A pretty important personal update on my health + 3 ways you can make a difference right now!

Alhamdulillah for everything - good and bad.

As-Salaam-Alaikum dear sisters and brothers.

Before I share my personal update, I have 3 ways you can make an immediate difference OK?

1. My wife recently became Principal of a wonderful K-12 Islamic School. They have about 20 things left on their wish list here that they need before school starts, OK? Thank you so much for helping her.

2. Just yesterday, we we were one of the first charities to get flour and some food back into Gaza. It’s not enough. Not even close, but it’s a start and we need your help to do more. Here are the details. I am truly begging you to help us.

3. We are growing here at The North Star. We are now #3 in traffic and engagement for all news platforms, but we are #15 in funding. I need us to have the same budgets as the outlets and authors ahead of us. If you are not yet a member, please join today HERE.

Some Personal News Today

As you may know, this past March I had cervical disc replacement where they removed 2 discs from my neck and replaced them with what are basically titanium cages. I’m now basically 2% titanium.

Unfortunately, that surgery did not help my pain, and I have to now get spinal fusion and another artificial disc replacement. I am so much pain on some days that I can barely think clearly and struggle to use my right arm much at all. I’ve been in pain most of my life, but what I am experiencing now is pretty relentless. It makes it hard to type, even now, but I enjoy being able to express myself and help keep you all informed.

Why am I sharing this?

2 reasons really.

1. I decided when I got back to writing daily that I also wanted to let my readers in on my personal life. I am not a robot. I have a body (that clearly aches), I have a heart, a soul, a worldview. I have a family, a faith. I have dreams. I can write about the world and pretend not to have any of those things, but it doesn’t make it so. I’d just rather you all know completely where I stand in life. It informs everything. Every journalist in the world is biased. And anyone saying otherwise has never worked in the industry.

2. I expect this next surgery to be pretty harsh. And I don’t know how much I will be able to write, but I am still going to try my best to write daily as soon as I can. I’m likely not going to have the surgery this month anyway, so I have time to prepare. And I just wanted to prepare you all as well. I think I will try to write some about my recovery, not just the physical part of it, but the spiritual part as well.

I’m not really one to feel sorry for myself, as it is, but if I even find my drifting, all I have to think about are all of my peers, all of the sisters and brothers, all of the elders and children, that need surgery in Gaza, and are suffering in pain, and can’t even get it. I have several friends that are in so much pain in Gaza right now and they can’t even get proper pain medicine - not to mention the surgeries they need. It’s so awful.

Please pray for them, and if you remember, please pray for me.

Love and appreciate you all.

Shaun