Salam/peace be upon you all, 

He had no history of seizures until the day he collapsed towards the end of September 2017, three days after he returned from Hajj. A neighbour noticed Baba calling for help from the driveway and phoned for an ambulance. It was very scary. An MRI scan identified three small lesions in his brain but initially it was thought he had some kind of infection. I knew from the doctor’s face that the news wasn’t good.
After few MRI's, and two heart attacks, not related to the tumor, he was scheduled for Open Brain Surgery and Tumor resection.  One of my Fathers  favorite holidays, Thanksgiving, was spent in the hospital awaiting his Brain Surgery. 

Finally, on November 27th, a day my family and I will never forget, he had open brain surgery and tumor resection with biopsy. After a few hours of anxiously waiting for this to be over with, the Dr informed us that 90% of the tumor,  was resected. This was great news! But the worst was yet to come....

As we approached my father post surgery in Neuro ICU recovery room, we were informed he was enduring yet another heart attack. We were all in disbelief. Having just had surgery for which we all were so optimistic that the worst would be over, was in fact just the beginning.

He endured 8 hours of extreme pain from the attack. Those 8 hours seemed like an absolute nightmare for my family and I. Those hours will forever be embedded in my memory. Despite all that he was going through, my father never gave up hope on prayer, hope and faith. He prayed while laying in his hospital bed, 2 hours after brain surgery, during his heart attack as he heard the call of prayer sound off from my phone (Athan). This is a moment that brought me to tears..... What can I do? how can I help? why is this happening to my intelligent, strong willed, active, fearless father? My real life superhero???These questions we will never know the answers for, for this is the Wisdom in which God has willed.  I am positive without his FAITH and all my friends and families prayers, things could've Been much worse.

Hope they say is what gets you through cancer. For me, that hope is intertwined with finding or at least assisting in some way for a cure. It was later confirmed that my fathers tumor is a GBM-GlioblastomaMultiform primary Brain tumor. It is the most aggressive Brain tumor of all types of Brain cancer.  

You see, my father donated part of that tumor to research. Its what he does after all, as a chemical engineer, science is his passion. Despite all that he went through, he eagerly accepted His oncologist's treatment plan of Chemotherapy and radiation. I had doubts and we are all scared of the outcome understandably, but never imagined how strong and willing he was to surgery and the treatment plan.  Thus, I am in awe of his courage, and determination; Having survived 3 heart attacks and open Brain surgery and now Chemo+Radiation.  

Fundraising for Brain tumor research and running London marathon is a no brainer for me. I am hoping to hit 6,000$ by Marathon day. Cancer knows no religion, no race, no gender. I never in a million years imagined for all this to happen so quickly, so traumatically, but I simply can't stand idly by.  This is MY way of doing something, creating lemonade out of lemons as they say....Please donate generously!

kind regards, 

Rahaf Khatib

aka Runlikeahijabi

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