Breastcancerandme

2007-11-23T01:03:00.000+08:00

Well, folks. That dreaded day has arrived. The cancer is back - 2 small lesions in the lower lobe of the left lung. Detected during a routine PET scan. The overall 5-year survival rate, even with treatment, says my oncologist, is 30%. I was devastated.

For the first time since I was first diagnosed, I had decided to take a leap of faith and act out what I had always claimed, that God had healed me. So I had a small celebration dinner planned with some good friends at our favourite ci'zar place. For the first time since I was diagnosed 18 months ago, I had decided not to panic before the test, not to lie there in the dark while waiting to be scanned in a quivering mess, reciting Hail Marys, begging God for mercy.

I have spent the last two days blubbing and desperately searching for evidence that the scans might be wrong. The oncologists say there is a 10% chance. But that is simply a standard, fop, percentage. It's not real. The truth is that there are other indicators which would corroborate the suspicion of an erroneous reading. In this case, there was none. So, there I was hoping for a false positive. Hope gone, I'm afraid. The lesions are almost certainly malignant.

I am pissed off. There was no reason for the cancer to return - the diet, the exercise, the heavy dose of chemo, the ghastly Brand's Essence of Chicken, the constant juicing. My poor mother chopping and cooking all those special macrobiotic meals during my treatment, her hands drying out from the constant careful washing of vegetables. The cancer did not even have the good manners to wait years to come back - nope, it came back far too early, announcing itself as a 'bad' cancer. You can say that again. Early arriving guests are never welcome - I am always too busy doing some last minute panicking and cooking. Yet they still come.

I said to someone today that I thought God was a trickster, a prankster. Ask for a long life and he over-delivers - here comes forever, Simone! I am now afraid to pray. I am afraid of what I will get.

What next? I am seeing doctors for opinions on different treatment options. Each has different approaches. I keep hoping one might have a magic bullet. A little like how I used to see many different fortune tellers, hoping to find one that would tell me what I wanted to hear - wealth and happiness all round. Never asked about my health.

I know I have to make a decision fast. No point delaying things. I ask everyone reading this to say a prayer for me. For courage. For strength. And most of all, for a positive mental attitude. For the conviction that I will continue to live here on Earth, live this temporal life, and live it many, many long years to come, in perfect health. Pray that I will beat the odds. Please God.

2007-05-18T15:08:00.001+08:00

In spite of my shopoholic, MaxMara-holic self, I have now a what I have always wanted but had never seemed to be able to manage - a quality capsule wardrobe.

I am still losing weight, and when I realised this a month ago after my bracelet flew off my wrist during a tai chi session, I panicked. Was it the cancer coming back? I really had no reason to lose the weight, having just returned from an eating binge in Penang. I had also just moved back into my apartment, and with no pots or pans, and sheer fatigue, I was eating out quite a bit. In other words, I should have been putting on weight.

A year ago, my weight loss would have prompted a celebration. After all, I have been on one diet or another since I was 13. Now, weight loss prompts panic. I rushed to the nearest doctor's clinic to weigh myself. The nurse had no idea what to make of the near hysterical person who rushed in, asked to use the weighing machine, stood on it, looked at the reading and rushed out. She did not have time to even get a word out. (Ok, she did bleat something but I couln't be bothered to respond). Weight on the scale had inched up!

The recent PET scan made me feel better - no sign of cancer. So, the weight loss must be good. To be on the safe side, I have bought myself a digital weighing scale - the better to detect every single fluctuation.

Now, I can celebrate the weight loss and my new wardrobe. I used to buy nothing but black - because I spent most of my money on work clothes and black is the colour du jour in the corporate world AND because it made me look thinner. Now, I am able to buy loads of colour and indeed have made a vow never to buy black again! I am buying funky jackets, cropped trousers, sequinned tops, and for the first time ever in my life, I own SEVEN pairs of jeans. I bought them simply because I could get into all of them. I remember once, during an offsite meeting, my boss told me to wear jeans because the dress code was casual. I had to buy a men's pair because there was not a single woman's pair in all of Singapore I could get into.

As of last night, I am still paring the wardrobe down. The only things which still fit are the stuff I have bought since January. Ergo - capsule wardrobe with colours, and polka dotted attitude.

My life is becoming pared down too. I work from home, eat most meals at home, and live simply and quietly. It is quite a contrast from rushing around at work, from meeting to meeting, getting on planes, and having to continually manage all sorts of afflicted personalities and their different agendas. I thought I would be bored, feel left out of things, but instead, I feel quite liberated!

I know of course, that I must earn my keep somehow. But I also know it will come. One day at a time - one joyful day at a time...

2007-05-11T10:21:00.000+08:00

Apart from my last post, I know this blog has been quiet for some time. But don't get me wrong, life has been whirl of activity since I was retrenched. Here is a quick update:

Outplacement - I have had several meetings with my outplacement consultant who is very ably pushing me to develop collateral to 'sell' myself so that I can get some cash flow going. I am not used to 'selling' myself, having been an employee for so long. Usually, it is sufficient that you have a j0b title and are employed by a certain company. That's all people need to know to place you. Now, I have to think of what I can do, and it is not easy. But I do not have a choice, someone has to pay for all that organic food.

Retrenchment package - I did indeed go back to my company with some requests in terms of what I felt would be a reasonable package, given their decision to retrench me at the worst possible time of my life. They came back with something better than the original for which I am profoundly grateful. It was only when they gave me the news that I realised how tired I was with all the toing and froing, the tension of waiting to hear so that I would know what the rest of my life would look like. I began having dizzy spells a week later, and realised that I had been doing too much, what with the rush to get set up for business because I thought I had to start bringing in the mulah as fast as possible to begin saving for a possible recurrence. After two days of rest, I felt better and am now more cautious about packing in activity back to back. And, thanks to my ex-employer, I am sleeping through the night again.

House move - I moved back t0 my own place about 3 weeks ago, and moved right out again after 3 days so that the place could be repainted and otherwise spruced up. I was living out of boxes, and without a single pot for those three days which made it easier for me too rationalise cheating on the macrobiotic diet. The old flat was a calm cream on pink on white. Very sophisticated and so not me. I think it was wishful thinking on the part of my architect. I have had it repainted a sunny yellow and a lime green. I really hated it when I first saw it but am now quite happy with it. Just goes to show you can get used to anything. It is now quite cheerful, and set to be even more so, when my biggest,most unreasonable extravagance arrives - wildly colorful wallpaper, courtesy of Designers Guild. I wanted some 9 years ago when I first bought the place but was unable to afford it. Not sure I can now, but what the heck. God is good. You only live once. Let's just go for it!

Setting up my business - I am now the sole proprietor of a little business, called PUREcommunications. I wanted to call it no-BS Communications, so sick was I of the corporate soft soap that one has to accept as part of the workaday world. Everyone reassured me I would have a job after chemo. I always said my boss was trying to get rid of me - but everyone said I was imagining it. Well, yesterday I talked to someone in the company, and listening to her rundown of the latest and greatest, I actually found my mind wandering. In the past, every word would have had my full attention. Now, I really cannot be bothered. I wonder why people put up with such nonsense - having to suck up, flatter, cajole. To pretend that your manager is a genius, to swallow all sense of pride and grovel to the most undeserving. How can people live with themselves? Really, life's too short for BS. It's days off our life spans. It's time for pure communication, clean communication, meaningful communication. Let's just cut the bs and move ahead. Yeah.

Catching up with friends - this is one area in which I have really been magnificently blessed. Friends have come out of the woodwork and I am so grateful for these people, people whose help I have done absolutely nothing to deserve. They have been introducing me to their business contacts so that I market my fledgling business. I am not ready, I whinnied to one, I don't think I can do anything apart from the odd writing job. My timidity (hahahaha, but yes, it is true!) was over-ridden. People have had so much more faith in me than I have in myself.

I thought things would be slow. I had envisioned myself getting the odd writing job, that it would take months before I got to real PR. Now, it looks like it might happen alot sooner. Thank God. I am so buzzed now, creating my own brochures, collateral etc. Playing with colour and typeface. It really has the potential of being everything and anything I want it to be. No-one else. Just me.

Pilates, yoga and qigong - yes, trying to vary the exercise routine. Have been very lax about jogging since I moved out on my own. I will redouble my efforts tomorrow. Have also been slack about the diet. Too easy to run down to the food court and get some popiah. I now see how I dislike cooking for myself. All that washing really takes its toll on your hands, and at my age, it is an uphill battle keeping the paws soft and lily white. I don't want to wash anything. I guess I have to remind myself it is a choice between crepey, onion-skin hands and a recurrence. There. That puts things in perspective.

That's about it for now. Have a few more things I am chewing over. But I think I have enough on my plate for now. Watch this space, though. I am living in extraordinary times. You never know what's round the corner!

2007-05-11T09:52:00.000+08:00

I had a PET scan done on Wednesday. It is now Friday morning. I know the results were sent to my oncologist's office on Thursday morning. Yet, I have not yet heard back. When I rang the clinic today, the receptionist tells me: Can't you wait till next Tuesday when you see Dr Wong?"

Well, in short, the answer is 'No'. Absolutely not. Why do I have to wait? Why should I wait to hear if a life-threatening disease has returned? I can only think of one reason - that they found something. That's why I have to wait to see the doctor, so she can deliver the bad news face to face.

Ok. Even while writing this post, I received a call saying the scans were clean, except for some spots on the bone which were 'not significant'. I was so relieved I forgot to ask if that was all they found. I guess so.

You know, I understand that if you deal with cancer patients all day long, that you get a little blase about things like their anxieties. But I am my only cancer patient. I am all I have and I am NOT blase. As I said to someone whose mother has just been diagnosed with cancer, vigilance is key. I have always taken my health for granted. Ailments in the past have always been fixable with an antibiotic or two. I am now paying for my lack of vigilance with breast cancer.

Now, every ache, every twinge, has to be monitored. If it does not go away in 10 days, it has to be investigated. I journal every little symptom so I know I am not imagining things or getting hysterical. Yes, vigilance is key - and you cannot rely on your doctors to be vigilant, although you have to trust they will do their best. With cancer, I am reaching new and tiring levels of self-reliance. It is me, myself and I in this battle. That's it. That's all.

2007-04-10T21:15:00.000+08:00

Today, I was at the adjudication hearing on my insurance claim with Aviva, which had earlier denied my claim for breast cancer. I am prevented by the adjudication agreement to discuss the details of the proceedings, but let me make one point: it's just business.

That's all it is. Whatever you might read in the brochures, see in the advertising, at the end of the day it is just business. Ask yourself - the Shield plans all do not ask for a medical examination before cover is granted. They will take your premiums. It is only when an illness occurs that they conduct extensive medical investigation.

I ask you, is this not a little like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted? What good is all this to the person who has been faithfully forking over their premiums prior to diagnosis? Oh, it is a mass plan, therefore we need to keep costs down, say insurers. But, hang on - surely the objective of insurance is coverage? Or does that merely translate to a false sense of security to the consumer? A removal of their options to seek alternative means of financial support if there is an illness discovered in the pre-insurance check-up? Or are these plans a convenient way for insurers to fleece the unsuspecting Singapore public?

You know, for the price of S$2.3million per year, I believe I, as a citizen, am entitled to more than mere parliamentary rhetoric from my MPs. I would like to see my personal rights actively protected and promoted, not rationalised away. All I can see, and I believe many other people see this too, is that we keep forking out for what we are told is necessary. However, I would like to see some tangible benefit to me, the individual. (Yes, I am throwing a tantrum.)

We could all name any number of schemes ( and I won't talk about that elephant in the corner, by the name of Education System; the pig ERP trying to take off by the window; or that cow, called COE, chewing on the money plant on the table) which are less than successful. Yet, hey, do we throw things out completely to come up with innovative ideas? Go right back to the drawing board? Nope. We just keep taxing the people and maybe one day, that pig will fly, the cow will roll over, and the elephant will blush a nice lobster red.

What about the constant round of retrenchments here in our little island? It is, no matter how much land we reclaim and how many IRs are built, a small market. With the constant round of retrenchments, and the practices I am seeing on the part of people who take our money in the name of supporting us when times are hard (then let us down), it appears the individual Singaporean is pretty much on his own. Sink or swim. Alternatives, niches and untapped markets are few in this fair isle.

