Herding sheep and growing date palms was the simple life I was living six months back in Saudi Arabia, ‘when a day I started feeling pricking pain in my left kidney’. This pain hindered my physical movement hence I had to leave my job and return to my home in a village of Jampur, a Tehsil of Rajanpur in Southern Punjab, Pakistan. My first Ultrasound showed a possible tumor growth in my left kidney hence we went to Nishtar Hospital Multan, where Prof Rafiq Anjum confirmed malignant nature of my tumor (Renal Carcinoma) and advised me to go to Lahore and visit Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) as being the only Hospital providing complete free treatment to more than 75% of its poor cancer patients.

In Lahore, my case was taken up by Shaukat Khanum Hospital without any delay. They told me of treating my cancer by surgically removing the cancerous area where cancer was still contained. It was second day of Eid when I was submitted for surgery and soon after returning to my senses after surgery, I got the happy news that Doctors have managed to save my kidney. I am sharing it with you all because soon I will be returning to Saudi Arabia holding the sense of pride and happiness that I belong to a Nation that does not leave its poor to die, where being lesser doesn’t mean being un privileged. And I thank all doctors and staff of Shaukat Khanum Hospital who contributed not just in my recovery but also in helping me in discovering a new sense of self-consciousness by treating me with equal honor and valued me as they value even the most affluent people of society.

MOHAMMAD AKBAR,

Jampur, November 5.