"YOU found my place!" the sound of a chirpy voice greeting my arrival makes me smile. Turning in its direction as I shut the car door, I holler back happily: "It's a good thing you sent me a photo of your centre so at least I know I've arrived at the right place!"
I'm meeting Nur Rieya Abdullah for the first time in the tuition centre that she owns and operates in Kampung Jalan Kebun, Shah Alam. Offering after-school classes for students, the centre is strategically located, facing the front entrance of SK Jalan Kebun primary school.
This is where Rieya teaches primarily English. Her students comprise secondary school students who want to improve their command of the language, as well as adults looking to learn basic grammar, writing and communicating in English. In addition, Rieya also teaches reading and phonetics to the younger children.
In another lifetime, the soft-spoken teacher used to work in a private hospital. However, her condition and the medication she was prescribed made it challenging to be a full-time employee. Self-employment was the best way to earn a living as she could dictate her own hours.
On days when she wasn't feeling particularly well, Rieya could always reschedule the classes for another day or switch to virtual classes. Ultimately, she didn't have to answer to anyone. Because not many employers are able to understand how a seemingly able-bodied person with no outward display of illness could be struggling with health issues.
Appearances certainly can be deceiving. Rieya appears to glide languidly from one corner to another in her tuition centre, switching on the fan and lights for our interview. I couldn't have guessed that she's in fact living with fibromyalgia, where the slightest movement sends piercing pains throughout her body.
SLASHED BY A THOUSAND KNIVES
Fibromyalgia isn't easy to diagnose, nor is there a cure for it. It's characterised by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues. Out of the 18 different pain points that are commonly tender for those suffering from fibromyalgia, Rieya feels tenderness in all 18 of them.
Asked to describe how it feels, the mother-of-two likens it to a feeling of being pricked by a million needles simultaneously every time she moves. Voice low, she confides that she also feels as if there are 20 pairs of hands gripping and holding on to her, making movement difficult. At other times, she adds, it can also feel as if someone is sawing her bones, or that she's having tonnes of metal and bricks piled on top of her.
Throughout our interview, she hardly moves. Clearly, doing so is simply agonising. Her knees hurt and her back is stiff. Even her jaws, she tells me, hurt whenever she answers my questions. A pained look on her face, she goes on to share that whenever she blinks, it feels as if her eyes are being slashed by a thousand knives.
Her voice crisp and clear, Rieya elaborates: "There are various kinds of illnesses associated with fibromyalgia. I also have hiatus hernia, gall bladder stones and irritable bowel syndrome. Muscles are all throughout the body. Every illness associated with muscles is associated with fibromyalgia."
Continuing, she says: "It affects us mentally and physically, and we do get depression. People don't see our pain as it's not visible to the naked eye. People will ask 'Sakit apa?' (What's your pain about?). I can only say to them 'Sakitlah!' (I'm in pain!)."
Even sleeping is excruciating, confides Rieya. Unlike normal people, she finds it hard to get out of bed. Solemnly, she tells me that if she happened to have slept on her back, her entire body would be wrecked with pain. There have been times when the pain had been so unbearable that she couldn't even get up and she ended up resorting to wearing adult diapers.
WHEN IT ALL STARTED
The pain, shares Rieya, first started back in 2012. She was working in Melaka at the time, living with her then-husband and children. That year, she fell down while descending a flight of stairs at the hospital where she was working. She tried to get up but was overcome by giddiness. She suffered a facial palsy from the right lip to the temple.
She remembers that as being vaguely how it all started. Funnily enough, life had not always been like this, she tells me.
"I had a great childhood," she recalls, her eyes lighting, as she continues: "I grew up in Batu Cantonment in Kuala Lumpur, where there was ample space for me to run around." Her father had served as an army officer. With his background as an industrial engineer, he built an aviary for her. This allowed her to breed up to 22 budgerigars at one point.
Reminiscing her childhood as a young girl being ferried in an army truck to the Sentul Convent for her primary and secondary education, a huge smile crosses her face.
Enthusiastically, she tells me that she was active in co-curricular activities after school; regularly performing on stage and she was exposed to musical education from a young age through singing, violin and piano classes.
"Children these days spend a lot of time on their mobile phones and being locked indoors," she muses softly. That wasn't the case with her though. Rieya got to spend a lot of time outdoors.
