Boston

My husband and I went to Boston this weekend. He was invited to speak at a MAS event held at the city's new mammoth masjid, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. Two gracious Bostonians hosted us at their home for the weekend.

Before my surgery and diagnosis, I would have never accepted an offer to stay at someone I barely knew's home. There's no good reason why I wouldn't. I just never wanted to run the risk of being uncomfortable, or chance an awkward situation...

And something odd did happened while we were there. For the first time, I woke up in the morning and did not think of my disease.

After hearing my diagnosis, it seemed impossible each morning to wake up without thinking of it. I remember about a month ago, I would actually wake up mentally repeating the words, "malignant melanoma" over and over, as if I was doing tasbeeh. There were also some days I would rise unbothered, and then the recollection of my diagnosis would hit me, and it would feel like someone lobbed an anvil at my stomach.

I came to think of processing all the negative thoughts in the mornings as work. It would vary though. Sometimes I would wake up and feel like there was a huge stack of paperwork I had to work through...
"I am going to die... But everyone's going to die"
"The doctor said this is a 'devastating disease...' But Allah's will is greater than what any doctors says."
"What if it's overtaking my body right now?... Then try to accomplish what you can today."

And some mornings the thoughts were far less intrusive, like a small post-it note to be looked at briefly, then disregarded. But there was never a time when I woke up and the thought of my disease was entirely absent- until Boston.

Not that I didn't think of it all weekend. The organizers of the event broke the attendees up into groups at the start of the weekend, and then held small get-to-know each other sessions. Each time it was my turn to talk, I would hold my disease at the tip of my tongue, unsure if it was okay to unload such a hefty, personal factoid on unassuming event-goers. In the end, I just couldn't do it. I didn't want the lovely girls I was slowly befriending to suddenly start treating me with gratuitous sympathy.