A few days after touch down in Malaysia, can't really say how much i missed the weather, the air, and definitely the people. Well, as I was writing this, it's been one week since the day I arrived back to my home country.
Last Friday, I had this minor operation called cross-linking. An operation in which the epithelium of the eye was removed bla-bla-bla. For people who likes to know more, here are some links for you to watch the video (
click here) and some more information for you to read on (
click here). It's not that scary i think, but for anybody who can't stand gross things, better not to click on those links, especially the video one (>_<)
Well, I don't really like to write on what I've experienced, but here, I think I would like to share what I was thinking through out the procedure.
The thing about this procedure was, I was aware that my cornea was being scrapped out using the knife. I can actually see the knife ( I also don't know what it was called in medical term) through my eye as it scrapped out the epithelium of my cornea (i just learned from the doctor that cornea has epithelium). And even though i was given some pain killer, I can feel the pain as if my skin was being scratched, not that painful, something i can't bare with, but still, it was kinda painful. Let's just say, if I have the choice, I wouldn't want to go through that again.
Through out the procedure, I keep on thinking, how sight is one of the greatest gift that Allah bestowed to us, human, and He can actually take that from us, anytime that He likes. And for that ni'mah alone, even if we worship Him through out our life, doing nothing and just pray all the time in our lives, and only submit to Him, we can never repay that ni'mah alone. While through out all our lives, we get more than just sight and if we want to count our blessings since the day we were born, we can never manage to stop listing until we die.
That was what i occupied my mind with to distract myself from thinking too much of the knife that was actually having its way in my eye. The feeling was as if you are looking at a window that was being cleaned by something; but that window was in fact your eye. A bit funny to put it that way, but humor help to reduced the tension, inshaAllah. And Alhamdulillah, He gave me strength to think it that way, that i manage to keep calm all the way through.
And there was one more thing that i thought about while this procedure was on. I mentioned earlier that i felt the pain when the knife scrapped my cornea. I did, it was kinda like, you skin being scratched by a knife, just that , the pain was more bearable, maybe due to the pain killer pill that was given to me before the procedure. But, it occurs to me, how the sahabah was being tortured, one of the phrase come to me at that time,
'orang sebelum kamu disikat dengan sikat besi' (translation: people before you was being combed with iron comb)
Imam Bukhari rahmatullah telah meriwayatkan dari Qais berkata:
“Aku telah mendengar Khabab r.a. berkata: Aku telah mendatangi Rasulullah saw. sedang baginda berbantalkan burdadi di bawah naungan Ka’bah. Ketika itu kami sedang menerima penyiksaan yang keras dari kaum musyrikin, lalu dia berkata: Tidak maukah kamu berdoa kepada Allah? Lalu Rasulullah saw. duduk dengan merah padam mukanya lantas bersabda: Sesungguhnya telah terjadi kepada orang-orang sebelum kamu siksaan, di antara mereka ada yang disikat dengan sikat-sikat besi yang mencakar-cakar daging-daging dan urat-urat mereka hingga ke tulang-tulang mereka. Itu tidak memalingkan mereka dari agama mereka. Kepala mereka digergaji hingga terbelah dua. Ini tidak memalingkan mereka dari agama mereka. Satu masa nanti, pasti Allah akan menyempurnakan urusan agama ini dengan memberi kemenangan di mana orang yang menunggang itu berjalan dari San'a di Yaman ke Hadramaut tanpa rasa takut kecuali hanya kepada Allah dan hanya khawatir dengan serangan serigala ke kambing-kambing mereka. Tetapi, kamu ini ingin meraih kemenangan dengan segera."
This was what come to my mind, at least, this pain i was experiencing was for my benefits, for myself only. How can i complain?? The sahabah experienced more pain while doing da'wa, upholding Islam and spreading the syahadah. How can i not be able to stand this pain and want to be in this path; the path of upholding Islam, spreading the articles of faith, the syahadah? Allah..Make me istiqamah in improving myself to make me worthy to be in this path, ameen..
Alhamdulillah. With that in mind, the pain seems distance even though the knife was actually right in front of my eye. Well, literally in front, i didn't lie.. ^_^