‘Al-Fatihah’ for a cancer patient who deserved better

NOVEMBER 11 — Musliha, the cancer patient I had mentioned in a few of my columns, passed away over the weekend.

She died at home, weakened and in pain, after being told there was nothing more the doctors could do for her.

As patients, we were two sides of a coin.

Unlike me, she was married with children.

When she got her diagnosis, the costs terrified her so much she decided not to follow the treatment plan, not realising she still had options funding-wise while I, well, you know what I did after my diagnosis.

It’s been nearly two years since I found out I had cancer and while I’m enduring medically-induced menopause, my cancer is in remission and I don’t have much cause to complain.

For Musliha when she finally returned to the hospital the cancer had advanced and was no longer as curable as it was when she was first diagnosed.

By the time Musliha returned to hospital, the cancer had already advanced incurably. — Photo via Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz website

In her final few months she had been scammed over and over again, by relatives who were jealous of her getting donations, by a fake homestay operator and cheated by a Shopee seller.

She needed diapers not because she was incontinent but because they were the only things that could absorb the constant bleeding from her open wounds.

As the saying goes, there but for the grace of God go I; my outcome was different not because I made better decisions but because of different circumstances.

Musliha deserved to have had someone tell her that she could still have a fighting chance in the early days, that there was zakat, other funds out there, that she didn’t have to run away frightened.

While she has passed, there are still many cancer patients who need help like Nurshazwani who has a little less than RM3,000 to somehow find for her final session of targeted therapy.

You can find a link to her fundraising link here.

In a kinder world, women like her shouldn’t have to sell everything they have to score better odds at beating cancer. But if the world for now can’t be better, we at least can try to be kinder.

May cancer one day pass into the realm of history instead of being a current horrifying reality.