Ameena Muflihi

Ameena Muflihi

I was born in England at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1971. My dad was from Yemen and my mum is English. In 1955 my dad managed to get a work permit and an entry visa to the UK. He came into South Shields by ship and then made his way to Smethwick where he eventually met my mum. My mum was born in Cardiff and brought up in Smethwick, so I am a bit of a dolly mixture, a bit of everything and proud of it. Haha

When I was growing up we used to have a corner shop in Shenstone Road, just at the bottom of Cape Hill on the border of Edgbaston. There were a lot of Yemeni families around us in the neighbourhood, but I could never speak Arabic and my dad never spoke Arabic to us as we grew up. We celebrated Christmas and Eid, so had the best of both worlds. We had lovely neighbours and all the customers were like family. We were brought up knowing we were Muslims but dad wasn’t very strict with us. Every so often dad tried to teach us some Arabic but it never stuck. And it wasn't until I got into my high school in my teens that I realised that I couldn't go out like everybody else did. When my mates came to call for me to play out, my dad was there rolling his big eyes that said, “you are not supposed to do that now at your age.” Haha

But I had a wonderful childhood, I never wanted for anything. My dad worked at Ash & Lacey until he was made redundant. So he had an early retirement. He worked every day of his life up till then. And he gave us a really good outlook on life, the way things should be. Can you tell he's my hero? Whether he's here or not, he is still my hero.

So we used to have this little corner shop. Dad would work all night, came home, have his sleep, and then came down into the shop and help my mum out.  And in 1979 they had my two little sisters, the twins, I would think to myself “oh, they get more time with mum and dad.” I guess because I was no longer the baby in the family. So I think if anything, when I look back, I think, “I wish we had more time and that we did more things together.” But we were all very blessed.

I think if you want something then you need to work hard for it. And my dad always did and so did my mum. I remember when mum had my twin sisters - she came home from the hospital and then took the twins straight upstairs but because I had chicken pox. Then she got back into the shop to work. On Christmas Day, we'd say, “we're going to close this Christmas. We're going to have Christmas dinner and we're going to close.” And then my dad would be sitting there on the couch saying, “somebody might have forgotten the mint sauce, somebody might have forgotten the gravy”, and so we would end up opening up for a few hours. And he was right, people had forgotten little things, like you do on Christmas Day. I think they instilled in us honesty, respect and hard work. I hope that now as a family, we do him proud.

So I founded a cancer support group called Let's Talk Hope in 2018. My mum had breast cancer in 2016. I had met my now-husband Matthew, and we had planned to get married 6th of August, 2016. So three days before the wedding, that was when we found that my mum had got breast cancer. I remember being very emotional. I had ordered her flowers because she'd helped me find my dress and help me with the wedding. So, you know, at the end of the wedding where you give out flowers and say thank you to everybody, well I remember thinking, “I don't know what I'm going to say to her because I'm going to lose my mum.” Because as soon as you hear the word cancer, you think that it's over. So Mum went through her cancer journey. She had a rare form of breast cancer. Every day she had radiotherapy as a family me and my sisters would always buy her a gift. So she'd come out of radiotherapy and she got a gift waiting for her. So 15 gifts, she did really well. We supported her all the way through and that's how our family is. 

When we went to the appointments we met a lot of other people in the waiting rooms. It's priceless what you find out with people that are on the same sort of journey, whether it be for themselves or a member of their family. 

In 2017 I was diagnosed with the same cancer. And again, it was back to the QE Hospital and City Hospital for a mastectomy and radiotherapy. Mine was worse than my mum's. My mum would come with me to my appointments and we'd sit there and we would chat to these wonderful people until you got called into your appointments. Some of these conversations were absolutely priceless, they were about which services people had tried, and different things such as “have you tried this cream, have you done this.’ Sometimes people with experience are the best people to ask. And then you get called into your appointment and these conversations get cut short. And I just felt I wanted to do something to continue those conversations. The one thing that you need more than anything in life is hope. So at YCA we thought to ourselves, let's call this Let's Talk Hope.

