A couple of nights ago, I had my first outing as an official breast cancer survivor. Until then, I had only told people socially that I was a breast cancer survivor. And as far as the newspaper articles were concerned, I hid out when the brouhaha was raging. This was especially easy since apart from immediate family, no-one else I knew seemed to read the Straits Times, or read more than the headlines.

Two days ago, however, I went to the premiere of Pink Paddlers, a movie about the Singapore dragon boat team made up of breast cancer survivors. When I showed up with my 1 cm hair regrowth, and saw women there whom I had seen at various hospital corridors and oncology clinics, I realised that I was one of them, a sisterhood of strangers drawn together by the simple words: you have cancer.

The stories told by the women who were featured in the movie were all too familiar - the sense of shock and denial when first told of the diagnosis, the horror of the mastectomy that followed, the fear throughout treatment, the reactions of family, friends and strangers. While I had always felt that my journey was particularly easy, hearing the recollections of these women also highlighted something that I have never admitted - that there is a nightmarish element to the journey.

When my father was first diagnosed with terminal lung cancer nine years ago, I remember thinking that it was as though death had moved in with us. I could not think of my father, or have a conversation with him, without thinking that each interaction with him, or thought of him, was one of the last I would have. It was countdown time. The long dark shadow had cast its pall over all of us.

During Pink Paddlers, even as the brave women interviewed danced, laughed and furiously paddled through every race, it was as though they were defying death, determinedly living life writ large in the face of death. And at the very end, when the dragon boat teams gathered together after the competition to remember team members and friends who had passed on, the nightmare element of the cancer journey was brought to the fore - that death walks very closely to all cancer survivors. This is a nightmare from which we will never wake up, ever. As one survivor said, even after several years, we still fear the recurrence.

A voice-over at the end of the movie said that at the back of their minds was the thought: I wonder how many of us will be here next year? Death is our constant companion. In a wierd way, this is way we all try to live our lives as fully as possible - because we refuse to give up one iota while we still have life.

I must admit I spent much of the movie blubbing. It was my story on the screen, as it was the story of all breast cancer, and indeed, all cancer survivors. It was a story of struggle, and a daily bolstering of courage. The vivacity and determination of the women interviewed were inspiring, and humbling.

All of them have blazed a trail. The movie, if shown in cinemas, will go a long way to lifting the veil of ignorance and attitude of 'I'd rather not know' around cancer. Kudos to the women who have bared themselves to the general public to raise awareness and consciousness.

Indeed, cancer is not a death sentence. It is a sentence of fullest life.

Well, I've been a busy bee over the past several days. In fact, for someone who is jobless, I have been quite chokka with meetings. Enter the next phase of the cancer journey - building a roadmap into the future post treatment.

As with the chemo, when it was one day at a time, I am still trying to feel my way forward into a rather uncertain future. I am keeping all my options open, meeting headhunters who might need someone with my profile, meeting with potential clients for my brand new PR business and meeting with friends.

What is unnerving about all this is the number of times I have had to relive the early days of the cancer journey, the fear and the shakiness, as I have to admit that I am a cancer survivor to people. And sometimes, people want to know more than they have a right, or need, to. Today, when I cancelled my meeting with my outplacement person, saying that I was feeling rather tired, having just had a bout of the flu last week. It was not enough for her. 'So long to get over the flu? Are you all right?" she asked. "Yes, I'm just tired." She continued to press."Are you sure?" I have to admit, I was annoyed. What she want me to say, that it was the cancer again? And if it were, why should I tell her, a total stranger? "I am just tired," I said. "Is that all right with you?" If I were anyone else, she would have accepted the tiredness excuse. But because I am a cancer survivor, I have to have something more serious.

Well, I don't. Take that and chew on it. She said she was just concerned. But even those who are concerned have to learn when to back off. Concern does not entitle you to the details of my life. I have had months of doctors prodding and poking, months with minimal personal privacy. Now, here is the total stranger, whose relationship with me does not merit confidences, expecting to be confided in.

