First Post

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

As-salaam alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

I am new to this blogging phenomenon, although one of my best friends has been keeping her own blog (and it is quite popular) for years now. So I guess we could start off with an introduction. My name is UmmZakaria, I am a 32 year old American Muslimah, mother of two sweet toddlers, and a recent "diagnosee" of inflammatory breast cancer.
You know, I really have always been a healthy person. Other than pregnancy related visits, or complications from pregnancy, I had never been a patient in a hospital, alhamdullilah. So when in September of 2008 I had beginning symptoms of IBC, I was not seriously alarmed. I called the doctor for an appointment, and many Dr. appointments and one month later from the first symptoms, I was diagnosed with breast cancer that was almost at stage 4. Alhamdullilah, alhamdullilah, alhamdullilah, I have to say, what a blessing that this cancer did not reach stage four. This specific kind of cancer is so aggressive that it can do in one month what most breast tumors would take years to do (but i will get into the specifics of my diagnosis later.)
Sure, I wanted to start this blog to shine a light on breast cancer for Muslim women who usually do not discuss such things. However, the medical side can be found on countless websites. I think its important for Muslimahs with cancer to talk with other Muslim women about how to deal with cancer and how to deal with the treatment for it. This illness that can zap you and make you feel that you want to give up(And if the illness doesn't zap you, the treatment definitely will.)

Maybe in sharing our experiences we can really focus on our faith, and focus on devotion and purifying our intentions for Allah's sake to claw our way through treatment, and kick this cancer in the butt.

I pray for all who read this to always be healthy and not to ever have to face cancer, and I ask Allah, The Lord of the great throne to heal all those Muslim women who are currently fighting cancer.