The Gift Of Health (Memoir)

Assalaamu Alaykum Warahmaullahi Wabarakatuhu,

Every Ramadhan, I believe, is a Ramadhan to remember. Each Ramadhan brings with it treasures which we collect and keep for the upcoming year. Ramadhan 2013 was a very different experience. Unlike the other years, I experienced something that made me a appreciate the blessing of health and the blessing of being able to fast so much more.

It was a Saturday morning and I had a lot on my mind. I’m an individual who worries and stresses over the teeniest of issues, and that morning was one of those days I was stressing!

Although, I never thought that would be the reason I’d be driven to hospital in an ambulance.

So, I was sitting in my Tafseer class on this beautiful morning, in the company of my sisters (and the Angels!), when I decided to begin to feel a tightening in my chest. At first, I took it as a pinch of salt, I suffered from Asthma when I was younger, and ever since always had a slight wheezy chest from time to time, which also kept me awake some nights. However, as the class progressed it worsened and my wheezing was getting more and more severe, to the point that I couldn’t breathe and had to rush to the bathroom every few minutes, in the attempt to try and get some oxygen into my lungs. It was a horrible feeling, and at the same time I was getting extremely sharp shooting pains in my chest.

Just a couple of weeks before that, my Grandma had a heart attack, and my mind was wandering from that thought to the thought of just having recently written an essay in health and social care, on the signs and symptoms of Coronary heart disease. Oh, how far my thoughts travelled.

When I returned to class, my mum looked over at me and asked me if I was ok, to which I responded a helpless no. I was struggling to get some air into my lungs and wanted to just… breathe! Alhamdulilah, my mum knew better than me, and decided to ring the ambulance. By then, the class had finished, and flocks of sister began to leave. I hurriedly ran into a spare classroom and sat on the floor trying to cough out phlegm whilst simultaneously trying to get air into me.

All along, I had forgotten I was fasting, until a sister came and gave me a glass of water and some dates. I couldn’t eat but had a sip of the water and loosened up my Hijab. A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived and began to attach several wires and what-not to my body. The female paramedic told me to remove my jilbab as she needed to attach some wires to my upper arm. I glanced over at my mum and then to the other sisters in the room. The male paramedic was also in the room and I had my Pyjamas underneath. It was only at this moment I understood why mum always told me off for wearing my PJ’s under my Jilbab! I never understood that until this day.

Anyways, I believe the man realised that I was uncomfortable in uncovering, whilst he was in the room, and so he left. What I appreciated the most right then, was when one of the sisters called her husband over in order to keep the male paramedic company! He left his chores and his house to do just that. Okay, it’s hilarious in a way, but at the same time I appreciated that act ever so much, it’s like the brother had a sense of gheerah in him, and this protectiveness, and so much respect for me that he didn’t want another man looking at me without my jilbab and hijab. Islam truly does protect and honour the woman.

Anyways, after several hours in the hospitals undergoing tests after tests, it was finally revealed that I was in fact suffering from… nothing. Yes, all that and the end result was nothing. The nurses couldn’t really find an answer to why that happened to me, my blood pressure was high, and that was about it, everything else, the X-rays etc, were all clear. They suspected that perhaps I was stressed and that’s what caused it all to happen. Too right they were. 

They provided me with medication and said that I wasn’t allowed to fast for a while, and so I missed around eleven fasts. Although, It was nothing, I still was very ill and weak and needed time to recover.

My parents would check-up on me every night, sometimes my dad would go down in the depth of the night and make me some hot green tea, and then with his own hands he would spoon feed me the tea, as I was too weak and unable to do it myself. May Allah preserve my parents and grant them Firdaus for all they do and have done for me. Ameen.

The fact that it was Ramadhan and I couldn’t do any extra Ibaadah was the most upsetting thing to know, and was what was bugging me the most. My Salaah would be prayed whilst sitting and I couldn’t pray my Taraaweeh. It was like, it wasn’t Ramadhan. Everyone around me was fasting, and I felt an ounce or more of jealousy. How much I missed fasting. I just wasn’t feeling it…

However, my mum would tell me that I was still getting rewarded, and I was reminded that it was all a purification, and what month is it better for one to be purified than in the month of Ramadhan, where the rewards are increased and multiplied many manifold?

I often ponder over the blessing of health, after this incident and also previously when I was diagnosed with TB and remained in hospital for a period of time. Alhamdulilah, Allah healed me, He gave me strength, He helped me regain energy every time. It taught me how much of a blessing health is. How much it is a blessing to be able to fast.

The point of this whole story, (besides the fact that I just wanted to write lol) is that, now that you have the health, now that you have the ability to worship Allah, take it as an opportunity and make the most of it. We have now entered the season of winter where the days are short and the nights are long. So, if you have the health -utilise it, use it in fasting nawaafil fasts, or praying extra prayers, because you never know if you will ever get that opportunity again, you never know how long you will be strong and healthy, and sometimes one has to go through loss of health to truly acknowledge the worth and weight of this beautiful gift bestowed upon them.