Well, back off, I say! You will only be confided in because I choose to confide, not because you ask questions. I do not appreciate presumption of intimacy just because I have told you that I have cancer.

I know I should not be annoyed because Singaporeans as a whole have less of a concept of personal space than other people - probably because we live in such tight quarters, and partly because the Chinese culture as a whole does not respect personal space as much as other cultures.

But I want now is the right to be normal, to be treated as any other human being - and that includes the right to privacy. The physical facts of cancer are something most cancer survivors spit out pretty automatically - we've been doing it for months. But at some point, we need to move on from the physical elements of the disease to the life after treatment - a new life phase which to most of us is a gift, a blessing. After chemo, and radiation, and surgery, we want to begin living as fully as possible, in a life with parameters of our choosing, not a bug under a microscope.

For the past nine months, I have had contact only with the medical community and family and close friends. To other people who are now entering my circle - I am putting up fences, and a BEWARE sign. No prizes for guessing whose teeth will be gnashing if barriers are breached!

Why do people cling to the old ways, even when they know that they have no place in their lives anymore? Why do men, for example, chase after sweet young things when they have lost the first flush of youth and have a devoted wife and kids waiting for them at home? And why do some people seem to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again?

I ask myself these questions as I begin my tentative steps along the next turn of my cancer journey - as one of the new Untouchables walking amongst the masses in mainstream life, a cancer survivor. The word is not mine, it was used to me by another breast cancer survivor highlighting that we are uninsurable, and unemployable. Why do I mourn my old job, the life I had in Shanghai although people have been reminding throughout the past 10 days that I was never really happy in Shanghai, and that I did not even particularly enjoy my job?

I think the answer to all these questions is quite simple - because the past signals a time when 'I could'. That's it. That's why men cheat, why women shop, and whiney kids cling to apron strings. It is also why people hold on to bad habits, and cowards don't usually change.

Familiar experiences are those which we have gone through before, and have established a comfortable coping mechanism for. They become, by the power of blurred-at-the-edges memory, a time when we were in control, masters of the experience. Even if we recognise on some level that the behaviour is not exactly us at our best, we will justify it, reluctant to admit things could have been done differently, because this would require an attitude adjustment, and some change. It would require letting in a new experience and risking a loss of control.

Life is a series of new experiences - some scary, some ho-hum. But when we are invited to take that step off the cliff into the abyss without the safety net, that can be terrifying, and so we revert to familiar patterns to make us feel better. Often, these patterns come with a cost but our desperation for the comfort of being in the driver's seat makes us ignore the implications.

Such is the human desire for security - almost a basic survival need. It is therefore not surprising that when threatened with possible loss of one's rice bowl, such as in a period when the company says retrenchments are on the cards, people begin to act in ways that are - what they feel - out of character. Circumstances forced me, they say. The sweet young thing made me, they say. The dress called to me. Mummy held my hand.

I find myself regretting that I no longer have the job, despite its issues. What faces me is very exciting - indeed, while convalescing, and thinking about what I could do for cancer activisim if I remained in Singapore, I had thought that the path I am now on would be exhilarating.

Ha! Now, I find myself backtracking, railing at God for allowing me to be retrenched, for the pathetic retrenchment payout I am getting. I want the old life, crap though it may have been. It's what I know, a time when I could. Three pep talks a day - that's what I give myself now. Hopefully, I will talk myself into loving the freefall. Every day is a new experience. I am learning all sorts of things all the time, from how to register a business, to setting up a home office and registering a domain name. In the old days (!), I could simply order it done. Now, I have to get my hands dirty - exciting, but scary. What if I can't do it?