I would like to see some rather novel ideas from our best and brightest minds, who are being paid millions, come up with more to help the workers whose taxes pay for their lifestyles and the very comfy leather parliament seat.

Not another self-help scheme to give us new skills. How does that put food on the table while we go on the interview rounds? And it is for sure that we do not all land that job with the very first interview. What happens in the mean time? What about executives who lose their jobs? Re-skilling does not help them. I would like to see some like being exchanged for like - financial support in exchange for their nice fat pay cheques, which, I might add, are handed out in both lean and fat years. A co-funded rainy day chest for each citizen, perhaps.

If we are going to peg our leaders' paychecks to the private sector's, why don't we have a private sector style performance appraisal? Salary bands, for instance? 360 performance reviews for everyone, with the opportunity to be retrenched once the economy is down, or be fired if performance benchmarks are not met? A ranking system? When was the last time our government was rightsized? What about KPIs clearly set with delivery within a certain timeframe? All CEOs have this and answer to their boards. The private sector have fat paychecks because they are subject to the risk of firing and losing their rice bowls if they do not perform. They do not have iron rice bowls。

In Singapore, it is always 'just business'. I believe it is possible for us to have 'just business' with a heart, with integrity, with an eye to a better overall lifestyle for all of us, not merely the have's - the have-jobs, have-healths, the have-safety nets, the have-voices, the have-constituencies.

What does it take to get there? It will take someone at the top encouraging - sincerely- this movement. Gee, now there's an idea. Cross my palm, please!

2007-04-03T00:22:00.000+08:00

Today, I ran into a junior college chum from way, (way), back and found out that she, her sister-in-law, and another classmate were all cancer survivors. And although it had been three years since her diagnosis, when I looked back after leaving her, I saw that her eyes were red. "I don't think about it," she had kept saying when I tried to ask her about her cancer journey.

Also today, I saw the case worker who was handling my arbitration with the insurance company. She said that cancer is 'not that common'. When I told her that it strikes 30% of Singaporeans, she said that that proved it was not that common.

But taking my own experience, I believe that 1 degree of separation is getting significantly narrow. Perhaps it is my age - once you hit the big 4-0, cancer does tend to make its presence felt. Your risk of contracting the disease increases.

I have never, in my entire life, felt old. In fact, I am trying to get Bryan Adam's song, Eighteen Till I Die, put on my mobile phone as the ring tone. Today, however, I actually felt old. I was walking around a mall, and everyone there (almost) was younger than I. I looked at the trendy young girls, and found myself thinking,"Gee, where did the time go?"

I feel even older when so many people I know have cancer. When someone tells me that cancer is uncommon, it is more than just plain ignorance. It is also the foolishness of youth talking. With my diagnosis, I have crossed the line. I am on the other side of the hill now.

We know that the incidence of cancer is rising, just as we know that more people are being diagnosed at a younger age. Yet cancer is more than a disease of age - it is also a disease of lifestyle and it is reaching its frightening claws out to more and younger people, as Singaporeans become affluent. Every time I read in the papers about a cry for more fine dining restaurants, I think: all that butter and cream - killer food! But with affluence, such indulgent eating will become the norm and, more than likely, the incidence of cancer.

My point is this: cancer survivors are the new marginalised. The outcry for the aged, the unemployed, the physically challenged started some years ago, and is still going on. Singapporeans have a hard time taking a communal view of things - we are a 'me and mine first' type of society. As long as someone whose job brings them in contact with cancer survivors regularly can say 'cancer is not common', we have a problem. And we should not allow this problem to grow.

As long as there is this degree of ignorance in our society, cancer survivors will find themselves marginalised, with rights and needs unrecognised, treated as being 'less than'.

Cancer survivors can help themselves by talking about their needs, their experiences. I understand the feral push to move past the diagnosis, to get on with life. But -if we don't educate society at large about us, and what it means to be a survivor, who will? There is a powerful lot of cancer survivors out there - we have all glimpsed the face of death - and survived. Let's take the strength built on the experiences of the journey, and bring others into our conversation. And in helping ourselves, perhaps we will sensitise our fellows on the responsibility of the majority towards sub-groups - the consideration, the obligation to listen, understand and,ultimately, to treat us as one of them, with the same rights - to a job, to financial provisioning, to acceptance. As normal, fully alive. For that is what we survivors are - and absolutely nothing less.

2007-03-28T20:02:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-03-20T21:13:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-03-16T21:47:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-03-08T23:26:00.000+08:00

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?

2007-03-08T23:20:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-03-07T17:56:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-03-07T11:22:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-03-06T23:15:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-03-06T20:19:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-03-05T08:40:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-03-02T23:21:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-03-01T13:18:00.000+08:00

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?!!!

2007-02-21T23:10:00.000+08:00

I cannot stand Singapore. There. The pressure-cooker cooks up unpleasant, tense people. And the government, thinking that this breeds exceptional people, intends to keep the pressure on. In my Zen-like state (complete with hair-do), I find this rather tiring and simply draining.

Today, I was in my usual good mood. Why not, after all, I am still on leave from work, and basically have only myself to please. During the course of today, I ran into two people from IBM -yes, Big Blue, with whom I used to work and which, contrary to many opinions, I thought was one big behemoth that simply proved that that was a God - ie, how had it stayed in business for so long, prospering for so long? it had to be nothing less than a miracle. Size does matter.

The first person was someone I worked with 5 years ago, who had a been a very nice, polite mild-mannered type. Today, not recognising me, he gave me a ticking off for having the gall to veer into his path as he powered his way down a sidewalk. I was struck dumb, had no terse reply - blame it on residual chemo-brain.

The second person I had coffee with. Even before sitting down she had launched into a litany on her new (and impossible) job, all the while shaking her legs and thrumming her fingers on the table.

Both reminded me of myself and what it was like to be on the fast track and the toll it takes on you. You have to live, eat and breath your job. There are not enough hours in the day to do all that needs doing. People cannot converse - they have to spit it out, and get on with it - pronto! The job consumes you, and who you are depends on the last performance appraisal and whether your colleagues like you.

Question: are these two people really happy? I look back at my life and I recall people asking me: are you really happy? What's not to be happy about, I replied. I have a great job, am doing well, and have prospects. Why shouldn't I be happy.

Well, at this point in my life, looking back, looking around at these other people, I realise that they cannot be happy, as I was not happy. That in fact, although currently a cancer survivor who lives with the fear of demise on a daily basis, I am much happier now than I was before. And that, in fact, I really do not want to go back to the corporate rat race. I want to continue on the happy-ness path.

So, I did not have a quick retort for the guy who ticked me off. Does it matter? Not really. So, the finger thrummer has a great job and any headhunter would be able to place her in 2 seconds flat. Does it matter that I cannot say the same for myself? Not really. I am glad I am now able to sit down to a meal without hyper-ventilating through the starter!

I look at them, and it seems that God is reminding me of what I am asking for - a job in the corporate world, a paycheck, even while I want to serve and answer his call. He seems to be asking - remember what it was like? Do you really want this?

The answer is 'no'. I still need the paycheck, sure. But I do not want the fast track any more. I am not interesting in chasing the next promotion. What I am interested in is a job that combines a meaningful outreach effort with a good pay check.

Don't laugh! It is possible - we are talking about the God of Miracles here. So - fingers crossed! (And toes, too!).

2007-02-19T22:45:00.000+08:00

It has been almost three weeks since my last post, and what a time it has been! I have been run off my feet over insurance matters - mainly, with trying to manage the spate of stories which was run in the Straits Times, Singapore's main English languaage daily, over the fact the my insurance company has refused to admit my claim for breast cancer, citing that it is a condition that pre-dates the inception of the insurance contract. To me, this is terribly unfair and I am disputing this.

Secondly, I had confirmed a date for my return to Shanghai - March 1. Recently, however, I was asked to remain in Singapore to meet the head of human resources. This is not a good thing! At the very least, they will want to relocate me back to Singapore. At the most, they are will retrench me. Without dwelling too much on the ins and outs of this matter, the question of the moment is: What is going on, God?!!!!

I had a long discussion with my spiritual counsellor about some of the events that have been interrupting my life since 2001, all in the area of my career. To say the least, things have been extremely rocky. I think I have lived several lifetimes, job-wise, over the past 5 years. I have been lead, working 18-hour days, in a PR agency, worked as a marketing director, run a call centre (yeah, needs must!), lectured on customer relationship marketing in an MBA degree course, did relief teaching in the worst school in Singapore, and in one of the best, taught English to Indonesian students wanting to enter a Singapore school and even did market research, and most recently, ran internal communications for APAC.

I have managed teams ranging from 25 people to 1, mostly inherited from previous managers. In all cases, the turnover was horrendous, mostly because I had to keep retrenching people. I think I must have managed every personality type on the planet, from the guy who saw the office as a source of party partners, to the woman who would show up at work in man's shirt (hanging out), a faded sarong and a pair of rubber flop flops. Then, there was the middle-aged woman who spent her lunch hours weeping at her desk. There was the guy who missed most deadlines because his father had diabetes (yeah, right), and once went AWOL for a week because he said the flu medication knocked him out for 5 days straight so he did not hear his phone ringing (he got up in time for the weekend, though). There was the team leader who never showed up (I learnt how to fire someone in absentia) and the Singaporean chick who pretended she was ang moh and refused report to a mere Singaporean, ie me. Really, I alternated between feeling like a social worker or that I was administering a lunatic asylum. What it also means is that I have worked for some of the worst organisations ever - poor hiring practices to me mean poor leadership.

My spiritual director said back then,when I was in between jobs, that she saw my life in the context of the book of Job. Last night however, when I said that there was chance I might be retrenched (again!) - just what I need right now - she said that there was something else going on. She said that I am being called by the big 'G' up there to serve in some way, that the ups and downs and life interruptions have all been training.

Isn't that frightening? I just want to be a beige person, with a regular job, with nice perks like business class travel, and a job that allows me to go home at a reasonable hour each day. I don't even want to be a big cheese with people to manage. I just want to sit quietly in a corner somewhere. But now I am being called and, given just the past 8 months of my life, the call seems to be fairly insistent.

Why do I hesitate? How dare I hesitate? First of all, I am not sure what it is I am supposed to do. All right, I have some idea, but you know what, it does not pay any money. I still need a job and a career path. I am told to have faith and to trust God to provide. To be honest, all through the past horrible years, he has provided. But I really cannot take the uncertainty that is God's way of making sure you lean on him absolutely, for daily bread. I like to own the wheat field and have the oven all fired up.The idea of being retrenched again is terrifying.

Secondly, I don't know what I would be without a job. I have spent most of my adult life building my sense of identity around my job function. However, from the point of view of eternity, this is useless and even stupid. I have to build my identity as a daughter of God. This is a major paradigm shift, made even scarier because the Father is invisible.

Thirdly, what's the game plan? What do I do, who do I speak to? Gee, it's all a whirl. So, once again, like the cancer journey (so that's why I had to go through it!), it is one day at a time, one step at a time, one decision at a time. In essence, I do not see how I can refuse. If I have only a little time left, I really should stop pfaffing around and begin preparing for eternity ( although I really hope is it many, many years away for me). I just hope that it comes with gainful employment and enough of a paycheck so that I can take the luxury trans-Siberian train ride in a couple of years, and plan one exotic holiday a year from now to...whenever.

2007-01-27T20:51:00.000+08:00

Growing up - not all its cracked up to be

I must say I am quite tired of having to grow up. I am realising that being grown-up means taking care of yourself, more and more, and then, taking care of people who cannot take care of themselves. In other words, no-one takes care of you.

First of all, I had to live with my mother and realise that I am now increasingly getting to the stage where I might have to play parent. At least my mother is still pretty much there and can run her own life, so she is not tied to my apron strings. I thought that was the peak 'I am all grown up now' experience. But heck, no. There's more!

