Facing Death with cancer …thoughts of a Muslim

[Archdemos]

From the Author

I wrote this article to share certain knowledge that I gained throughout my ordeal dealing with cancer since 2002. But for personal reasons, I prefer this article to be distributed to others after my death:

 

1) to our brothers and sisters, including abah & emak,

2) for my family, a hardcopy for safekeeping for my children,

3) for my Klang family

4) to Shahlan – for distribution to friends in Australia

5) to Hj Kuchai – for distribution to friends in Waltop (my batch in MRSM) & MRSM KB group,

6) to Azharuddin – for distribution to my staff & SCS group & Sapura friends and TNB friends

7) to my community in my area, via my surau – to be given to Hj Shahrif / Hj Raof.

 

To those people who know the author of this article, I sincerely apologise for any of my wrong doings to you, halal makan & minum, pray that Allah s.w.t. will forgive and bless me with His Mercy (Jannah). Assalaamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh to all of you.

 

The Author

22nd July 2005

 

(The author passed away peacefully at the age of 39 in his Taman Permata home on the 27th. November 2005due to terminal cancer. He is survived by his wife, a young son and two younger daughters. He left behind a clear request to distribute this article only after his death. Pray that Allah give His Mercy to his soul and reward him with Jannah. Ameen) – his elder brother

 

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

 

FACING DEATH

 

1. INTRODUCTION

 

Assalamu’alaikum Brothers and Sisters in Islam.

 

First of all, please allow me to identify myself on as K. My main reason to remain anonymous is because I want the readers to concentrate more on the content of this article rather than to concentrate on the character of the author, i.e. me. This is because this article contains things that I learned from personal experience throughout my ordeal in facing death, which I feel is now my obligation to share with my Muslim Brothers and Sisters.

 

At the same time, however, I know I am far from being a perfect Muslim, and I am still unsure of the state I would be in when my Creator finally calls me. I am still worried whether I would really pass the test i.e. the pain, the agony, especially during Sakaratul Maut. Therefore, I do not want the state of my death to affect the credibility of the knowledge that I want to share with you in this article.

 

As the main purpose of this article is to share my knowledge and experience, you may distribute this freely to others. Those who know me, if required you can mention verbally about the author, but no name please. The same applies to those who receive the information. Like I said earlier, it is not important to know who the author was. What is more important to ponder the information I am sharing with you in this article.

 

Last but not least, the views expressed in this article are solely my opinions. This means that I could be right and I could also be wrong. If you have doubts on some of my views, by all means consult the experts, the Islamic Scholars in particular.

 

If I am proven wrong, take the article from the Islamic Scholars and please ignore mine. What I am doing here is just sharing with my fellow Brothers and Sisters in Islam what I have learnt to the best of my knowledge, hoping that we could all learn something from it.

 

1.1 A Brief History of My Illness

 

In the fourth quarter of year 2002, I was diagnosed with Choroidal Metanoma, a cancer of the choroids behind the retina in my right eye. By the time it was correctly diagnosed, the cancer had already grown to a considerable size where it was no longer possible to save the vision through an operation, although there was still a chance to save the eyeball.

 

But such an operation would be very costly, as it could only be performed in a foreign country. Furthermore, there would be costs for the subsequent treatments (radiation therapy), etc; and yet the risk of “recurrence” would still be very high, plus some other possible complications. A better solution as suggested by the local experts was “Enucleation”, i.e. to remove the right eyeball completely.

 

It was a tough decision to allow the doctors to enucleate my right eyeball. But Alhamdulillah, after a lot of prayers and putting a lot of thoughts to it, I decided to have it done. To cut the story short, Allah s.w.t. gave me another one and a half months before the operation could take place; at first because of my request to spare me from the operation for another two weeks. Subsequently the operation had to be further postponed due to the unavailability of the correct size of the artificial eye that needed to be placed in my right eye’s orbit.

 

The one and a half months is a period that will be referred in this article, so please allow me to term it as Grace Period 1.

 

The enucleation and the artificial eye implant took place in November 2002, during the month of Ramadhan. I had to miss a few days of fasting, but I could no longer postpone the operation due to the high risk of it spreading to other parts of the body. Alhamdulillah, the operation went well, and Alhamdulillah, Allah made me recover from the operation fairly quickly, making it possible for me to carry on with my fasting for the remaining days.

 

The histopathology report that came later confirmed that the cancer was confined to the eyeball and there was still a considerably good margin separating the cancer cells from the eyeball’s main blood vessels, Alhamdulillah.

 

Having done the enucleation was not the end of the story. I became aware by reading articles from the internet and also from doctors, that I was still at risk of experiencing “recurrence” or worse, the fatal metastasis cancer (cancer that spreads to other parts of the body). As for metastasis cancer, the most common part that would be affected due to choroidal melanoma is the liver.

 

Therefore I always had to go for medical checkups every 6 months, to do a CT Scan of the brain and orbit, and an ultrasound of the liver. All praise is due to Allah s.w.t., I lived a normal life from the moment I recovered from the enucleation in November 2002 until the last quarter of year of 2004. For easy reference later in this article, I term this period as Grace Period 2.

 

In the middle of year 2004, I started sensing some changes in me. The changes were in terms of my energy levels; I started to feel very tired at the end of the day. There were times when I just felt a bit tired all out of a sudden, but after a while I felt ok again. I also discovered I had to take a long time to recover from a simple flu, instead of my normal 2 hours (using panadol + sleeping under a blanket), I now took 2 days to recover.

 

I then began to realize that something was not very right with me. It could be either my fitness level had dropped due to the lack of exercise (unlike before the enucleation operation), or because of the possible metastasis cancer mentioned before. Anyway, my next scheduled CT Scan and Ultrasound was just around the corner, i.e. in early August, which would be a good opportunity to check the cause of the problem.