Last question - who is the real person? The person we see see when things are hunky-dory, or the one we see when the chips are down? I have always believed we all have a base self which is the jumping off point for all our other selves (put it down to endless hours of character analysis during English Lit.). So, is the man really a cheater, or really just a loving husband who just slipped...once? Is the man who is a known corporate backstabber really just a nice guy with cutting wit? Is the woman who acts like little girl lost to get men to fight her battles for her just a manipulative you-know-what? I will leave you to puzzle this out, Dear Reader!

I find myself with a choice - to be bitter about being retrenched at the end of a tough induction into the cancer journey, or to take life by the horns and enjoy every buck and toss. Which person am I really? Right now, I am putting away the old, albeit not without a little sadness. What comes next? Well, I am determined to enjoy every buck and toss. I will loosen my grip on the familiar, the old. You only live once after all.

So, life - here I am. Come and get me!

I have not blogged much about the recent spate of coverage in the Singapore newspapers, and even on the blogosphere, about my cancer and the fact that my insurer, Aviva, has refused to pay the claim, citing a pre-existing condition.

It has been suggested by various people that I was stupid, careless, a fraudster, irresponsible etc - sometimes in just those words. Other people have suggested that judging by the size of the tumour (9cm), ie the size of a tennis ball, I must have been a DollyPartonalike to have missed it, or am lying. I will not comment on the regrettable level of ignorance behind these statements.

I have kept quiet through it all, preferring to address only the larger issue of whether or not the pre-existing condition clause is fair, especially for major illnesses. Aviva does not state a time-frame for the pre-existing condition eg, pre-existing for 3 months prior to commencement date of policy. The integrated Shield plan scheme was only allowed by Medisave 19 months ago in July 2005. This means that all cancers are pre-existing under this particular scheme, according to Aviva's definition, as would be such diseases as diabetes, and Alzheimers.

The Aviva plan was listed on the MOH site. This would imply to most Singaporeans that the various policies are supported, and deemed appropriate, by MOH. This is the simple law of branding - you link your brand only to the ones you think are credible. By implication, MOH is sanctioning the Aviva policy and all its clauses.

As Singapore becomes a more complex and (perhaps) sophisticated society, we need to make sure that there is legislation to protect the common citizenry from such legal sleights of hand, if MOH and other government bodies do not seem to be doing this. No blame here, I guess it is not their job to police big business - although one begins to wonder just whose job it is.

Caveat emptor is all very well if the majority of the population is fully conversant in English. But this is not the case in Singapore, as even a scan of our MPs would reveal. How then can we expect the average above-40 HDB heartlander to 'beware the vendor'? Most insurance agents have not read all the terms and conditions of the policies they peddle, and certainly do not spend any time at all going through the various clauses with customers. Most insurance agents have only a certain level of education, although with the financial planning industry growing, this is changing.

Insurance is not the only element in this. Contracts which most people deal with on a regular basis, such as leases, housing sales and purchases agreements, contracts which come with your credit cards and checking accounts - all these are miles and miles of small print which most of us sign without a thorough read-through or assessment. We assume that one card is as good as any other, one bank is as good as any other. In other words, that MAS would have done its due diligence, and they are all much of a muchness.

My experience with Aviva shows that there are differences. And that when flaws and questionable business practices are brought to light, there is not exactly a rush for justice because we do not currently have the relevant legislation in place as a basis for this. They fly under the legal radar. The pre-existing condition clause would never fly in more sophisticated economies, such as those of Western Europe. In the Aviva home country of the UK, this clause is excluded (hahaha!) under the Fair Trade Act, I believe.

But in Singapore, it is quite ok. Can we therefore call ourselves 'sophisticated'? Certainly, Singaporeans travel the world as though we are. The government would have us believe the world could learn from the Singapore style of government and economic management. But I would suggest that the government, while being excessively heavy handed by continually telling us how to run our personal lives - even making sure for at least one day a year the entire family has dinner together - is remarkably lax when it comes to protecting us against big business bullying.