It appears that my brother has decided, due to shortage of time and ongoing ill temper, to prioritise his wife and family and simply leave my mother and I to our own devices. My brother could once be counted on to come over to help out when things began to fall apart. He saved my arrowana from certain death many times. He installed the closed circuit TV in my flat when the I wanted to see if the neighbours were screwing around with my pot plants. We've had quite a number of companionable suppers when dinners at home were crap, because his wife is not interested in food. Now, I wouldn't even bother to ask for help. He won't answer his bloody phone.

Most times, it is difficult to even get a civil word out of the guy. Yet another milestone towards adulthood. It used to be that we thought family came first, no matter what. He was the one that could be counted on. Now, we are the ex-family. His wife and kids the only recognised family - and the in-laws, of course. (They are, after all, the baby-sitters).

When do brothers become mere (disappointing) males? I'll tell you - when their wives come into their own as wives and mothers, and men learn to shut up to keep the peace. That's when brothers become mournful creatures, bad tempered all the time, and plain down in the mouth, with no time for anything except work, and ferrying the kids around the shop - or running other errands. I do not know one single male who is married, and is still full of joie de vivre. What is it about marriage that turns men into such beige people, mere shadows of their former selves?

And their wives - flush with their own power, they turn into people who feel it is permissable to be rude to the in-laws. Who's going to stop them? Our brothers? No way.

Here, I must add that most men will also say that they are happy, that these are the trade-offs of having kids and a family and that they are ok with it. But - why does it have to be one or the other?

Ok, back to growing up - one, I now have to practice holding my temper and refraining from giving the dolts a right ticking off. After all, I want to continue to see the kids and ultimately, they will be the only family I have left. So, I have to turn the other cheek. Another exercise in humility - so character building, I am reassured. I wonder when the time will come when God decides I have more than enough character, thanks very much?

Two - I realise that, ultimately, I will have to shift for myself since obviously, my brother cannot be counted on for any help at all ie. I will have to be an adult.

Marriage and Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Marriage is supposed to be for adults. Yet, I feel sorry for anyone in a marriage, with kids. I cannot think of a worse fate, one involving a complete loss of self and identity - except maybe a concentration camp. Why do people do this to themselves? And why is this an acceptable outcome of marriage? Why do people marry someone, only to turn them into beige people, whose friends are other beige people, whose main topics of conversation are the kids, the education system and the price of cars?

How boring to build your entire life around your children, where they are the touchstone for every decision. What about big world issues - like AIDS in Africa? Or the war in Iraq? I wonder if it is really good for kids to be so pampered - surely, they need to be taught independence, that they are part of a larger reality, one where they are not at the centre? How long should boo-boo, coo-coo, mummying and daddying last? With such beige parenting, no wonder each successive generation does not break out of the beige parenting trap, all reverting to type once they are themselves married.

Really, no wonder marriage is called an institution - anyone would have had to be nuts to agree to enter into it. Thank God this is one grown up experience I will never have! In the words of Bryan Ferry, '(I'm gonna be) eighteen till I die!"

2007-01-21T10:44:00.000+08:00

I have just been discharged from hospital after a hysterectomy on Monday - the final leg of this initial phase of my journey with cancer. The histology report came back - everything was normal, no cancer was found! I am now set for a speedy recovery and am booked on a flight back to Shanghai on Mar 1.

It was as different an experience from the mastectomy as one could get. For one, the pain level was about 200% higher. I awoke in a haze of pain, and remained like that for about 5 hours. They gave me a button to dose myself with the painkiller from a drip and I literally fell asleep after the operation with my finger on the button. I did feel much better at 10pm though, pressing the button every 2 hours. I was on a pathadeine drip for the rest of the second day, and on pills for the rest of the hospital stay. By the time I was discharged on Friday, there was no more pain, and I was moving around as normal.

The big disappointment, though, was that the much-anticipated hospital food was not that great. I remembered, from the mastectomy, that the food had been fantastic, and I had actually put on 2kg from the hospital food. No such luck this time. I had to keep to the vegetarian diet, which was bland. I tried the fish selections in the non-vegetarian choices, but it was just...ok. The last time, I had all the red meat selections and therein, I am sure, lies the difference. It is now back to macrobiotic with a vengeance - thank goodness! At least this stuff is edible!

Apart from all this, it was a very peaceful time. I read alot, was glad of the visitors who came by and, actually, did not watch all that much TV. I must be the only person on the planet who is always sorry to leave the hospital!

Once back home - I went for a 6km walk on Saturday, did not need to nap after that, and even managed some of the easier tai chi moves. Cannot wait to start jogging again!

To everyone who prayed for me, called and visited, a big THANK YOU! I have been much blessed throughout this journey, and you are all a big part of this blessing.

2007-01-05T23:02:00.000+08:00

I have been having hot and cold flashes! At first I did not know what they were, I thought it might be a bug I had picked up, or heatiness and non-heatiness from the radiation, or excessive consumption of that traditional Chinese 'cooling' tea, Ho Yan Hor. But no, according to the gynaecologist, they are hot and cold flashes.

Now that I have a name and reason for them, I find them quite alot of fun. For one thing, I now have a reason to throw a shawl around my shoulders. Pre-cancer, I was always too hot. Now, I have the opportunity to make an shawl-punctuated fashion statement even while out of doors, and this justifies those pashminas I bought years ago, and the ones I recently bought to get me through radiation. I love it when I find a reason for past extravagances, makes me feel quite virtuous, a feeling I do not often have!

Also, it means that sometimes, the cabs here are too cold. I can actually tolerate the tropical heat now, even when I have the airconditioning in cabs switched off and the windows down. This makes cab rides so much healthier, with fresh air circulating through the cab. No more damp, petrie-dish cab rides for me. Not so much fun, of course, for the sweating cab driver, but hey, I'm the customer, right?

With hot flashes, I turn a little red - great, I look so much healthier, like I have a vigorous exercise routine which has given me such efficient blood vessels, what with the blood pumping through my system and all, that I look well-exercised all the time.

With this discovery, and the fact that it has not been too horrid, I have resolved NOT to have a menopause. Mood swings? As one of my friends told me:"Don't worry, we won't notice those. You've always had them." Depression? Forget it, I refuse to be down for any reason and with the help of MaxMara and Ferragamo sales, I won't be. Weight gain? I intend to buck the trend and kick up the exercise and brown rice routine. I understand that there are also non-invasive procedures which can shift the fat. My plastic surgeon is going to be one happy camper. For my part, I simply cannot wait to get over the hysterectomy and get 'de-lined', 'lifted', and Lasiked!

I can almost see my mother shaking her head in despair over the amount I am spending on superficialities, hear the sermons and the tsk-tsk's. My justification: I have no more room for 'some days' in my life. As long as I keep things fairly sensible (by my standards, at least), I am going to do everything I have always put down as a 'some day' item, including Lasik.

So - look out, world!

2007-01-02T11:30:00.000+08:00

I wonder what happened to the concept of the aged being the revered elders of the tribe, where our elders were looked to for wisdom, and guidance, whose stories we could rely on to light our own way forward? Now, as I look around at my relatives, I find that the old are struggling for continued relevance.

As someone squarely at middle age (or past it, depending on if one is a pessimist or optimist), and who is ageing 10 years before her time due to forced menopause and chemo fog, I have had occasion to understand how people who are older feel.

For one, they are increasingly marginalised. Once upon a time, they were considered vital. They were breadwinners, essential to the survival of their children. Once the kids become adults and independent, the role of care giver is no longer important. The kids begin to make sure they know in no uncertain terms that they are not needed any more, part of the typical growing up process. Once the grand-kids come along, the older generation become caregivers once again, but not essential in the same way.

Secondly, they were once on the up-and-up in the corporation. In Singapore, however, once they hit 40, it begins to dawn on them that they are being sidelined and pastures are being identified for them. The technologies and processes they were once expert in are no longer relevant and they are pushed to learn new technologies and skills, all the while looking at the younger, more aggressive executives nipping at their heels.

This past holiday season, I had the opportunity to catch up with several older relatives and one thing seemed abundantly clear - our elderly folk are all struggling to find relevance. One of my uncles, at age 75, told me he works 10 hours each day. I thought he meant running his business. His wife later told me he watches news programs and makes notes on the latest and greatest. His kids are all fairly well off now. Once he was king of the castle and ruled it with an iron fist. Now, his kids barely speak to him because his world view is completely out of synch with theirs.

Another one of my uncles refuses to leave his neighbourhood in the east coast, hates going out to eat and certainly will not make a 15 minute drive - it's too far for him, so we hardly ever see him.

Finally, I look at my mother - scatty, and needing guidance on simple decisions such as: can I put the pecan pie in the freezer? Or the hinge on the window is wonky. The solution: don't open the window, rather than: get the window fixed.

There seems to be a certain amount of trepidation of stepping outside an increasingly smaller comfort zone. All these answers which I toss back at her are those that she taught me. Yet, now, she does not seem to know the answers. Has she gone senile?

By contrast, I know people who are the exact same age as my mother, who are still vital, still working, still travelling, still participating in life to the fullest. So I know this is not a consequence of advancing years. I think it is a grasping for relevance. Relevance, being needed, keeps us youthful and alive.

For example, by asking stupid questions, our parents are seeking the comfort that someone cares enough to respond, and engage with them. By talking endlessly and repetitively about the minutiae of their days, they are seeking to share with us their thoughts. I am reminded of a small child who, when you see them, hauls out all his toys to show you, or begins in baby-talk to tell you about their kindie friends, or their favourite sweeties. They are sharing things that are important to them and showing you, at the same time, that they are according you a gilt-edged invitation to enter into their world. We do it with alacrity for toddlers, but we are less enthusiastic about our parents.

Having said that, though, I have to admit that it is hard to take day in and out. We are so used to thinking of our parents as the adults in the relationship, as the ones who taught us things and who are supposed to know better. When they begin to act 'less than', we get impatient. We think they are not making an effort to be more cognisant, that they are getting mentally lazy. Perhaps it even scares us that they are growing old and will leave us one day - and so we try to make them what they used to be.

As someone who knows what it is like to be shunted aside because of a physical development that I cannot help, I think giving our elders relevance is the answer. The trouble is that our culture does not foster this attitude. Most of the older generation of Singaporeans (indeed, most Asians), are used to a feeling of urgency, of focus - working to earn their living, put food on the table, put the kids through school. "Wait till I retire", is the much-used refrain. But what happens after retirement? There is a whole lifetime waiting for all of us once we are turfed out of the company and my people in my parents' generation never planned for it.

I and my friends will be in the first generation of Singaporeans to have grown up without the sense of strife. I wonder how we will greet retirement? I wonder how we will find relevance in a country where the government and society has no time for retirees and the prevailing attitude is one of condescension. Considering we seem to be turning into a gerontocracy, one would expect the opposite.

The solution is, I believe, to look for work/life balance, to begin planning retirement at 40, to find one's bliss - process which can take years. The job does not satisfy most people, it's just a means to an end. We need to start the seach way before we retire, so that we can build a plan to stay relevant, needed and contributing through the golden years. We need to learn how to put ourselves first again - not the kids, not the job, not even our country. Us.

2006-12-31T21:37:00.000+08:00

The eve of a new year is usually a time of reflection, of looking back and looking forward. Well, for me, the new year is usually a time of calm and rest before getting back to work. Celebrations tend to be quiet after the hoopla of Christmas, which I tend to do in a really big way. I do, however, make a point of commemorating it in some gastronomic/alcholic way, even if I am alone, but introspection has always been a waste of time. Resolutions? Haven't made one for years - what's the point? I always break them in the first week of the new year. Don't need the guilt trip. As for reflections on the year past - again, what's the point? Another year gone, here comes the next! There's always more where that came from!

Well, for the first time, I have to realise that there may not be that many more. And I have reflected on the year past. It had started with so much promise - I was doing well at work, and had every expectation of ending the year well. Was planning to travel extensively, kick up my heels. Instead of which, I am fighting cancer, am on extended medical leave and have just had it confirmed that cancer has made me unmarketable as an employee.

Guess what? I have had a great year! Ok, ok, I know I have cancer - am not senile yet, my mother's opinions to the contrary. But when I look at the blessings I have had over the past 12 months, I would even go so far as to say that for various reasons, 2006 will go down as one of my better years.