So we started off as a pilot and I did a day's training through Macmillan and then I took it from there. I wasn't sure it would take off. It started off on the last Saturday of every month. Some people said it wouldn't work. And four years on, I've got so many people that come through this door. It's beautiful being there for each other, sharing whether they've got cancer or if they've had cancer, or if they've lost someone to cancer. All different. It's diverse. It's just beautiful. And then I also set up a Facebook group as well, and that has about 450 members.

And people can message me anytime they need. They can inbox me. And if I don't have the answer I will contact someone who can get the answers and give them the support. And then recently I started a second face-to-face at Dorothy Parkes Centre in Smethwick, so that's just taking off.

I'm honoured that someone might open up and tell me something. Cancer support groups aren’t for everybody. But just having someone there to talk to and ask questions can really help. Someone called me recently. And she was in Wales and she was worried about her dad and she wasn't sure which way to turn. Anyway, I reached out to our network and I said, “What can I advise this lady?” Because I don't have all the answers, I am not a doctor. I'm just a survivor. I just want to make people's journeys easier. And so they gave me the information which I passed on to her. Two days ago. I've got a beautiful but sad message saying. “I wanted to say, unfortunately, dad has passed away, but we knew it was terminal. But thank you for being there at the right time when we needed you.” And, I said, “thank you for reaching out to me.” I think it's an honour.

With Let’s Talk Hope, what we do is we meet up with a cup of coffee/tea and there's probably a slice of cake or a biscuit or something. Sometimes we get speakers to come in. Sometimes we'll sit here and we'll do craft things and we'll have a chat and also find out how someone's journey is going. It’s not easy reaching out to our families, but the people in this room, well, we are all on that sort of journey or have been on that journey, so it's a place where you can just have chat. It’s just there for people and it builds those bridges and it gives that gentle hug that you need sometimes that you can't always get from your families.

This work helps me heal. I was just reading something that someone had sent to me today about how people never really understand. They say, okay, your cancer has gone, now you're fine. And they don't realise that really it's always going to be in the back of your mind because you never thought it was going to happen to you in the first place. So it's always there in the back of your mind, it never really goes away - at the moment, I'm four years’ cancer-free but every time I have an ache and a pain. I think, “Could it have come back, has it spread?” So that’s where you've got your support group or you've got an Ameena there to say, “it's normal to feel like that”. And a lot of people when they're going to have their annual scans find it so hard and scary. If anyone goes for one and they've messaged me, I'll be there on the end of the phone or message keeping them calm and just being there for them. 

I think when you have cancer you realise how precious life is. But it doesn't only have to be cancer. Somebody might have a heart condition, or somebody has diabetes. You are just grateful you know, for life, for opportunities. I lost my father to stomach cancer in 2019. I had already started ‘Let's Talk Hope”. He was so proud of the work that I was doing. And I remember Macmillan coming in to YCA to do an interview on me.  My dad had come to YCA to the elderly luncheon club and she said to him, “Oh, can you share your story?” And he said, “I'll do anything for my daughter.” So he ended up having his story written as well. My dad had terminal cancer and she asks him, “how are you coping?” and he says, “I'll leave it all in God's hands. I've had a good life.” I'll just take every day as it comes. It's a blessing and it's true. You do have to take every day as it comes and make the most of life. I think helping others helps me.

Let’s Talk Hope is an open door. You can come in and you can treat this session however you need to. You've got people from lots of different faiths and people from all walks of life. I'm trying to raise awareness within other communities because sometimes the language or culture stops people from getting important knowledge that could save their lives and some see cancer as a taboo. I am trying to break down those barriers so that we can get the information across in people's mother tongues. Knowledge is power.

For me, community is the beating heart of everything. If you treat the community in the right way, it'll blossom. If you give people the tools, they will blossom. What keeps me going is making a difference, that keeps me going. If I have to do anything, if I have to go give a talk or a session or anything, I look up  and I say, “Dad, this one's for you”. That's what keeps me going. I just want to make my dad proud in everything I do. I love what I do. I do it from the heart. I think everybody needs hope. We all need a little pot of hope.

And what gives me hope is that we are knocking down those barriers and possibly saving more lives. To me, that's hope in itself. Let's put it this way, hope is like spring. So when we see those daffodils just popping through the soil and it gives us that warm feeling, that's what hope does. And we can't lose it no matter what.