I now side-track into another area - that of foreign talent. I am all for equal opportunity, having had the good fortune to have worked in Shanghai. However, I wonder, given the higher education levels of Singaporeans, the increasing cosmopolitanism, why there are still outcries against foreign talent? Perhaps it has to do with the 60,000 still unemployed? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that even with these numbers, about half of the available jobs in the past year went to foreigners? Perhaps we see foreigners in companies here, both local and foreign doing jobs which Singaporeans could certainly do, and many times, even do better? Perhaps it comes from the headhunting community, which can recount tales of job openings which many Singaporeans are qualified to do but who, for some reason, are refused by prospective employers?

In the early days of the Singapore economy, we gave tax breaks to companies which transferred their technology to Singapore. I suggest now that we look at human technology. Unless the government legislates, as do many other 'sophisticated' nations, that companies have to 'prove' that no Singaporean can do the job on offer to justify their need for an expatriate. And that whatever the role, there should be a program in place to 'transfer' the technology behind that role to a Singaporean within, say, three years.

What has this to do with the insurance case? Not alot, unless you look at the common denominator, which is the government's role in protecting the lot of the common Singaporean in the face of increasing global competition - not outside Singapore, but right here on home soil. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is why we elect our MPs, is it not?

I have an addendum to the post I made yesterday on discrimination-dressed-as-sympathy. I feel, now that I have some distance, that people truly feel they are being kind when they refer to my 'condition'. I don't think they feel they are being discriminatory.

But they also need to realise that behaviours and attitudes that they show are only the tip of the iceberg and most of the time, reflect deep-seated attitudes. Taken to an extreme, these are the roots of such contradictory terms as 'ethnic cleansing'.

My intention, by blogging about it, is to highlight this to people, so that they are aware of the damage their attitudes, especially if it is one of the masses, can wreak. If you are surprised that this cancer survivor does not want sympathy but a chance to rejoin life, then perhaps you need to dig deeper into yourself and speak more truly about why you are surprised that I do not want my 'condition' to control me, or my future.

If I hear the phrase 'in your condition', one more time, I am going to really going to scream. I have been meeting headhunters and outplacement professionals over the past three days, and all of them - bar one - have taken the tack of "in your condition, do you want the stress of full time work?", or "given your condition, perhaps you should lower your expectations", or "can you really take the stress of running your own business"?

Cancer chauvinism. That is what this is. Just because I have cancer, I have been put in a box, put out to pasture. I am past it. Oh, you're above 45? Yes, well, perhaps perhaps project work is better for you. I bet I could outrun any of these people. Yet, they want to hold me down and back.

Let me make this very clear - there is absolutely no clinical link between stress and cancer. And there is also such a thing as 'good' stress. To tells cancer survivors that we should not be under any stress is the same thing as telling to crawl away and live in the shadows of life.

This is ignorance, and prejudicial, and it is detrimental. Just because one has cancer, society collaborates to make you economically non-viable. I could point to any number of cancer survivors who gone on to prosper after their treatment to run viable, thriving businesses, and who have risen in the corporate ranks. Our own Prime Minister is a cancer survivor after having b een diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. People see him as the miracle story. Actually, given the advances in medical science, his story is today the norm rather than the exception. The story of cancer is one that is liberally dotted with miracles.

This is a fact. It has been known for some time. Why is it then that people still do not get it and insist on behaving as though a cancer diagnosis is the same thing as being dead, or a shadow of one's former self? And, having survived the treatment, why do people insist on taking away this victory from us?

I know of several cancer survivors who have had their jobs 'removed' while they were going through treatment. I know too of one who is an 11-year survivor who is still not covered by company medical insurance and has not had a raise in 11 years.

Cancer chauvinism. Society needs to be told that the cancer journey is not about death, and that it is not about diminishing a person. More often than not, it is about growth, and a second chance, of people who emerge more self-aware, and more willing to contribute. The real tragedy is a society that pats itself on the shoulder for it's 'sympathetic approach' to cancer is in fact engaging in a thinly veiled form of discrimination.