The cancer journey has been a blessing. For one, God has surrounded me with angels. No, not the types with wings, although that might come. I am talking about the friends and family, and their friends, doctors and nurses, and other perfect strangers, who have so unstintingly reached out to me to encourage, pray and befriend me. From a human perspective, I am very, very much blessed. The caring has, I believe, enabled me to remain positive.

Strange, but I would never have labelled myself as positive, an adjective many seem to apply to me these days. I might have said I was a coper, a survivor, but positive? I am reminded of a friend who used talk to people calling her firm to complain. They would ask her peremptorily: 'Are you a manager?' Her response would be a dry:'Well, I manage!' That's me. I manage, mostly by the skin of my teeth.

The past few years for me have been rather lonely. Being unemployed meant that I lost an element of daily human contact. Working, subsequently, in a country where I did not speak the language and where I knew no-one also meant a certain degree of isolation. Now, I am back in a country I swore I would never return to, with friends and family and - dare I say it? - am perfectly content. So, God used the cancer to relieve the isolation. My dance card is full. Go figure.

And I believe that while I chafed at the bit in terms of not being in the thick of things work-wise, it was God at work, trying to keep worry at bay for me. Then there was the financial provisioning, so that I could have the best treatment possible, without any trade-offs. I even had a little left over for my personal favourite therapy - ie, retail, made even more fun because I can now, after 20 years, fit into small sizes.

Finally, the real reason why this year has been so fantastic - I am seeing God at work and it is marvellous! Look what I have been through, and yet am able still to run 9km, walk the length and breadth of Orchard Road each day, enjoy three full meals, do tai-chi,play hide-and-seek with my niece and nephew, and most of all, laugh out loud at least once each day. And imagine, I do all this on a macrobiotic diet! I can find no other reason for this than God's grace. So yes, it has been, as it has always been, sufficient unto me and I give thanks for this every single day.

Roll on 2007. God is doing something new in my life. I have given up trying to second guess what this might be. I am just going to enjoy watching it all unfold.

There are people in the world sitting in their homes, watching TV in their pyjamas, never having got out of them in the first place, as if this were just another ordinary, even dreary, Sunday, thinking that this is merely yet another year-end, yet another new year. Well, folks, a year-end, means one less year on earth, and one less year before you see God face to face. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is. Take the opportunity to reach out to people who have meant something to you, and to whom you would like to mean something. In the end, from where I sit, it is the relationships that matter the most, not that blasted TV set.

I thank everyone reading this blog for all your support over the past months - it has meant alot to me. Happy New Year, one and all - may God's abundant blessings be with you throughout 2007.

2006-12-26T22:29:00.000+08:00

I hope a Merry Christmas was had by all! I had a pretty good one, even without alcohol.

God was merciful and answered my prayers - the family all showed up. For the first time since my father's death, I saw his side of the family for Christmas, and we all, even his nephews who barely see their own parents, remembered my father fondly and with laughter. My cousin, who does not have time for much, has been supportive the minute I was diagnosed, inviting me over for dinner and saying that they would cook whatever I wanted to eat. The last time I saw him was eight years ago just after my father died.

One of my brothers, who is incommunicado most of the time, and whose attendance at the family lunch was up in the air - we had not heard from him for a few weeks despite several text messages and phone calls - actually made it back. My mother was beside herself with joy. For about two days prior, I had asked God to speak to his heart to bring him home for Christmas, not for me, but for my mother. I had actually told God to, in local parlance, 'knock his head'. Two days after I began praying this prayer, as He has seemed to do throughout my cancer journey, God answered my prayers! My brother had to work overtime to make it back for Christmas - but thank God he managed it.

More than this, the friends I've made, who are on the same cancer journey, were all in touch, making the season all the more meaningful. While I worked hard to make this a Christmas reminiscent of the Christmasses of my youth, I had to acknowledge that this was not to be. Things are too different - my brothers do not do Christmas in a big way - I was horrified to find their kids did not get Christmas presents! They get lots of presents all year round, so why bother at Christmas? No Christmas tree, no carolling, no Mass...

When I used to do Christmas at my flat, I pushed the boat out. It was not so this time because it was done at my brother's flat. So, this was one departure from the past. The food was not the usual traditionally unhealthy as possible fare - no Christmas pudding, no cream sauces, no stuffing...

It occurs to me that this year, everything I had clung to or held dear in the past, was now gone. God has, over the course of the past few months, removed everything I built my identity on,including what makes Christmas, and my long hair which I had always wanted, which I spent many hours and dollars fussing over, playing with, and which I had had for all of a mere 5 years.

All the pillars which might have caused a sense of pride are gone. The irony is that my hair grew long when I went thorugh a phase of unemployment and could not afford a hair cut. I was really down to nothing then. Today, I am reminded again that when we are down to nothing, God is up to something. I am also reminded of Isiah 43:18: 'Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?'

I know I am on the verge of a new season. I have changed my prayers from focusing on what I want, to asking God to put me where he needs me. In other words, I am reaching a watershed in my trust of God. Has it been easy? Heck, no! I still have my hopes. But I will force my feet to take the steps I must, and hope my whole heart will follow.

Watch this space!

2006-12-22T15:03:00.000+08:00

Horror of horrors! I found out today that I am known, in Mt Elizabeth oncology centre circles as the 'bicep lady'!All because I reported that my right bicep was swelling to the onco radiologist! The good news is, as I made sure to inform all the radio girls today, my bicep has since shrunk and is now the SAME size as the other one.

Also, as hairs start to grow, I realise much to my dismay, that I have to start shaving my legs again, especially since doctors now poke me everywhere to see which muscles are swelling. No getting away from it....aiyah!

2006-12-20T22:40:00.000+08:00

Maybe it is because I am beginning to feel rather tired because of the radiation, but I am getting very pissed off at people lately. It is now the season for peace and joy, but in Singapore, we are so stressed, or in such a rush, that we do not take time out for the niceties of day to day life.

Having spent the last two years out of Singapore, and having had minimal contact with Singaporeans in general, I now have the opportunity to look at us from a new perspetive. I have realised that we could do with a lesson in common civilities - myself included. The directness of our communication, the lack of tact, of consideration, sometimes leaves alot to be desired.

We have been bashing service providers here in Singapore, criticising the poor service - and I am a prime culprit in the complain-about-service-staff department. But it also occurs to me that poor service has a couple of roots:

First of all, as a society, I think that most people here have not been brought up to expect common civilities and courtesies from family members. Our families have the right, most times, to tick us off, tell us when we look like crap - in as many wordss - or are acting like crap. Familiarity breeds, and all that. As our primary socialisation tool, the family environment is where bad behaviour is developed.

Second of all, Singaporeans are always in a tearing hurry and feel, for the most part, dis-empowered. The latter arises from the traditional authoritarian Asian society. So, when we do have power, it is not often wielded gently.(and no, I will not start complaining about the government here!).

Taken together, these two elements build a society that is a little rough around the edges, to say the least. So, where there is poor service, I reckon sometimes there are poor customers. In my experience, courtesy begets courtesy.

As families get together, let's try not to criticise Aunty Maisie's loud voice, Uncle Sam's miserly ways, the screaming kids. Let's try to eat and appreciate the meals on offer with an attitude of gratitude, instead of comparing one roast turkey recipe against another, and moaning about the crap food someone else served in Christmasses past. And if someone has a specific food request, let's try to accommodate rather than simply producing a dish because that's what you want to eat.

And where is it written that only kids get Christmas presents?!!!!! Why not try to actually give everyone something, rather than forking out cash, or a bottle of booze? Besides boosting the economy, it will start us thinking about - and giving - to one another. It does not have to cost alot, just mean something.

I remember Christmas when I was a kid, when we had the tree, the carolling, the festive food, the family gatherings when we all got together and caught up. It was a special time. Now, I see around me people who just think Christmas is a trial, and do not bother to give their kids the full Christmas treatment. A trip out of town is more likely, rather than prioritising a family get together. The wider relationship element, and the real meaning of Christmas, to me encompassing values our kids need to learn, is lacking here.

Now that I am macrobiotic, the food bit is out of the question, which leaves the people element - uh oh!

Just once during the year, can't we pretend - ok, call me an idealistic fool! - we are in a Doris Day movie and just practice being nice, polite and sociable...please? Adn boy, if we can manage that one day out of the year, can we try to extend this to the other days that come after?

2006-12-18T20:08:00.000+08:00

Today, I had my first dose of Femara, the aromatase inhibitor I will be on for at least the next three years. Femara is given to post menopausal women to protect against the recurrence of estrogen sensitive cancers. So, fingers crossed!

I am obviously losing it. I had thought I was only three weeks into radiation but was told by the radio oncologist today that I have already completed four weeks of radiaton, that this week will be my fifth, next week my last.

Again, got to get geared up for the next thing, which is the hysterectomy. I had got used to the daily rush of getting up, hitting the email for an hour, then getting dressed, and heading into the hospital for radiation cum small talk session for the day with the radiology girls.

Yesterday, I collected - after 6 months - some photos I had taken in China before coming back. I hardly recognised myself. The only word that could adequately have described me is 'rotund'. My brother said he had noticed 'a certain degree of porking out'. That's what passes for tact in my family. I really looked as though I was ready to pop out of my skin! But at least I had hair, eyeleashes, and eyebrows! I had forgotten what I used to look like. In the same roll was a photo of myself after round 2 of chemo, hairless and looking like crap - a far cry from Ms Rotund Singapore.

The big thing about this was not about how different I look, but how much life has changed in six months. It is one thing to talk about it, and go through it, but the photos were a stark reminder of the reality of what I have been through. People tell me I have been through alot physically, that my body has taken a real beating.

The funny thing, and I believe that this is by the grace of God, I don't feel it. I feel quite chirpy most times, in fact. Despite my grumbles, it has really made a difference having my mother around. I don't think I could have coped as well, if I were living alone, although there were many times when I thought I really could have done with more peace and quiet.

I am quite dreading going back to Shanghai and the office. For one thing, it will be completely different now that we have been through the merger. For another, it will be another huge transition - relocation again, looking for an apartment, going through the stress of trying to be macrobiotic in a toxic country, and coming to grips with my job. Even if is the same role, the parameters will have changed drastically because we are essentially now a completely different company. And I will be alone, there will be no support circle.

Oh well, I suppose I will cope with it the way I always cope - one day at a time. It would really be nice to be able to look forward to the following year and know exactly what I will be doing.

Someone once told me that I lived such an exciting life, that if she did not speak to me for a week, she would find that my life situation had changed completely!And this is someone I have known since University. Whenever I tell someone else (another university friend) that I am going to live somewhere else for awhile, he says: "What, again?" as though I am leaving town all the time. I feel that I am chained to Singapore, my own personal Sing Sing. They all complain their lives are so boring, that they dread the mid-life crisis because they might do something really stupid to liven things up.

Good grief, I would love a bit of boring for a little while (a little, little while...)!

2006-12-14T21:48:00.000+08:00

So far so good. I made a vow to eschew all deep fried food and so far, save for one occasion when I had gobbled up all the tempura on my plate before I could think, I have managed to keep to it. How? Very simple - by taking the long way round, rather than walking past any food stall with deep fried food. Hey, never let it be said that I am unaware of my weaknesses!

The end of this week will put me exactly at the half-way point of radiation therapy. No major side effects so far, except for some fatigue in the afternoons, where one feels tired, but enough to fall asleep. Most annoying, as this means I sit up in my bed trying to fall asleep but all the while thinking about the work I could be doing since I am not yet asleep.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday who told me about how, after almost 6 months of major stress about her business, and waiting for God to provide guidance, she finally heard from Him and he has basically given her a whole business plan! Boy, I keep hearing from people about how God has provided with a blueprint for action. I wish I could have a blueprint which tells me the purpose to which I am called. No such luck, so far.

I admire her faith - losing money, suffering the jeers of people because she refused to take a single step that was not confirmed by God, even one that made logical sense to the human intellect - such as doing some advertising! I feel suitably rebuked, as I seek to try to jiggle open various doors to the post-treatment world.

She is the second person this week to have told me that she has received a blueprint from God. However, my other friend tells me has to wait for the signal to put the plan into action. So she is waiting. Wow.

