I can’t help but thinking…what if it was me?

I spoke to Amjad last night. We’re not friends in the classical sense…but we trained together in Karachi for our jobs and since he was from Punjab like me, he looked out for us out station trainees. In fact he arranged for our trips to Hawks bay, took care of the transportation and everything. All in all, he’s a pretty nice guy.

For the past few weeks, whenever I saw him on Television, I used to see how weak he looked and I commented as much to An and Shakeel. Last evening, Shakeel messaged me to talk to Amjad. He has been diagnosed with Leukemia…Blood Cancer.

There are times when you cant quite put your finger on the emotion. Am I worried? Am I shocked? He’s so young…only a year older than me. And he was one of the healthiest guys in our batch…tall and strong…the sort that looks like he’s never even had Flu for a day. And he hasn’t even told his mother yet. He said he didn’t know what to tell her.

I told him I would pray for him and that inshaAllah he will come visit us once he’s cured. And I’ll surely attend his wedding.

But how do you go from planning your life, your career to planning your treatment and operations?

How much time do we really have?