Some said to me the other day that the physically challenged are better looked after than cancer survivors. There are social campaigns to put them in jobs, they have their own designated parking lots, their own loos. We are aware of the plight of the physically challenged and willingly support them. Cancer survivors do not. If we are so weak, do we not need to park closer to the building entrance? If we are so debilitated, do we not deserve our own loos to throw up in, or loos with grab bars all over the place when we have those dizzy spells? Why are there not 'recovery rooms' in buildings, with aromatherapy burners, for cancer survivors to sit in to relieve the stress of walking from point A to B in a mall?

Why are there no such considerations for cancer patients? Thirty percent of the population has cancer and this group is growing. Why is it that the rights of this group is so poorly looked after?

Perhaps it is because there is no vocal outcry about the plight of cancer survivors. Or - more to the point - perhaps it is because we do not feel we need it. We are able to re-enter the fabric of mainstream life without the big C burned into our foreheads. No-one need know because we look like everyone else, once our hair begins to grow. We are functioning, contributing members of society. And perhaps it is because most cancer survivors are so aware of the discimination that having emerged from treatment, we prefer not to draw attention to our survivorship.

Come one. Let's put an end to this reverse discrimination and give cancer survivors the chance to survive to the fullest extent of their capabilities. Ask what these are, instead of assuming that we all have one foot in the grave. And believe us without discrimination-disguised-as-sympathy.

The treatment is finite and short term. But survival...with the fair and true support of society, this could last a lifetime.

Today, I awoke hyperventilating...again. But I am feeling ok now. I have been actively on the phone trying to sort out my future, clear away the debris from the past and, to put it simply, to move on.

I re-readed some of my past blog posts and became thoroughly ashamed of myself. I had had so much more 'chutzpah' a few months, or even weeks ago, and in the past few days I had become a sad sack.

Well, no more. I remind myself that I don't know how much time I may have left (in fact, none of us knows), but whatever it is, it is too little to spend even one hour being down in the mouth. Crap hits the fan all the time, life hands us lemons. One deals with it, gets over it.

I guess, looking back, I had been expecting this axe for months. I also guess I was hoping against hope that somehow, a higher side of humanity would show itself, rather than the logical pragmatic side of business where people are merely numbers on a spreadsheet. Never mind, it is not the first time I have been disappointed, and it certainly won't be the last.

On the flip side (and this is where my faith will rest and grow) people, over the past couple of days, have stepped forward to offer to help, and will continue, I believe, to take active steps to help me, encourage me, support me. I am not to be felt sorry for. I have things to do, places to go and people to see.

I am going to live. That's key. I am going to contribute and be valued as a human being, with a contribution to make. How, and in what form that contribution will be - that is being mulled over right now. Stay tuned.

I am handing over to God. I will do my human bit, my best human bit, then hand over to God. That's all I can do. I will not worry at things, panic over things, envision the worst thing happening.

Life - at its fullest - is my mission from now on. I am going to live.

Yay!!I am coming in the for the flu! Why I am overjoyed at this, when normally I would be going through the list of people I have been in contact with over the past 5 days to see who might have given me the germs so that I could lambast them later?

Well, I am overjoyed because I now know why I was feeling so tired ie, not cancer!

I have taken the cold tablets, puffed on my respective asthma inhalers, downed the Ho Yan Hor, and am now going to take to my sickbed with a decent book. Got to rest up so that I can get better by tomorrow morning!

It is such an unusual event, being able to 'fix' myself without having to get a referral to the nearest specialist oncologist. I never thought I'd say this but...thank goodness for the common cold!

Day 4 of unemployment. I am in free fall now. I have no safety net - no income, no insurance.

When the cancer journey first began, I felt that life had changed on so many levels - where I lived, what I did with my days, where I did my work, even the food I ate. The one thing I clung to to help me through the treatment was the light at the end of the tunnel - the job. I just wanted my life back. I wanted to work on my projects again, do something where I felt I was in control.