So, where does that leave me? Well, I believe that these conversations, all happening in the same week, tell me that 'to everything there is a season'. I am in a season of waiting. No point pushing things - God will act in His own time. I think these revelations are meant to be encouraging and I will take them as such - and wait without grumbling...might as well have some fun, while there's fun to be had!

2006-12-11T22:44:00.000+08:00

I am in a pretty good mood these days. On Friday, I was in a tizzy over the cost and side effects of the HRT I will be starting this weekend. But I have recently had many reminders that God has taken care of everything in this journey of mine and have been reminded to 'trust him'. Even looking at my skin so far, I see that the radiation seems to have had a minimal effect on the skin quality.

How remiss of me to have forgotten God's provision! So, I have decided to begin enjoying myself and not worry about things. Everything has a solution and it will pop up, but there is plenty of time to worry about things later. So, I have been lunching out to the nines. And have visited my favourite dress shop and even bought something I did not need - but hey, it was really cute. So, that's the Christmas outfit taken care of!

Now to work on the new year outfit!

2006-12-08T22:01:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I hit another milestone - I jogged 9km! I surprised even myself. Of course, my legs were killing me afterwards, but it was well worth it. The weather helped, being a nice cool night. (How much healther I might be if it was 24 deg C all the time!)

I think I could even have pushed myself to go on a bit longer, but did not want to do my knees in. The hard part, of course, will be forcing myself to do it again!

And today, I saw my oncologist and she has given me a shot, effectively putting me into menopause within a week so that she can start me on an aromatase inhibitor called Femara. The jogging will become essential in terms of helping me fight the side effects of the Femara, said to be: nausea, bone ache, fatigue, constipation, coughing, chest pain and headaches. Honestly, and they expect us to hold down a job through all this? Oh, did I forget to mention: thromboembolic, cardiovascular, and cerebrovascular events? Dunno what these are, but they sound suitably scary - I think I would prefer to be taking chemotherapy!

But the cost of the drug is what really got my adrenaline going - $1400, give or take, for a 30 day supply. Well, I really cannot afford to quit the job, or be made redundant now! This is quite horrendous. Roll on the generics! Really, it is times like this when I feel the stirrings of socialist fervour.

And I am getting really pissed off at my insurance company who still refuses to admit my breast cancer claim and therefore will not be paying for any of these drugs. What a cop-out, especially since this is the one that has been recommended by the government, to be paid for out of our medisave funds. So my medisave is being severely depleted for a policy that won't cover me.

They say cancer is a pre-existing condition - well, yes. In other words, unless the policy was bought what, 20 years prior to diagnosis, they won't pay. That's alot of cancer patients who get no support,despite hefty premiums. And there was no medical test - so what gives them the right to be so bloody minded about this?

If I make a claim for diabetes or Alzheimers', both slow-developing diseases, they will hide behind the same bloody clause again.

Again, this was an insurance company recommended by the government. This citizen (I admit it, I am a total idiot, I went against my usual good - and opposite - judgement)decided to trust the government and leapt into the policy.

Really, is there no way the common Singaporean gets a break? Big business wins every time, as does big Government. Just once or twice, or more, I'd like to see the little person win and be able to smear egg all over the face of these giants of enterprise.

2006-12-07T09:17:00.000+08:00

By the end of this week, I would have completed 3 weeks of radiation therapy with no visible side effects. I am feeling hot alot more ('heaty'), but am not sure if that is the radiation, or the fact that daily excursions to my favourite spot in Sinapore ie, Orchard Road, mean I get to cheat on my macrobiotic diet and it is the MSG.

The radiation oncologist told me that I would begin to feel the effects at the end of this week and starting from next week ie, fatigue, and some degradation of skin quality. Nothing serious he said, just something approaching a sunburn.

I have to say that I really like Mount Elizabeth hospital. It is really service-oriented and everything seems spanking new and clean. Even the doctor told me that he welcomed any feedback! What a step forward for doctors here, many of whom have somewhat of a God complex, an impression supported by a garrison of nurses. When specialists enter a ward, there is a new buzz about the place, with nurses becoming brisker, telling patients to hurry up with their ablutions. Up and down those corridors is heard the whisper, "Doctor's here, doctor's here!" No need to mention which doctor, a doctor is about!

I wonder what radiation oncologists do all day. The real work seems to be done by the technicians, who position you for the blast, and operate the computers. My radiation oncologist sees me once a week for a review, and decided on the program I should be on, that's it.

I suppose they are called in to look at scans, and provide recommendations to the other doctors. So they spend their time with films and do very little clinical or pastoral work. It seems to be rather a cold part of medicine, when so much of it seems to have to do with the patients and dealing with their aches and pains, and bodily bits. And I wonder if it takes all those years of study simply to look at scans.

Before I decided on my radiation oncologist, I saw all others as well. The one from Singapore General I did not want simply because the patient load there meant I would only see her at the beginning of the protocol, and never again. I saw another who spent all his time on the phone. Both experiences taught me that they were not particularly essential to the process.

Well, I demand full attention and interest from my doctors. My radio onco is great at this, and is a pretty funny guy to boot - so, the reviews are almost like social chit chat. Thank goodness, given that I spend much of my time stuck in my room at home, chained to my computer. Social interaction is not great and I have realised, despite a strong hermit quotient in my make-up, I like chatting with people! I like having a laugh each day, and discovering other people and their interests.

Thank God for daily radiation, I am beginning to feel part of the human race again!

2006-12-06T22:56:00.000+08:00

Farewell, old friends, I say with regret, bidding goodbye to fried food of every description.

I seem to recall in the dimmest recesses of memory a time when I actually did not like food that was crispy. As a very young child, I preferred soft, easy to chew and easy to swallow food - not spicy at all, and if it was sweet, so much the better. I even hated meat, certainly did not like potatoes and if it was fishy, well, forget it. Under no circumstances would my mouth open to allow entry to those boney instruments of child-torture.

When did it all change? I think I can trace it back to when my Dad used to come home with curry puffs as a treat.He was so proud when we began to eat curries, and chillies - almost a rite of passage, as it were. Then there were the kropok which Ah Poh used to dry in the sun, then fry and store in numerous gigantic tupperware containers - so much the better for eating in front of the TV.

Then came the Pringles era. When these first made an appearance, Dad used to buy cannisters by the dozen and we would all sit companionably in front of the TV, or with visitors in the living room, eating the stuff and drinking coffee or tea or alchohol (or, in the case of us kids, something sweet and fizzy out of a can) chatting and bonding as a family.

Then, as we began in our own jobs, we brought home different versions of the fried foods that Dad used to buy, widening the scope - triangle curry puffs from different stalls, chicken curry puffs, sardine curry puffs, potato curry puffs, curry puffs with egg, without egg, spring rolls with shrimp and without, ngoh hiang, yew char kway (stuffed and un-), fish fingers, bergedel, tauhu goreng, Indian rojak, Malay rojak, gado-gado, fried fish balls, fried wantons, kropok with chilli sauce - anything crunchy, oily, and dribbling sweet sauce was an instant hit in our home.

I have today, excessively, even for me in pre-cancer days, had three curry puffs (one with puff pastry), and two 'butterfly' thingies (made from yew char kway dough) and enjoyed every single bite. And with these, I bid goodbye forever to my fried friends.

I have many happy and fond memories of the first time I ate them, and times spent, particularly with my father, who loved fried food equally well. My father died of cancer 8 years ago and is still missed. Every time my brothers and I eat something unhealthy, we inevitably talk about how Dad loved the stuff, all the while shaking our heads, thinking: If we knew then...Giving up fried foods is almost like saying goodbye to Dad all over again.

However, having read last night how fried stuff, especially doughy things, absorbs loads of oil, how the pastry contains margarine (a trans-fat and cancer causer, and ultimately, killer food), how oil, if reused as it is in all the deep fried food stalls, loses its ability to retain heat, causing the food to need a much longer cooking period, thereby increasing its cancer-causing capabilities...well,the writing is on the wall (or in the wok). I need to give these things up. No more chips. No more tempura (wail, wail, wail). No pisang goreng (or any goreng). And (wail ad infinitum), absolutely no more curry puffs.

Really, people talk about chemo reducing the quality of life. Well, let me tell you, chemo was nothing compared to having to give up my favourite foods. I've already given up steaks, foie gras, roast lamb, nouvelle cuisine, and every single cheese in the world. Now,its fried food. What's left? A dismal, yawning chasm of non-activity for hands and mouth while watching TV. Now, it's just me and the flickering screen, no mood enhancers, no sub-theme of sensory pleasure. Just the box. And if the program is crap, I will have to admit it, since I cannot distract myself with food. And will have to switch the TV off. And find something else to do.

Like what? Perhaps twiddling my thumbs will stave off the post-chemo neuropathy, burn a few more calories, stimulate my cardio-vascular system...or, perhaps, I will just write another blog entry! Every cloud...

2006-12-06T18:18:00.000+08:00

Either doctors lead very boring lives, or I must be a very talented, but undiscovered, comedic great. In the last 6 months, I don't think there has been a single doctor I have met who did not laugh at my circumstances - in a nice way, of course.

Take this conversation when I was trying to relate the story of THE DISCOVERY OF THE LUMP.

Me: I discovered it after a massage in Shanghai.
Doctor (impressed): A massage? Wow, it must have been some massage. Was it a male masseuse?

Next there was the POST-OPERATIVE GET OUT OF BED drama.

Doctor: Ok, let's see if you can get out of bed.
Me: Oh no, doctor, it's too painful, I want to stay in bed.
Doctor (with jovial bellow): What?!!! Your pain threshold must be under water!

Then there was the MYSTERY OF THE SWOLLEN LEGS.

Doctor: Is your right thigh bigger than your left?
Me: Err, well, they are both big so I cannot tell.
Doctor (sniggering): No, no, I did not mean to give offense!

Then there is the MYSTERY OF THE BULGING RIGHT BICEP

Me: Doctor, my right bicep is swelling. Could this be lymphoedema?
Doctor (after examining entire arm and hands): Nothing, what. I'm afraid it is just your muscle that is three cms larger than in the other arm (doubled over in laughter).

And today, there was NEXT-GEN BOTOX.

Doctor (gesturing to nurse leaving room): How old do you think she is?
Me: Um, 45?
Doctor: When we ask that sort of question, we mean that the person is either much older or much younger.
Me: Ok, 52?
Doctor (looking exasperated): She is 69.
Me: Really? Wow, she is in very good shape!
Doctor (straight-faced): Yes, must be the radiation...
Me: No kidding, what sort of treatment is that?
Doctor (speechless, doubled over on his desk and laughing).

Ah well, into every cancer journey some levity must fall! I guess this is what they call a bedside manner - hahahahaha!

2006-12-06T10:05:00.000+08:00

Living a life of significance. That is how a friend referred to the search for meaning that many people term a mid-life crisis. Once one reaches a certain age, one begins to assess the life lived so far, and its value. Sure, you may have financial secuity, a good job, a family and a 'place' where you belong, whether you define that space as your apartment, your country or the bosom of your family. But all this, I think, is different from 'significance'.

To me, a life of significance is one where you leave a legacy. It does not have to be a monumental one, and you don't have to have a hospital wing named after you. But most of us want a life that has meant something to someone, so that when you are gone, your going will be keenly felt, and your contribution goes on, somehow.

People with families, who are the breadwinners, to me, have it easy. Once they are gone, they will most certainly be missed, simply because of the practical function they perform. People who are single, like me, have it harder, because, we are not 'significant' in the same way. So, we have to work a little harder to fnd our 'space' or niche.

I am now looking at the final phase of my treatment for cancer. I anticipate being able to go back to work by mid Feb, about 10 weeks down the track. Looking back, I guess I never once let it enter my mind that I would not get through the treatment in good form, and be fit and ready to assume the reins of my job in Shanghai. I look at this treatment as a mere bump in the road towards corporate success.

However, the ease with which I have been shunted aside by the company and my boss these past few months tell me that this is not the 'significance' I now want. Only the people who reported to me, whom I might have been able to mentor in some way, might say that I played a role of some 'significance' in their lives. For the rest - out of sight, out of mind.

