AL-AHSA — Dr. Samia Al-Amoudi, the Saudi female consultant obstetrician and gynecologist famous for her fight against breast cancer, has suffered a recurrence of the disease. She announced the news on her Twitter account after being in remission for about eight years, Makkah daily reported on Monday. Al-Amoudi announced in 2006 that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She wrote, while breaking the news at the time: “Oh God, do you love that much to give me this disease?” Once she was in remission, Al-Amoudi launched massive media campaigns and wrote a number of books urging women to get checked periodically for the disease. Her fight against breast cancer won her the International Women of Courage Award. Amoudi's recent announcement about the recurrence of the disease shocked her fans and followers on Twitter. However, all she said was that she had relapsed and asked people to pray for her in her second fight against the disease. She said: “I want to tell my people and my society about the return of the disease. “I want them to be my tools in my new fight against breast cancer.” Abdullah Al-Gadami, a famous Saudi literary critic, tweeted: “Please support her and be beside her bed. “Let us all pray to Allah to keep her safe for us as a lesson to teach us bravery, candidness and support of the needy.” He said Al-Amoudi would be a “beacon of hope”. “You have been a light to us and your sickness will teach us the meaning of patience and courage,” he said. Al-Amoudi said she wanted the announcement of her disease to be a “message of love” to other women in the Kingdom and the world to get examined and detect breast cancer early. She said she would not “turn her back on the disease but face it with courage and determination.”