All the treatment, it was the cancer in control - and the doctors, and the boss. I was simply taking orders. Everyone else had more knowledge about the situation than I did. I, being a layperson, certainly had to trust the doctors' knowledge. And the work situation - well, I was put on ice, not told anything about what was going on with the business, was able to attend only one regional conference call because the rest were scheduled at times when I had radiotherapy. Information is power, and I did not have as much information as the other players.

Now, the light at the end of the tunnel has gone. I have entered an adjoining tunnel that even murkier now than the one before. I saw another headhunter today and he tells me that people will only hire me if I can show I am cured. Have people forgotten that cancer is incurable as such, that even when you pass the 10 year milestone, it could still come back? Bottom line: I am not employable.

Being retrenched with the prospect of a job someday is one thing. Being retrenched with the prospect of no job, ever again, is another more frightening prospect. With no expectation of a regular income, and with the possibility of a recurrence ever present, one worries about how I will fund the treatment. And after the treatment, if I am unable to work during, what will happen?

Today, I heard a small voice: if you believe that God has cured you, (which I use to say I did), why do you need insurance?

That stopped me short. I did say I believed that God's hand was in my journey, that he was in control and I just had to relax and let him drive. It was all ok when things we going smoothly. Now that we have hit a bump, I am anxious, worried sick.

This brings into focus my faith. I know that it is weak right now. I keep talking to God, asking him questions, pleading with him, even getting angry. But true faith would let Him drive the car. Faith would mean ceding control to Him, admitting that I am not, and should not be in control of my life because it belongs ultimately to the One who gave it to me.

This is where I am at now. Can I do that? Dare I do that? I am afraid of dying, of a recurrence. But faith would mean that I say, if and when this happens: Thy Will be done. Can I do this?

It is really hard. The answer is, I am so tired right now, I am saying it. Will I say it when I feel more energetic? In other words, how sincere am I?

I don't know. We will see. I pray now, rather weakly because I am not sure it will work, for faith and strength. I am going need both, in spades.

It is now Day 3 of being jobless. And it is Day 5 of a continuing headache.

I recall the last time I was unemployed. Although I had thought I was pretty calm and stoic about the whole thing, that there was not a single day when I had not woken with a sense of panic. I realised this only when, after six months in China, I woke up without a sense of panic, of having to rush to the computer to check email, worry at something, and wondered what was different. Then I realised...no more panic.

Well, today is Day 3 of panic. In fact, I hyperventilate when I wake up now.

They say that if cancer is incipient, certain pivotal life events could trigger the growth of the malignant cells. Events such has moving house (check), losing a loved one (check), losing a job (check), starting a new jon (check), moving countries (check). The stress from these suppresses our immune system so that our bodies are unable to fight the cancer.

I read something else rather interesting a few days ago - that people who are considered 'difficult', tend to be the ones with a longer survival period post-diagnosis. Why? They are fighters, they do not take crap lying down and do not bottle things up. The expression of feelings contributes to a healthy immune system.

I am one of those people, but all my life, as a female, I am told that I should not be. I should shut up, grin and bear it. So what if the cab driver is stupid, goes from Serangoon Avenue to Little India, Lavender Street, Kampong Bahru, Beach Road, Nicoll Highway to my destination in Shenton Way. My mother, the arbiter of all things lady-like, would tell me I should shut up and pay up. Instead of which, I am screaming at the idiot cab driver.

She has advanced osteoporosis. But when the taxi driver was unwilling to help us with my luggage when I came back from the hospital, she was hefting it like the best of coolies. I scolded the the driver - she told me to keep quiet. Does not the driver really deserve to get shouted at? And have his license taken away, for letting a 75 year old woman and someone in bandages coming home from the hospital where he picked us up, get their own luggage out of the boot?