The next step still remains a blur. People of faith would simply quit the job and wait for God (or the universe) to open the next door. However, I have been there and done that, and I simply do not want to be unemployed again. If I look back at the experience, it was not unpleasant - God certainly provided for me and I think I was even happy being gainfully unemployed! But I cannot willingly chose that route.

Does that life of 'significance' mean that I have to go out on a limb before the door will open? I know that once I go back to the job, I will be so preoccupied (such is the nature of my obssessive personality!) that I will lose sight of the plan to find 'significance'. This is what happens to most of us. One day, you have a job that absorbs you, the next, you are retired and wondering what to do with your days because we do not have a certain 'connectedness'.

I do not know what the answer is, but I do know that I need more of a...connection. It could come through the job. Or, it could come from something outside of the job, but in China. I am told to remain open, to work on discerning the signs. Yeah, right.

Meanwhile, I will take some baby steps to doing something apart from the job that interests me. Let's see what happens.

In my brother's words: come on, lah, God! Still waiting...

2006-12-04T23:16:00.000+08:00

One of the complaints about Singapore from many people, local and foreign alike, has been that it is a 'soulless' society. Now, we have a new generation of politicians, the P65(yet another meaningless acronym)lot, trying their hand at creating a new Singapore identity, one that will retain the younger generation who seem to be migrating in droves.

Let's look at what has been mooted since the PAP began to woo the younger generation of Singaporeans, via Lee Hsien Loong. Dancing on bar counters has been approved, and a couple of innovative and risque nightclubs have opened. We have a new theatre complex which most local theatre troupes find too expensive to rent. GST has gone up, as have the prices of almost everything else in this town, except fines, including the one for spitting. ERP, taxi fares, peak hour surcharges, all headed north. The gap between rich and poor has widened. The size of the sandwich class has grown. The number of replacement births has gone down. Maid abuse has gone up, and, I am sure, the murder rate. Oh, let's not forget the worst recession since independence, with the highest number of unemployed. Now, we have the Integrated Resort idea, with the franchise for the some of the most expensive real estate in the region. We have also heard some ideas on how to make health care more affordable - but I can personally attest that the partner insurance companies do not live up to their promises.

On which one of these can we hang our hats on, to say, ok, here's an attempt at building soul? Or even defining the soul of nation - and I do not mean the pastiche of icons such as cha kway teow, laksa, fish head curry, the merlion, satay or the Singapore girl.

What I can see from all of these initiatives is that they revolve around MONEY. They push the average Singaporean to slog all hours to pay for the household bills and mortgage. Higher transport costs, extended peak hours (until 11.30pm) mean that we are penalised for merely going to work, then for having the stupidity to work beyond 4pm when peak hour rates begin. To maintain a decent lifestyle (for most people, to pay the HDB mortgage and save for the kids' education, and retirement in a country where we can barely afford to pay the monthly bills) we neglect the family, leaving the upbringing to the maids. The situation is so ridiculous that we have to have a single day each year designated 'eat dinner with your family' day.

The stress of living in this super pressure cooker breeds social problems, including a very high proportion of runaway teens. Teachers today say that teaching is more social work rather than education because parents are so guilt ridden with neglecting their kids, they refuse to discipline them and leave this to the schools.

Ok, ok. Here's the question - where in all of these initiatives is the SOUL element? The only soul I can see is that of materialism. We have in charge a bunch of leaders who grew up in this so called 'soulless' country, who do not recognise 'soul' and who are trying to create a nation according to the 'soul' standards they grew up with - money, money, money. Although, I wonder how many of the new P65 generation really knew what it was to go without when they were younger? Not many, I wager.

Small wonder that their version of it has this symbol - $ - on it. More glitz. More spin. More superficiality and knee-jerk reactions to problems. Tax it. Fine it. What is the long term effect on this society? Any thought given to that? Well, heck, why should they?

While the sandwich class strives, ministers' pay goes up - right after an election, when not a single promise has been delivered yet. Even in the private sector, people are rewarded based on delivery. If we must peg our ministers' salaries to the private sector, we need to assess them accordingly - by delivery, ROI, - in the eyes of their customers, ie their constituents. And no damed excuses - as with the private sector. One bad inning, and you're out. If the average Singaporean has to be whipped, why then, our leadership should adopt the same stringent standards for themselves.

Again, without the means to influence the political process in any meaningful way, to control our destinies because we are so busy just putting food on the table, where will will have the time to build the soul of this nation. Right now, the soul is one that is being defined from the top, ie, the 1% of this country. What kind of soul is that? Where is the voice of the common man? I'd certainly like to hear it, because that's where soul starts.

2006-12-01T18:56:00.000+08:00

To all who have been asking after me and praying, a huge 'thank you'. The lumps and bumps I felt are basically, harmless cysts. The watery eyes, after-effects of chemo. The swelling legs - still an unsolved mystery, but it is not a dietary deficiency, not a tumour affecting lymphatic drainage, and not deep vein thrombosis ie, a blood clot. So, it does not seem to be something that is immediately life-threatening. Now, there is absolutely no excuse for me NOT to jog through the pain!

Sometimes I think we do ourselves a disservice when we think that our little aches and pains are 'nothing', or we do not credit our own perceptions enough. For example, I had thought that one of my thighs was larger than the other, ie, still swollen but dismissed it as being 'all in my mind'. Today, my oncologist said the same thing!

Lesson learnt - if you feel there is something wrong, insist that the doctor(s) review possibilities. Insist on validation. No matter what, it is your body, your physical well-being and whether or not we realise it, I think we actually know our own bodies best. We just have to learn to tune in more.

Someone asked me to keep a diary during chemo, so that I could record the physical reactions to the treatment and this would enable me to recognise when something unusual occured in subsequent cycles.

I stopped this when I thought the chemo was becoming routine!!!

Now, I think I will begin this habit again, to record all sorts of bodily changes. You never know. And it is useful when doctors ask probing questions, as they are wont to do when you have cancer.

Point of this blog? To say thanks, and to say - never let anyone tell you, or make you feel less than. You have a view and a right to be heard and to be taken seriously. Insist on it.

2006-11-29T09:38:00.000+08:00

Well, this blog post does not have much to do with my cancer. It has, rather, to do with a cancer that is growing surely but surely in Singapore society, and that is the cancer of ungraciousness, elitism, widening gap between the have and have-nots. The fact that the government has been touting the unoriginal phrase of'no-one left behind' tells us that they are aware of this.

I have been prompted to write this by the recent brouhaha over the blog entry by a supposedly bright RJC student, lambasting a poor 40-plus year old man talking about the uncertain future of Singapore, basically calling him a pathetic leech on Singapore.

I tried to make a response on Shu-Min (the RJC student's blog) but she has shut it down apparently after she had received a barrage of responses to her post. Well, (to use her own words) dear, dear, dear darling Shu-Min, if you can't take the heat, you'd better get out of the kitchen. After dishing it out to Derek, you shut down your blog so that you don't get it dished out to you? For shame!

But this bright young thing, already PAP fodder, is typical of what is happening here in this, our little fair isle - the lack of inclusiveness. The lack of support for those who do not make it to the top ranks of upper middle class and upper class Singaporeans, to whom a further 2% GST hike (after a mere 3 years since the last hike) and other rising prices are nary a tickle in their pockets. Fend for yourself, is the message I keep hearing from our national leadership. We take care of our own.

Graciousness starts with the effort to understand others who are not 'one of us', without making them feel not 'one of us'. A gracious society legislates so that there is inclusion - we certainly are not there yet. A racial arbitration board, for example. A ban on sexist advertising for jobs. Affirmative action campaigns for example. In Singapore, we who are so quick to adopt anything American, are particularly laggard in adopting affirmative action with women in leadership - for example, women in the civil service upper echelons - how many women permanent secretaries do we have? And how about women MPs in non-community focused roles? A scant decade ago, I remember our senior minister Goh saying that women did not belong in politics. Malaysia, which we delight in lambasting and portraying as our hick neighbour, at least has a woman trade and industry minister. From an ethnic group which we in Singapore tend to view as not being as aggressive or commercially savvy as, well, the other 80%. Malaysia has not yet gone under, so - go figure.

I think, dear, dear, dear, darling Shu-Min, elite (and elitist) Singaporeans need an attitude check. You, of our future generation, and the attitude you foster and so proudly wear on your sleeve, simply illustrates what I have always felt - that we are an ungracious, self-serving lot, unsympathetic to the woes and needs of those who make the top echelon possible ie, 90% of the tax-paying, hard-slogging Singapore population without whom at the bottom, without whose support, the word 'top' would have no meaning. You are going to take this country in the exact opposite direction of gracious. And unless you take your head out of your rear end, we are going to end up in the toilet, an ungracious and sad lot whose biggest mistake would have been to so easily, willingly and blindly believe our own PR.

2006-11-21T23:11:00.000+08:00

It has been almost two weeks since my last post - days filled with aching legs, headaches, and watery eyes that just won't stop tearing. All, I am assured, side effects of chemotherapy. Funny how it is the last dose that brings on the worst round of side effects - a blessing in disguise I guess.

Today, I began radiation therapy. I had always been told that it would be 'nothing' - the only problem I had with radiation therapy was parking my car, said someone. And in actual fact, it is really a non-event - so far. I am told that I will be fatigued after the third week. I had not, therefore, given it much thought, and was mentally not prepared for the experience.

As with all cancer experiences, it is a new experience, one that was hitherto unknown. The machines, for example, are huge. It begs the chicken-and-egg question - radiation therapy machines, or Star Trek movies, which came first? It is rather space agey. And talking to the radiation oncologist about radio-isotopes in the calendular oil I want to apply to the irradiated site - well, that was rather surreal.

Once again, the sheer contrast betweent the technology of cancer treatment and the frail human body seems rather like using a hammer to squish an ant. It is, though, a reminder of the deadliness of that ant.

The fact that I will be taking about 30 blasts, when the standard dose is 25, also reminds me that the general prognosis is not the greatest.

The fact that I have discovered another lump - in my back this time - is another sobering thought. Hopefully, though, it is nothing. Watch this space.

Another sobering experience - the doctor found a polyp and has sent it to the histology lab. Again, hopefully it is nothing.

The fact that I am finding it hard, all of a sudden, to run the usual 6km - is this a cause for concern, I wonder. Should I get my lungs, legs, bones etc checked?

And so it goes. Everything has to be checked. I have to be paranoid about everything. That despite the fact that I should be back at work in 10 weeks, and that the dreaded chemotherapy is over, the cancer journey is, in fact, still new, with each new phase, and each discovery of a new physical symptom bringing on anew the early fears.

God, will it never end?

2006-11-11T10:26:00.000+08:00

'Heaven is closer than you think!'

I am currently reading, in an effort to figure out the whys and wherefores of my cancer, Rick Warren's "A Purpose-Driven Life'. It is a really impressive book - a 40 day course on discerning your life's purpose here on earth.

If one re-orientates one's life to think of our time here as a precursor, the opening act, to the main event - eternity in heaven - then the cast of our lives in the here and now changes completely. I simply put on a different pair of spectacles, and looked at my life - the number one priority, the job, dropped like a stone to the bottom. People, relationships zoomed to top place. St Peter at the Pearly Gates is really not going to care how many awards I've won, how many stock options, how many raises and promotions.

My fourth assistant in 18 months resigned yesterday. And you know what, I really just did not care. She was saying the job was affecting her health, she had hormonal imbalances. Six months ago, I would have been in a tailspin, going through a major post-mortem, asking myself how I could have avoided this, telling myself that young people these days just don't know the meaning of commitment to a job etc.

But maybe, it is just not important. She made the right choice, which is getting herself on the road to health. Of course, she could have done it more professionally, or in a more mature manner rather than coming in, depositing her laptop, and simply walking out. Jeez.

But for the first time, I looked at this from the perspective of eternity. I really wanted to give her a piece of my mind. But then, I thought - ok, she will be in the exact same position she has just put me in one day - God is nothing if not fair, as I know from personal experience. What is my role? To wish her the best and set her free!

