensity of her attacks.
“Pain is evaluated from zero to 10, zero means no pain and 10 is the extreme most people can bear. Doctors often found my pain to be at 10. But I often disputed them, saying it is 15 out of 10,” Merab said.
In October 2020, her condition took another turn for the worse when doctors found the condition was taking a toll on her body.
She was diagnosed with vascular necrosis. Her hip bones were gradually dying because they were not getting enough oxygen.
She needed an urgent surgery and then was confined to a wheelchair.
The condition had also eaten up her spleen, and she joked, "One thing that is cool about me is that I don't have a spleen."
At the time of her death, she had been hospitalised. The pain got worse and she was sedated. She died in her sleep.