I was just laid off - quite unexepectedly since I was given to understand when I was diagnosed that I would not have to fear for my job. When I was booted off the global project I was given with no reason from my boss, I checked again with a VP in the company - no, he said , it will have no effect on your professional standing. I kept quiet and believed. And even as recently as last week, the boss told me to not attend the HR meeting, to come back to Shanghai. Just the day before the HR meeting, he sent me an email with an instruction to work on some documents. Talk about a false sense of security. I will leave the judgement of such a person to you, Dear Reader.

The retrenchment conversation was entirely civilised - but now I am seething, and I imagine several deliciously painful forms of torture for my manager - for they would not have retrenched me without his agreement. Indeed, he would have had to recommend that I be the one axed.

My mother gets up at 8am. How do I know this? Because the TV is switched on promptly at that time. For the past 9 months, I have been saying to her that I can hear the bloody thing through the walls - she is deaf (although maintains she is not) and needs to blast it. Nine bloody months. Has it sunk in? Just what does it take?

I woke up today with the familiar sense of panic, then on hearing the TV, a sense of rage. How often do I have to say it? I am not getting enough sleep and I feel tired by 5pm, but I go for a jog, then am briefly energised. By the the time 10pm comes I am tired, but then the worry sets in and I cannot sleep. I drop off at 2am-ish only to be awakened by the boom-boom-boom from the living room a scant six hours later, when I need at least 7.5 hours of sleep because of the medication I take.

What was it today? The sports news. Does my mother even know what sport is? No. It is just white noise. I felt like smashing the TV clicker today. What did I do instead? Basically, what I have done for the past 9 months - I quietly asked her to turn the TV down.

The worry, the lack of sleep, etc, the effort to keep it all in, and continue to be 'positive'. I feel that the company has signed my death warrant. The worry is involuntary. How can I help it? Each time the tiredness comes upon me, I wonder - is this it?

My brother says God is looking out for me because I need to rest. Well, what would give me rest is a sense of financial security and some quiet. And that is something that God does not seem willing to give me.

Well, after anticipating it for about eight months, the axe has finally fallen - I have been retrenched from my job. Of course, the company has trotted out the usual crap - poor results, customers not committing on orders etc. Things were much worse than earlier anticipated etc.

Why then, did I feel I was going to be retrenched from July? I'll tell you - my manager took over my job, then made absolutely no effort to include me in team meetings and videoconferences, even organising all conferences at a time when he knew I would be taking radiotherapy. There were many other meetings to which I was simply not invited. He would send me long (three screens long, some of them) emails telling me what I was doing wrong. Never mind that what I did they worked for his predecessor. Never mind that as a new manager, it is his responsibility to establish new processes if he wanted things changed. When I asked for elaboration, dialogue, guidance on what his expectations were, he did not respond. Communication was merely one way - top down. It got to the point where I was afraid to do anything that he had not specifically ordered for fear of getting another of those emails.

Those of us who have been managers know the routine - to get rid of someone, build your case. Working from home, being 'poorly', having cancer - it made me invisible. It took away any contact with my support network in the workplace. It took away my voice. In a period when the company was going through a merger situation with a company that was not doing well in the first place, everyone was fighting to save their jobs...even at the expense of someone else.

In my case, the team manager, whom most of us would count on to work to support his team, edged me out and is now, I am given to understand, doing my job. I guess I should be flattered that my role was so strategic that he felt he had to be the one doing it.

Right now, however, I am furious. I did not ask to have cancer. I did my best to keep working through the treatment, taking time off only the week before Christmas. I started chemotherapy in July. I met all my deadlines. I had to because I thought I had to protect my job. Fat lot of good it did me. Every contact with my manager brought me stress, and late nights, sometimes when I was plain exhausted. He had no consideration, although he had the right platitudes (and made sure everyone knew it) for what I was going through, once even kicking me work the day before a chemo hit when he knew I would be too tired afterwards to work. More than this, for the two years prior when I was with the company, I had very positive performance appraisals. I have contributed, and I have made a difference. Does this all mean nothing because the new manager decides that he wants my job?