Secondly, is this worth the stress? What is the worst that could happen? Her tasks are not part of my deliverables. If there is no-one to do the job, and the company will not cough up for a full-time headcount in the job, they obviously do not value the function. So, far be it for a small fry me to tell them otherwise. The online communications platform should be re-evaluated and if we cannot resource this, if it has to remain a half-baked piece of crap, then so be it.

I realised that because I felt there was so much more that could be done, that because I owned the platform, I could not let it look like the dog's dinner I inherited. I set the staff the same standards I set myself when I first took over the function and had to do all the work myself.

I myself in my first job worked 15 hour-days. But I was not a temp, as they are. Temps ndon't care about the longer term career path (no matter what they tell you in the job interview), they just want a job for a few months to pay for their next holiday. The penny has finally dropped.

In the meantime, I had created a monster. with the success of the online communications function, people's expectations had risen, so that with every resignation, I went through the stress of searching, hiring retraining, dealing with the emotional outbursts from someone who simply felt they should not be asked to meet deadlines if it meant working past 5.30pm. Well, I have had enough. From the perspective of eternity, I don't think God will ding me if I simply let this one go. It is not critical.

We now have some other guy on the job - French guy who wants to stay in Shanghai because he likes Chinese girls. Oh boy - and it will be my particular joy to manage him. I am lowering expectations drastically...

Even as I write this, I feel a cramping in my stomach - this no-need-to-fix-it behavior is alien to me. Looking at things through the eyes of eternity really turns things topsy-turvy.

Yes, yet another new journey to deal with. Now, I just have to get comfortable for the ride....

2006-11-08T22:12:00.000+08:00

I was just listening to the evening news where the main focus was the inaugural outing by the so-called post-65 MPs, all bleating about what can be improved about our society, banging on with the US-originated slogan - 'no-one (no child, actually) left behind'. (Can we please stop borrowing from the US? Is our borrowing supposed to increase the electorate's confidence in a less than original MP cohort?Or give them more credibility?)

Anyway, the whole focus seemed to be that Singapore must evolve to an 'inclusive' society. One MP (I think Amy Khor) advocated that there we should abolish special needs schools. How can children adopt an inclusive attitude to the physically and mentally challenged if they do not interact with them from a young age?

Worthy sentiments. However, I believe the issue is much deeper than one of interaction. It goes back to the very heart of Singapore culture, and whether or not we have it within us to be a gracious, non-kiasu society.

For example, in a recent issue of the The Straits Times, we read of how women over 40 should really give up all hope of finding a soulmate - Singapore men, it would appear, just don't want to know, never mind if the woman is financially independent, stunning, educated, and basically, someone one would expect a man would love to have on his arm.

A couple of months ago, I read a letter from a reader during the debate on whether or not people should give up their seats on the MRT to the aged, pregnant or physically challenged - let's not bend over backwards, the writer said. We need to support the needs of the majority. Graciousness, indeed.

Also in the last couple of months, I read observations from Malays and Hindus in the run-up to the Diwali and Hari Raya holidays that other racial groups have no idea, after all this time, of the different social niceties associated with both festivals. So much for social integration.

Here's the rub: the very infrastructure of our multi-racial society makes it difficult for Singaporeans to understand or tolerate differences. For one, our very system of election - the inevitable round of lawsuits after each election speak for themselves. And that's all I'm prepared to say about that.

The various ethnic support groups do not seek to create a Singapore identity - rather, they push an ethnic agenda, as opposed to a national agenda. The HDB flat quota - same argument.

Men who never grow up (note that the bulk of our government are made up of Singapore males...) so that they only want to marry women who can function as looking glasses or baby machines are another symptom of a non-inclusive society. What's the betting that this myth of the superior Singapore male will be one of the last to go? In their own image...

Our education system, which forces conformity rather than creativity - note that they are now trying to TEACH creativity. That says alot.

Look at the way people with cancer are treated in Singapore - shunted into pasture, sidelined, whispered about. Rather than being recognised for their continuing ability to contribute, they are presumed dead once diagnosed. I have been told, for example, by numerous headhunters, that my career is over, that no-one hires a cancer survivor. That's 30% of the population rendered non-productive.

As a Eurasian, I was taken aback when I joined a church group and was treated like an alien specimen - Your name is not Chinese, I was told. Where are you from? Well, duh. I guess I should pepper my speech with more lahs. I guess that some of the 80% have not realised that there is a 20% component of the population who are not exactly...er, Chinese? I guess it takes more than being a 4th generation Singaporean to belong. I made pineapple jam tarts for the group - no-one ate them. Not like ours, they said.

A friend, a Muslim, tells me he is offended when his boss sends out emails prior to Christmas, with prayers for for everyone. No equivalent gesture was made for Diwali or Hari Raya, implying to him only one festival matters. So much for affirmative action.

Then there is our oh-so-mature male population, many of whom are still stuck in time warp in a high school locker room. I have heard men continually ogle women (one of my doctors included, which is why I sacked him), making comments about their assets, and even sometimes a condition of employment. This is plain juvenile, and really, not something I want to be associated with in any way.Worst of all, we have women who support the immature men by playing to their egos. Sisters, come on, don't let the side down, for pete's sake. We have to make a united stand.

When we do recognise differences - I hate to bring this up, but I must - it's usually to do with types like good ol' Neil Humphreys. We love anything that harks back to our colonial heritage, and I am not referring to the whitewash on the Raffles Hotel. It smacks of pandering. How good a writer is Neil Humphrey's, really? I thought him rather boring, just another kweilo in our fair city, with a kweilo perspective. Been there, done that. But we feted him, and adored him, a rather run-of-the-mill talent. The proof of his ability (or non-?)? He now tries to repeat his success story in Oz - the only problem is that over there, he is one kweilo among millions. Not really much of a unique selling proposition. Please, please, stop those ghastly columns he files from Down Under. I don't care about the possums, even less than I cared about the Ah So's in Toa Payoh. It's embarassing that he was so successful here. It is time to let mad dogs and Englishmen just...lie.

My point is this: until we, as a society, can appreciate and tolerate different perspectives, orientations, points of view, and even actively support the expression of these, we will never be a truly mature society. My definition of a mature society is one that is inclusive, where differences are not viewed as a threat or a drain on common resources. Rather, they are viewed as the underpinnings of a varied, diverse and therefore, organically viable society.

The fact that we continually get a parade of so-called experts (mostly Caucasian) shows a lingering colonialism, and a lack of confidence in ourselves. Ditto the inability to tolerate differences. Until we deal with these deep-seated issues, we will never be a gracious society. In a funny way, we have to cut some things out of our social make-up, slaughter a couple of sacred cows (no religious put-down intended) in order to grow-up. It will take everyone's participation and support - parents, government, social and business leaders. If even one group does not support this, the effort will limp along - and so will the gracious Singapore society.

By the way...this is NOT something that the fine-or-tax knee-jerk reaction will fix. Now, let's try to really think our way out of this one!

2006-10-27T22:30:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was truly a landmark day - I jogged 6km (yup, count 'em, S-I-X!), did 20 minutes of tai chi, then climbled 15 flights of stairs, came down, and went up again! I cannot point to a single point in time before cancer when I was in better shape! Having grown up asthmatic, I was trained not to push myself for fear of an asthma attack. Now, I do push myself and I can - finally! - see what the fuss about exercise is all about.

Once started, my obsessive personality kicks in and I don't want to stop. One more km, another 5 minutes, yet another flight of stairs...and when I get back to the flat, I start on my free weights. I am determined to have firm, muscled arms by the time I start radiation in 30 days.

Isn't it ironic that I am supposed to be in the worst physical shape right now, and yet the opposite is true? Go figure.

I wish I had started on this much sooner - now that I am getting on in years, my poor knees are protesting. But I ignore the creaks and clicks and carry on! My fitter friends used to bang on and on about beating their bodies, control over the physical, mind over matter etc. I used to stare at them uncomprehendingly while slurping my umpteenth glass of champagne and munching my fois gras and caviar. Not me! I thought. Nutters! I muttered to myself.

Doesn't God just love to turn our words back on us? Now look at me, I love my exercise! I no longer drink, or eat any animal with fur, feathers or legs. Only scaly, slimey things for me.

It occurs to me my life is turned completely on its head:

Protein BC (before cancer): Steak, lamb, venison, fois gras, eggs, anything dairy (especially anything with a French or Italian name), all shellfish, raw or cooked. Now: all verboten.

Veggies BC - rocket, gourmet salads, potatoes (done any way), rich western style veg soups. Now: local veg only, no potatoes, no salads.

Fruits BC - never, unless part of cake, or pie, or pudding. Now: as many as I can, fresh, three times a day. No other desert allowed.

Beans BC - peas, corn on the cob all the time. Now: only 10% of intake.

Grains BC - udon once a week, bread every night. Now: all verboten, brown rice only.

Exercise BC - eek! confined to cross trainer, 20 minutes exactly and only if there was something on TV to distract me while I was on the machine.

Booze BC - oh yes!, every evening, a couple of glasses of red, several carafes of Cosmopolitans and/or Pimms on the weekend Now: forget it, mineral water and green tea only.

TV BC - all the time. Now: rarely - I read more. Am obsessed by medieval history.

Prayer BC - yes, complaining to God. Now: still complaining, but spend more time saying thank you.

Shopping BC - hardly ever. Now: all the time, since social life is shot to hell. Can only go out once a week for a social meal. Otherwise, I have to eat macrobiotic at home. (Ok, sometimes I sneak the odd curry puff, but I do make sure it is sardine and not chicken!).

So you see, like it or not, cancer is a life changing experience. I am more concious of my health and I have stopped looking at the world through my supplement capsules. It is au naturel health-wise.

Now, I just focus on putting one foot in front of the other as I jog - a meditative experience. And - boy, this is the icing on the cake - am living with my mother again, and there are days when I actually enjoy it!

Well, God - I guess you must be grinning from ear to ear! I gues we all need a little lift now and again...even the Almighty...

2006-10-26T23:07:00.000+08:00

I have been out of Singapore for two years now, and the whole ERP/taxi peak hour surcharge system has become completely baffling to me. Even the taxi drivers cannot tell me what the charges are - they are just drivers, they say. This explains why there is an almighty effort, at all hours, to avoid the dreaded ERP charge by taking the most circuitous of routes, resulting in taxi fares higher than if they had just gone through the gantry.

Here's the thing - the $4-00 taxi peak hour surcharge operates until 11.30pm. This beggars all reason - is it really 'peak' hour until almost midnight? Are we having to work that hard? Or is this a PR stunt to convince us that we are a 'happening' island?

The ERP surcharge operates until 9pm. In the rush hour, the peak hour surcharge plus ERP amounts, in some cases, to more than the actual taxi fare. On the CTE to the CBD there are two gantries, making it the most expensive highway to use - and there are, I might add, no alternatives for those living in the north.

Now, another question - all car owners pay road tax for the priviledge of using our wonderfully maintained Singapore roads. So in actual fact, for any trip during a normal workday, we could be charged several times for the same act - getting to work in our own cars.

Something else - I understand the infamous COE, that precious piece of paper that we buy in order to be able to even own a car in the first place, is at an all-time low. Result: more cars on the road, one might assume. But hang on - is that really true? When the COE was high, the demand for cars was fairly inelastic - we just bought smaller cars.

Taken together - the ERP, peak hour surcharges, COE prices - with the fact that the alternatives to private transport are the sardine like tin cans called the MRT, or the buses which are infrequent and often require a change of buses to get to our destinations, mean simply that the only difference this has made is that we are being taxed several times for simply having to go to work.

Having the ERP operate until 9pm simply taxes our need to get home to have dinner with our families. How many people stay in the office until past nine so they can avoid the surcharge? So much for the call for work/life balance.

The irony is that with taxi costs being so high and COEs being so low, it is actually now cheaper to buy a car (or another car) than it is to use public transport. So much for reducing the car population - something has got screwed up here.So much for reducing fossil fuel emmissions (oops, another tax in the offing...)

You know, I think this knee-jerk reaction of 'let's tax them!' from a government led by the most brilliant minds in Singapore is getting a bit old. Whatever it is, when it comes to our car population, all the existing measures simply are not working to control or reduce it. We have always known this.