She began menstruating at the age of 11. Pursing her lips, she recalls how she used to suffer from terrible menstrual cramps and headaches, and how her feet would hurt terribly. Looking back, she reckons that it could have been a sign back then. Certainly, nothing else happened that could have provided her with a clue to the condition that would afflict her later in life.
Suffice it to say, the pain and discomfort back then couldn't have prepared her for the excruciating pain she now faces on a daily basis.
SEARCHING FOR PEACE
The fall was only the beginning. She started feeling aches in her joints and the pain worsened over time. Her spine soon became stiff and movement, laboured. The next few years saw her undergoing numerous X-rays, CT scans and tests after tests. She was constantly in and out of hospitals.
A solemn expression on her face, she shows me her weathered notebook. Its pages burst with numerous hospital appointment cards, medical certificates and prescriptions. She tells me that all this had been collected over the years as she attempted to figure out what was wrong.
In 2014, she received the diagnoses of fibromyalgia. It had taken two years for this to be confirmed.
Overwhelmed by stress at this stage, Rieya contemplated suicide. Her constant pain, depression and marital problems, she confides, drove her to think about taking her own life. As far as she was concerned, her two children would be provided for so there was nothing for her to worry about.
A born Hindu, she'd prayed and chanted for hours on end. "I was searching for the truth, for just that one God," she says softly. But peace continued to elude Rieya. Continuing, she says: "When I was at my lowest, with everything going wrong in my life and my whole body in pain, I called out to Him."
Her eyes misting, she adds: "I remember saying, 'God, if you really do exist, guide me how to live. You can take everything away from me. Just give me peace. I want whatever is in my head to disappear. I don't want anything else.'"
Expression thoughtful, she confides that there was one day when she seriously thought about taking her own life. In fact, she was adamant about going ahead with it. But when she woke up, she heard the evening call to prayer emanating from the nearby mosque.
"I don't know how to explain it but there and then, it dawned on me that it was Islam I was seeking," recalls Rieya softly. However, conversion wasn't something she jumped at right away. "It took me a year and a half to convert. It was in December 2014 that I officially embraced Islam."
The decision to convert was something Rieya had thought long and hard about. Even so, her decision wasn't received favourably. It resulted in her separating from her husband and moving out of the family home. Her children stayed behind.
"I packed my clothes and left home at 3am," she remembers, a pained look on her face. In an instant, she found herself alone and homeless, enveloped in pain. She went on to move to Taiping to stay with her late mother for a few months as she attempted to get back on her feet again.
But once again, fate dealt her another blow — she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. "I had to remove part of my cervix, which meant I couldn't bear children anymore," shares Rieya.
Unable to imagine her pain, I couldn't help asking her how she was able to remain so upbeat.
"Positive affirmations," she replies, tone resolute. Adding, she confides: "I tell myself that this body and the person that I am are on a temporary loan from God. One day I will perish. While I'm still alive, no matter what I go through, I was going to live as best as I can. Nothing can stop me. In fact, I'm thankful that I have to live with this because it has helped me develop a fighting spirit."
LIVING LIFE
Rieya has since remarried. Her husband is also a Muslim convert. The couple is seeking to adopt a 9-year-old boy, who joined their family more than a year ago. The lack of proper birth documentation stands in their way, which they must first untangle.
Her husband suffers from lymphatic filliaris, commonly known as elephantiasis, in his right leg. He lugs the equivalent of four hips in one leg but still heads to work every day without complaint. Shares Rieya: "It's from my husband that I get my strength from. Without him, I wouldn't be where I am today."
Maybe her pain has reduced over the years, I wonder aloud. Rieya inadvertently corrects me.
Smiling gently, she says: "I'm still in pain; . Every part of my body is. But my doctor told me that the pain wouldn't kill me. She even used a rubber band as a demonstration tool. She stretched it with both hands but the rubber band didn't break. My doctor told me that I needed to take charge of the pain."
Looking at me with a thoughtful look in her eyes, she adds: "She said that this was my body and that I had a choice. In the end, it all boils down to choice – to give up or move forward with life."
These days, Rieya's routine is set. Every weekend, she's at her tuition centre spending up to 12 hours a day teaching her students. Come Monday, she'd experience flare-ups and would end up doubling up on her painkillers and muscle relaxants. Lyrica, a common medication for fibromyalgia, is one of them.
As we reach the end of our interview, I couldn't help asking Rieya whether she'd found the peace that she'd been searching for.
As she battles the pain searing throughout her slim frame, she looks at me in earnest before answering with a resounding "Yes."