So, the question is: what can cancer patients expect in terms of protection from this kind of treatment? Is it really right that people with a life-threatening, dread disease, should have to cope with bread and butter issues when there are ways around this? How many people in the company had cancer? Why axe the, possibly, single cancer patient?

You may ask why cancer patients should deserve to be treated better, or differently, than those without the disease. They don't. But they do need to be treated fairly. To be given the opportunity to prove themselves in the job after treatment, not axed because their situation makes them sitting ducks.

In Singapore, it is unlikely that, with the government's pro-business stance, things will change. That the government will legislate in favour of people with illnesses which require long periods of treatment - it does not support the drive to profit it likes to promote for companies here.

But there needs to be a conscience in business, and so far, I do not see this. As a country, we do not encourage it. Yes, Singapore is a great place to do business. But not so great for the Singaporeans who need work in the companies who do business here.

The government needs to remember its other role - rulership of the majority, but with the protection of the minority. This is the mark of sophisticated government. Perhaps one day we will get there.

This post is about perceptions. So many times when we talk to someone we unconciously make judgements about that person - not to be trusted, nice guy, idiot, twerp, meanie, jackass. Sometimes it is simply because they do not respond as we expect them, want them or need them to. Then, the epithets and adjectives roll. I am very good at this, and recently, with the looming prospect of going back to work, find myself sprinkling in my conversation rather more colorful adjectives than I have over the past seven months.

Likewise, I am sure, many people make similar judgements about me, based on whatever clues or personality indicators I put out or what someone might have said - or not said - or even the way they might have said this.

Here's the thing. We all make judgements about people and situations all the time - it is part of our survival mechanism. Yet, over the past few months, while I have had more than my fair share of people coming forward to support me in my cancer journey, there were also some people who managed to disappoint me - and these were people whom others would have said were 'nice' and from whom I would have expected more. Thankfully, there were many, many more people whom I had not expected to give two hoots who, actually, did - and I am profoundly grateful for these people. Their actions have somehow eased the cancer burden, and allowed me a little more faith in the Almighty - these are, after all (to me, anyway) his angels sent to support me.

I have therefore learnt that while we make judgements, we need to stop and test those judgements. Are we being fair? How did we arrive at our conclusions? Is our source trustworthy? Many times, we simply have a 'feel' about that person - and I believe these are usually the most accurate. But we need to give people a chance - a chance to be better than we expect. To give them the opportunity to be good. Too often, because this is a hard world, and because many of us have experienced disappointments and let-downs in our relationships, we simply determine that people are going to behave badly and respond to them based on expected behaviour, misperceptions, rather than real behaviour.

I have learnt, through tough experiences, to listen to my gut, but still to reserve judgement until I have proof. I make few assumptions these days. Rather, I spend more time waiting to see and basically holding my peace. This is tough in our fast paced world where he who makes the first judgement call wins the prize - and we are all rushing to win the prize.

The 25/75 rule works here - that what we see is only 25% of the situation. There is alot more going on beneath the surface and once we acknowledge this, try to ferret out the 75%, it becomes clear that most people are decent types, just trying to do the best they can, in the way they know best. No idiots, jackasses, twerps, meanies. Everyone has their story. The truth of the matter is that their story is different from ours, and has made them mereely different from us - not worse. A judgement of 'worse than', says more about us, really, than about them.

(Here I talk about the broad everyday cohort of human beings, not the Hitlers, Amins, and Pol Pots of the world - although I am sure they too have their stories).

I now try - with widely varying degrees of success - to hold myself back from judgement, until I can articulate the judgement evenly. This takes more time and words than a simple 'jackass', and is less fun, less visually entertaining. But it is also a more responsible form of communication.

Hey, look! Maybe I have grown up - about 2 more cm in the maturity ratings?!!!