 

The result of the ultrasound scan confirmed that I had Multiple Liver Metastasis. It was indeed a heavy blow to me, previously I was loosing my eye and now I was going to loose my life. I was told that if not treated, I might only have 6 months or so to live. To make things worse, the Head of Oncology Department confirmed that at present, metastasis cancer of the liver due to choroidal melanoma has very limited solutions. And all these solutions have low percentage rate of success. At best even if successful, the solution would only help to prolong life for a few more months or so. Anyhow, he still suggested that I go for the proposed treatments, and I did.

 

So that is the condition I am in today at this point of writing. Still struggling with the cancer. I have gone for most of the proposed treatments (chemotherapy, chemo embolization, etc.) and Alhamdulillah, I am still alive at this point of time. It has been more than 11 months since I was first diagnosed with the metastasis cancer, and I am referring to this period as Grace Period 3.

 

But from the medical reports, I have the feeling that this period will not be long, because the metastasis cancers are still growing and I am beginning to feel and experience the effects. It may just be a matter of time now, before Allah s.w.t. decide to end my life or to cure me through His miracles.

 

The above is a brief history of my illness, which I think is important to know before you will be able to understand the remaining content of my article.

 

[For more information about Choroidal Melanoma and Metastasis Cancer, just do a google search, insyaAllah you will find lots of information about it. One example is the site below:

 

http://www.eyecancer.com/MetastaticMelanoma/MetMel.html]

 

2. The Principle Attitude to be adopted

 

It is not easy to list down in the right chronology the things that I learned throughout my ordeal, as they involved various time spans. So I will try my best to arrange them according to what I think is best. Honestly, I do not have much time to think about the strategy to write this article. So please forgive me for all shortcomings.

 

I will start with what I term as “The Attitude” to be adopted when facng a situation like mine. This is important as it will determine your next course of actions.

 

“Have a Strong Will to Fight it!”

 

When I was told that I had choroidal melanoma in my right eye, and the best solution was to remove the eyeball completely (enucleation), I was really in total state of confusion. This was because while all the doctors advised me to go for the enucleation immediately, my close relatives and friends said that there existed alternative medications that could help remove or reduce the tumor size, citing several personally known cases, and advising me that I should give some time to try them out.

[Archdemos]

Very moving and timely read,

 

http://yahyasheikho786.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/facing-death-with-cancer-at-19-thoughts-of-a-muslim/

[Alpha Blondy]

i thought cancer was a gal disease.

[Raamsade]

Actually, cancer is mostly old age disease. It is sad to hear the author succumbed to his illness but am I missing something? There is hardly a week that goes by without reading similar stories in local papers. What is so special about this particular case?

[Saxansaxo]

As I explained earlier, Allah s.w.t. helped me “see” things differently, something I could not even see when I had my two eyes. I saw good news in the bad news; I saw Allah s.w.t’s. mercy in a “musibah”, and so many others.

 

But I still write this article to share the knowledge and lessons I learned from my ordeal, and especially to tell you HOW MERCIFUL ALLAH S.W.T. is, if He can be so merciful to a “very imperfect” person like me, know that He will also be merciful to any of you, provided that we continuously put our trust and hope in Him alone.

 

Subhannallah. Being able to acknowledge that, now thats a blessing from Allah.

Ilaahay ha u naxaristo. Thanks for sharing.

[Aaliyyah]

Alpha, actually that is not true. It is becoming more prevalent in the somali community.

 

The poster, thank you for sharing this article. Jazakalaah.

[Archdemos]

AUN indeed. Very brave and inspirational read. Death should not be far away from the mind of a believer.

[wyre]

Allah yarxam

[Abu-Salman]

It is not surprising that cancer (or diabete) is now common among Somalis given the prevalent lack of proper sunshine, lack of quality vitamin D (even people in africa could have vitamin D3 deficiency if not exposed to sunshine with limited clothing/shade, thus exposing every cell from hairs to neurons).

 

There is this cousin of mine in Toronto whose young husband is getting treated for cancer like many other Somalis, with typical mistrust of clinicians, who in turn are suspicious of Somalis leaving care for Somalia ("caano geel therapy").

My relatively young abti's wife too was glad to be able to treat her colon cancer in France now as soon as advised to check for cancer in Djibouti (we obtained French ID papers for the whole family back in 2003, though that has its problems too).

 

Of course, even if not a clinician yourself you have to always explain and insist on people getting direct sun contact regularly as more and more doctors are preaching these days.

Settling in some places or countries if you are dark skinned is, quite literally, suicidal given how crucial sun exposure & vitamin D3 is for every cell, for immunity (even more so with all the stress, processed food & chemicals all around).

 

All that reminds us of how crucial is it to have a proper healthcare & prevention system; so many young and active people are dying prematurely ("waa la helay/lagu soo booday").

 

There is no problem with death and suffering has its purposes, but I'd rather see us perishing in say liberating the Galbeed/oga-denia than due to lack of ethics and leadership (no concern for equality & equal access to vital services).

[Taleexi]

My brother is suffering with leukemia ... Does it really matter what might kill a person? -- For me doesn't make a difference ...

[Abu-Salman]

Taleexi, Allah ha cafiyo sxb;

I have a phobia of suffering but not really death (unless tragic).

 

Local elites would have long improved their countries if they suffered anything remotely similar as their disenfranchised citizens and forced to rely solely on local facilities.

 

We have to fight for resources redistribution and against corruption precisely to prevent such suffering on a massive scale (enforcing economic equality solves so many problems)...