When 14-year-old Maisa Mohammed of Palestine fell victim to cancer four years ago, she decided to fight. She won the first battle in the first year but the malignant disease attacked again and forced her to give up.
As if she had known she would finally lose, her dream shifted from fighting for life to going to the Moslem holy land in Saudi Arabia to perform Umra (mini pilgrimage). Although she lost the battle for life, she won it for Umra.
Maisa first felt the cancerous attack when she was nine years old. She was admitted to the specialized cancer division in Twam hospital in the eastern oasis town of Al-Ain, where she underwent chemical treatment.
The treatment worked on her body for nearly a year before the disease attacked again and spread through her kidney, lungs and neck.
The hospital told her mother that the cancer her daughter is suffering is incurable and that she would continue to suffer in the following years.
“My daughter was dreaming of going to Saudi Arabia to perform Umra but we could not fulfill her dream in the beginning for lack of money…a benevolent person who read about her in the newspaper decided to bear all expenses and sent her to Saudi Arabia,” Maisa’s mother told Emarat Alyoum daily.
“After she performed Umra, we went to Madina…on our arrival there, Maisa’s condition was getting worse…we moved her to a hospital in Makkah, where she stayed at the intensive care unit for three days….on the fourth day, she was transferred to Jeddah airport, where we flew to back to Dubai…
“In Dubai, we moved her to Rashid hospital, where she stayed at the ICU for five days…a benevolent person paid the expenses of Dh10,000…we then moved her back to Twam hospital…on the next day, my daughter passed away.”
In its report, the Arabic language daily Emarat Alyoum wrote:”Maisa Mohammed could not resist cancer for long despite her strong will….the disease continued to drain her little body until she passed away last Thursday at the age of 14 years after nearly four years of pain and suffering.”
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