the story we share

call it coincidence, but i believe it's faith and rezeki.

...

i just completed my lunch and thinking of window shopping while buying times to pickup the boys.

and i bumped into this 'stranger'. 

she looked at me and i looked at her. she smiled and i got confused.

I apologized to her,'sorry, you looked familiar but i could hardly recall where have we met!'

and she agreed, she might have mistook me with someone else.

i insisted,'nama apa ek?'

and suddenly triggered to her,' kak ain kan? ni noreen'

masyaallah

in an instance, we were hugging in the middle of the crowd.

and there was i, walking with her accompanying her for her lunch.

...

we were strangers, total strangers. the first time i met her, she was nothing like in the picture. she had more flesh, chubbier but she was worried. 

it was a quick meet up and she was curious. she had list of questions to find our.

the venue: Daycare Oncology Clinic, Level 3, Prince Court Medical Centre.

she's young, just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and was worried about her job at that time.

I remembered the second time i met her at her home. She just in the early stage of the radiotherapy session. She looked fine and was working on her laptop replying work-related emails!

what a strong hardworking lady!!

that was the only two times we met. 

she called last year, 'kak, i am so happy that i need to call you immediately.' i could hear tears in her voice. happiness tears. alhamdullillah, 'all cleared!'

we texted each other once a while and that was it.

it was nearing two years after our first, and met we bumped into each other yesterday.

...

it was like looking in the mirror.

skinny, pale body.

"ya allah, kurusnya! i could hardly recognize you!!"

ehem...look who's talking.

and so here's the thing, people will hate us. 

these two skinny bones just sitting at the foodcourt, taking a small portion of food in their plate and they should be banned from the food court!

and yes, they talked in a loud tone!

less that the passersby knew that we both lost our weight for not being able to swallow our own saliva for three months, which ended up us not eating at all. she lost nearly 30 kgs, and i lost my 20kgs. 

yes, envy us. 

but we both agree, we will never pray for any of you to be as skinny as us if should anyone need to go through the same process! the 33 times of radiotherapy burnt our throat, our tongues, our skins, our blood capillaries in the mouth, our saliva gland and many more. it took me six months to be able to eat a plain sweet and sour candy and still jumpy for the taste was too strong and it took me a year and more to be able to cry when i tasted the asam pedas which was not pedas at all and i could taste with with jumping and crying for water. 

we both are still struggling after two years. the buzzed in our ears, they invaded our ears and privacy. i hate it, and i just wish i could face them just to shoo them off. they are coward enough just to stay there, making so much noise that i finally make peace and decided to ignore they are there. but once a while, i broke down. i just miss the time where i could not here myself chewing. i just miss the time when i do not have to ask people to repeat themselves. i cried two nights ago. aimar was asking me why i was speaking in a low voice, super-low voice that he could hardly hear what i was saying. i didn't respond to his queries. his dad did. 'mama kan memang cakap perlahan. perempuan memang kena cakap perlahan.' my husband, he's an angel that God has sent from the above to take care of me while i'm here breathing. he knew i was struggling with the noise in my head, and he came to the rescue. he took care of everything and he didn't say a word when he saw me being super-silent. he just knew the language we speak. 

me and noreen are still struggling with feeling fatigues and once a while we broke down. we tend to break lose and ticked off easily. demn you chemo! you should make us healthy but you didn't tell us that you would stay for a while. we got tired easily. we blame the hormone. or maybe it was the hormone. but then, it wasn't fair, give us 72 hours of normal average woman, and in the next 48 hours there we were, on the bed, not being able to do anything but sleep and rest! it feels so helpless when our husbands were still woke up at the wee hours after his long day at work, just so the laundry were done, the dishes were cleaned the children were tucked in bed. ya allah, i never could stop counting my blessing of that 'edgy' 'grumpy' man i am married to. he is there letting his wife sleeps while other husbands are ready for bed themselves.

what i could conclude, after two years of chemo and radiotherapy, we are still the 'patients' we were. but i would never complaints. 

i got my ideal sixteen years figure (with some fat here and there la kan) back. 

i got to heal not just that physical cancer which resides behind my nose, but it surely heal my spiritual awareness.

i got to have a buzzing ears and my children would just hug me and tell me 'don't worry mama, this won't be long and we are always nearby to be your ears'

i got have a flawless skin and i would say the radio wave cleaned up all pores and ronasutra definitely good in maintaining it and it is sls-free and surely halallun toiyyiban!

i got to have time for what actually matters for i am no longer that 'energetic' enough to work and i guess that's the best gift i could give my ever-patience husband who has been insisted of me not to work for the past decade. 

yes, i woke in the middle for  the mouth are too dry. the saliva gland has to start fresh as it took 36yrs to develop and the radio burnt them all.. envy me for that... i got to wake up in the middle of the night, just to appreciate things that i never knew God has given us FOC and yet i kept forgetting to thank Him and i guess, waking up in the middle, berwudhu, bersolat, berdoa is the best He could give me for the cancer! sayang sungguh Allah pada hambaNya. aku ni, banyak sangat dosa, hina sangat tak pernah beringat bila berkata. and yet, i don't need an alarm to wake me in the middle of the night just for a sip of water and for talking to him one-to-one. masyaallah.

and of course, i got to feel love all around... masa sakit sampai lah sekarang, tak putus kawan-kawan, sedara-mara berkirim doa bersolat hajat for our well-being, insyaallah, those definitely help!

ok, if you asked how i felt.. despites all the 'sickness', 'tiredness', 'deafness' i've been describing, i'm happy that i was sick and healed. 

alhamdullillah. 

the treatment was traumatized. 

the remission is on-going and sometime it is a bit frustrating to know the effect would lasted up to ten fifteen years. 

but the sweetness i found now, i could never thank Allah enough. 

His love is ABUNDANCE. 

alhamdullillah.

   

...

and the unplanned 'reunion' was such a sweet coincidence. listening to our conversations and people might think we were complaining, trust us, we are not! 

we were just happy!

and we agree, no one should ever go through what we went through and still going through. 

just let us be. 

and so you people, stay healthy! physically and mentally!!

oo.. and yes, appreciate your body; 

you do need your saliva to keep on producing saliva as you could get chocked just by eating roti canai at the age of 30!

do not complain the food is too sour or too spicy for you won't know how it feels eating tomyam and tasted exactly like eating a cardboard, literally!

appreciate your ear wax and nose deposit.. you won't know how weird it feels to have a runny nose day and night  24-7 for the past two years and counting and you won't know how happy you could be when you got to have 'some' nose deposit or ear wax after two years and it's just not watery!

trust me, the little things that we take for granted. take good care of it! while you can!