Happy New Life, Mommy!! :)

Today was a historical day, I must say. Or if I say Octobers have been significant in our family life, it would not be wrong. Last October, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at the second stage. She went through a very hard treatment and  with the help of Allah, successfully completed it today. It is Allah's special blessing that she came back to life, to a new life. We bow Him thankfully for His graciousness!

I usually do not talk about it openly. My very close friends only know about it. Dont know why, but I did not feel comfortable to share it with everyone. I just did not want that people took pity on us and asked horrible questions and disturbed us further. As now it's over, I think I am quite OK to say something about it.

So it was a first case of breast cancer in our WHOLE family, maternal and also in paternal. Our elders and we never heard about any women in our family who had it. But sometimes you are the first (and I am sure the last one inshAllah) who have to experience that no one have ever had. There were many stories that we used to hear about this disease and about its hard treatment, but stories are stories, realities are realities and realities are sometimes bitter and at times far easy to face.

There was a time when I hid this from my mother and used to cry alone in the corridors of Shaukat Khanum Hospital. And there is today when my mother told me how I have been of her strength the whole period. I told my mother how much we are proud of her, we really do! She is a brave woman.

When mother was diagnosed with this disease, my father had recently been discharged from the hospital too. He was not able mostly to come along for tests and to listen to the horrible discussions with the doctors. My brother was in Dubai and my sister is married in another city. After this news, I learned driving in just a week, which I had been trying on from two months. My motto through out was "be strong and make others strong".

Now sitting calmly and writing about it seem easy, but it had ONE long year of pain and stress at its back. It took exactly one year to complete the Chemotherapy, Surgery and Radiation. We literally counted on each and every day. It was not only my mother who suffered from it, our whole family suffered at each stage. But it was all past now. Today is all good Alhamdulillah. We forget darkness of the past when we get a new bright day. Green signal from all the doctors is a blessing indeed and a gift for our family on this Eid.

I tell from the core of my heart, the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital is a blessing in our country. It has the most advanced technology and the most qualified team of doctors for curing this brutal disease. Its staff from a senior surgeon to a security guard would all welcome you with a smile and would help you out at their best. You forget your disease to see their friendly attitudes. We had a wonderful experience there.

This whole period left a deep down impact on me as well. Before, I used to afraid from death, now be at the hospital's corridor for months, listening painful stories and seeing people dying, one thing has made clear to me that death is inevitable, whether you run away from it or face it, and that life is the most uncertain thing in this world. Face the death with the belief that it is actually the beginning of an ever lasting life. It is just a door to another world. Be ready for your death!  One thing has clung my mind that I don't have enough time to collect whatever good I can collect from this world in terms of good deeds and noble virtues. Do not wait for the old age for ibadah. There is no tomorrow. Everything is today. So say your prayers and do some naiki with Allah's people.

Not only my beliefs have been changed, my whole outlook towards life has changed. Heard somewhere that every failure and struggle make you more strong. That's really correct. I am a stronger person now, in other words dheet :). Keeping my fears aside, I attended many awareness programs on breast cancer and tried to learn what it is actually and how we should deal with it and with patients having it. Now I try to educate other people about it. No one has asked me to do it but I just volunteer myself, thinking it's my responsibility too to share my knowledge and to save women from this silent killer. My mother's surgeon told my brother in my absence that I have been the most reasonable and sensible attendant they have ever had and that attendants like myself make 50% of their treatment easy.  :) . I still cant believe she said this seriously about me. Because she remains witty most of the time and doesn't mind cracking jokes even in the theatre. hehe Dr Huma Majeed Khan is adorable.  :)

Khair, I thank Allah Almighty, who passed us through this difficult phase successfully. Doctors' treatment and our prayers could have been nothing unless He gives shifa.

I am also very thankful to my dear friends for their sincere prayers and wishes and for their encouragement to me and my family.

So happy new life mama gee. We love you ALOT. May you live long with perfect health and may the the umbrella of your blessing remain on us forever and ever. Ameen!

And Eid Mubarik!!!!!!!!!

P.S: Prayers are requested for my mother that she remains safe from this disease for rest of her life. Ameen!