I think perhaps some lateral thinking might be in order. Perhaps more vocal disgruntlement from our hard-done by population might not go amiss either. Otherwise, it seems to be that all these measures are a means to fatten the government coffers, and not help the constituents our leaders are supposed to serve - and I do use the word deliberately. Not represent, serve. That's why it is called the civil service, and not civil representation.

(Our PAP has been in power for so long that I do believe that our MPs are part of the civil service - there seems to be the principle of lifetime tenure in operation here).

There is a speak English campaign going on - methinks it's time to get out the dictionaries for our illustrious leaders.

2006-10-26T22:34:00.000+08:00

My hair is starting to grow again. I have mixed feelings about this - mainly because it is coming out white. I am told that once the chemo is over, it will come back in its usual black. Meanwhile, it is white. There is some black, which makes my scalp look rather unsightly. I wish it would come back in a single colour.

The fact that the hair is coming back signals another phase of this journey called cancer survival. Over the past four months, my life has changed on every level there is. And there is more to come. Just in the next 30 days, I will be done with chemo, begin with radiation and start with a new phase. On the company front, many changes are afoot. In 40 days, I will have to go through a hysterectomy and in 30 days after that, I will be moving back to Shanghai.

Over the past three years, I have had two different jobs, have had my life hit rock bottom, climb back up, moved countries, seen my job in Shanghai change three times,learnt a new language, made new friends, been diagnosed with a dread disease, had a mastectomy, and faced my mortality - and moved in with my mother. I seem to be just having to cope with one thing after another.

I am sick of change. I yearn for a space of peace and stability. They say that when things change quickly, God is at work - there is something that is building up. I seem to be in perpetual preparation. I am exhausted.

So, the hair regrowth, although something relatively insignificant, is unwelcome because it signals the next phase. I had just begun to get used to the round of chemo every three weeks. Now, I will have to adjust to a schedule of daily radiation, and a new doctor.

I don't think people understand how stressful all this is. Because I am taking the chemo well, people think I am sailing through this - but the stress of constant change is a whole different ball of wax, and it is tiring. It does take its toll...

2006-10-25T23:04:00.000+08:00

Over the past few days, I have been talking to people - and reading - about the experiences of other cancer survivors. They come in all shapes and sizes, and are all at different stages of the journey - some have just started and others have been travelling the road for years now. However, there seem to be several common denominators:

For instance, while I felt that my experiences were unique to me, I found that almost everyone I have talked to, or read about, thought death was imminent upon diagnosis. Most people had lumps smaller than mine, yet that sense of panic was the same. The reactions were different. I met one woman whose fear was focused on the treatment, not mortality. Yet another was focused on her legacy and how she wanted to leave this life. For me, I was focused on denial, a sense of anger, and simply...prayer for healing. And I refuse to leave this life!

Then, there is a refusal to be beaten by the cancer. We all react differently but all are determined to reflect the 'been to hell and come back in a fur coat' syndrome. I, for example, am determined to emerge as though from a chrysalis, thinner, with chic haircut - I saw the photo first, Kylie! - with uber-chic new wardrobe 10 years too young (but who cares), and a new sense of soignee calm, peace and maturity, reminiscent of the Dalai Lama. Hahahaha!

It is going to take ALOT of hard work, and will have to work on the 'act' in the next few weeks. Yes, yet another re-resolution to stick to macrobiotics, eschewing curry puffs, chee kuey, mee rebus, and Japanese kaiseki. Must practice calm demeanour in mirror every morning, meditate every night, exercise vigorously, and practice coping skills for dealing with inept service staff and taxi drivers who see the sign 'jam in tunnel' and yet head straight for it. Grghhh. Ok, deep breaths now...

Another commonality is the need to find a reason for it all. Someone said in her writing that breast cancer strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a woman - the hysterectomy, early menopause, the mastectomy - all forms of mutilation of womanhead. Why are we put through it? I am told by some that it is not a judgement (others tell me it is). Some say it is just luck of the draw. You know, I cannot believe it is all for nothing, just so we can go back to the way things were.

Initially, I focused on 'getting through this', so I could go back to my life. In actual fact, I am beginning to realise that this is my life now. I am changed by this disease. Moreover, I feel I have been changed on a level so fundamental I cannot see how much so just now. But when I think of my life BC (before cancer), I feel an inner rejection. I just do not feel it is enough anymore. I want more. But the question is - what? I do feel I need deeper, more visceral experiences, not the surface skimming I had before. The nine to five slog, the corporate environment, just doesn't do it for me anymore. I think of the executives and the games they play, the pally-wally, back-slapping, testosterone enhanced, male bonding childishness in the boardroom - good grief, is this what life is? How boring. Boys, you can have it.

Another commonality - the empathy with other cancer survivors, and the eventual acceptance of a life lived close to death. In the quiet, small hours, when I sometimes awake, I begin to think seriously about the final transition, how I would like to exit. I feel the old panic again, the fear, and the refrain of 'no, not yet' begins to echo in my mind again. Every time I talk to someone with cancer, we recognise this in each other, without having to speak of it. This is something that binds us all - the pink ribbon sisterhood.

This will, I am told, gradually go away after treatment and we get back to normal. But with every test, every physical event that does not seem normal - it all comes rushing back.

I am really grateful for the fact that I will be seeing my various doctors on a regular basis going forward. I cannot trust myself to know when something is wrong. I certainly didn't before. I want to put myself through the gamut of tests every 6 months, but am told I am overeacting. Well, it's my party and I'll panic if I want to! The fear may not go away, but I can somehow manage it if I do my bit.

Finally, cancer is a humbling experience. It tells us we are not in charge. And with every test, every check up, every symptom, we are reminded.

With all of this, how can one not emerge unchanged? We all, undountedly, have been. The question is: do we accept our changed selves and do we want to progress the change? Or revert? I, for one, think I would like to continue on this path to see where it takes me. I hope to be able to look back 5 years from now and see myself the better and happier for this experience. Fingers crossed...

2006-10-17T22:16:00.000+08:00

I have had the last two days off and, not having had this luxury since I was first diagnosed, I have realised just how essential it is to be able to simply...rest. I was diagnosed in June and apart from the single week I spent in hospital, I have been at work 5 days a week ever since. My company does not give employees additional time off for extended medical treatment, apart from the standard hospitalisation leave. I do not have enough to cover the full six months of treatment and so am having to work through this.

At first, it was a relief, because I thought it would help me save my job, and keep my mind off the problems of cancer. Over the past months, however, and especially at a couple of points, the stress was pretty heavy going. In addition to juggling the usual workaday issues, legal issues, office politics, I am fighting - literally - for my health and ultimately, my life.

Now, with side effects becoming more manifest, I have taken a couple of days off simply to rest up. And what a luxury it is. I find myself calmer, quieter, happier. No perpetually ringing phones, endless grind of deadlines, people playing games. Such peace.

Everyone with a serious illness should have the right to a time out. It should be part of our employment act. But this is not always possible, even in more advanced societies. I have heard of people who have terminal cancer who had to work through treatment in order to keep their jobs to make sure their families are as well provided for as possible.

This, to me, is unacceptable. If people prefer to work, more power to them. But we should have a choice. It is bad enough facing a dreaded disease, it is even worse not being given the opportunity to really deal with it, come to terms with it - and here I am talking spiritually. The physical and medical side of things are easier to block out, because you are just prodded from one thing to the next - the doctors see to that. But spiritually - there is just you. And if you cannot find quiet time, spirituality does not get dealt with. There is too much internal noise.

To me, having cancer is a spiritual journey most of all. My mortality and the hereafter is suddenly front and centre. It is the biggest thing all of us will ever have to deal with. Cancer survivors, I have always felt - without being too morbid about it - are priviledged in a way because they now have the opportunity to think about their exit, their final journey.

The job situation, and other workaday, practical issues, should not stand in the way of this transition.

Our society has to recognise the non-material, and give cancer survivors and others with a dread disease time. And even if, as a society, we do not recognise the spiritual element, what about simply giving people the chance to just...rest? It is NOT civilised to expect people to carry on with their lives, in addition to dealing with major health issues. That many still have to do so is an indictment of our society, our materialism, our driven-ness, and the lack of sensitivity and caring for the needs of particular individuals amongst our lawmakers. We like to think that we are a sophisticated society, but the attitude to sub-groups shows us up.

Democracy is about serving the needs of many, while protecting the rights of the few. Cancer survivors are in the minority. It is time that people spoke up for this minority. Let's give them a break, and give them the best possible chance at an improved quality of life, post-diagnosis - physically and spiritually.

2006-10-15T10:58:00.000+08:00

I have been on a macrobiotic diet (with numerous deviations!) for about four months now and I can honestly say, despite its many detractors, that there is something to it. For starters, when you first go on the diet, you go through a detox process and subsequently become much more sensitive to what your body wants and needs. So, for example, there will be days when you just want nothing except brown rice, strips of nori and an umeboshi plum. No other food or dishes. Then on other days, you need something with stronger flavours.

Whenever I cheat, even if it is a meal with a regular seasoning of salt, or a teeny bit of milk, that's it - lethargy immediately sets in, I need to nap for a while, and I need to rush to the loo to eliminate the food within an hour of eating it.

Bowel movements are extremely regular, and apparently this is good for the toxin elimination process.

Essentially, the strict macrobiotic diet is soothing and gentle (read: bland), unlike the spicy foods I grew up on, hence the deviations.

With the new chemo regimen I am on, fatigue hits harder. I find, however, that when I stick to the strict macrobiotic diet, my energy levels go right up. I could have an 'illegal' meal, but two macrobiotic meals later, I am on an energy high again.

I now exercise for an average of 75 minutes a day and feel completely revived at the end of the session. A scant four months ago, pre-macrobiotics, merely 20 minutes on the cross trainer would have given me shakey knees!

I have done alot of reading across the various cancer battling diets, and the common denominator for all is the brown rice or whole grain element, as well as the number of servings of vegetables, which are central to the macrobiotic diet.

In our lifestyle here in Singapore, though, and given the range of restaurants available, the biggest drawback is the fact that so much of our our social interaction takes place in restaurants, coffee houses etc. Being macrobiotic, the options are few - to only drink mineral water, or to cheat. I usually choose to cheat - and pay the price.

The price is not merely the energy drain - there is also the anti-climax. I simply LOVE MY FOOD, the more varied the better. I really look forward to meeting friends over meals. I plan all the food I want to eat, salivating all the time, sometimes even dreaming about it. But having eaten it, I am beginning to find that my tastebudss just don't relish these culinary out-takes as much anymore! It has become a sad anti-climax. And the worst is that there is no substitute experience. Is there just the mineral water route from now on? How very sad!

With the increasing health conciousness-raising in Singapore, I am keeping my fingers crossed that a truly swish macrobiotic bistro will open up here soon. Otherwise, I am going to be severely deprived, depressed and be a sad sack of a homebody because I cannot go out anymore and trust myself not to head for the nearest Old Chang Kee stall, that dastardly, 'we-are-everywhere' franchise of the chicken curry puffs of my youth! Even as I write this, I am thinking of heading out to get one - sheer force of habit, and what a strong force it is.

(It must be obvious by now, dear reader, but did I forget to mention that the word 'will-power' is not in my vocabulary?) Blame my Dad, I was raised on Benjamin Spock who advocated instant gratification for infants. Who says we don't remember anythhing we are told in our bassinets?

2006-10-10T22:41:00.000+08:00

Well, it is the week before chemo again and it is the usual rush, rush, rush. And I am beginning to hate the new regimen I am on.It may be easier to take in terms of less constipation and less of a wierd feeling, but the side effects are much more evident - with FEC, my gums did not bleed, my toe nails did not fall off and I actually felt really great after about Day 8 - 10. Now, my gums bleed, my toe nails/nail beds are beginning to die, and I feel tired alot of the time. Not tired to fall asleep during the day, or sleep longer at night, mind. Just tired enough to still push on in spite of it.

I hate it. It is reminder of what is happening to me and that no matter how much I try to stick to the macrobiotic diet, and exercise (am up to one and a half hours each day - jog, tai chi and climb up 11 flights of stairs to apartment) I cannot run away from it. It is frightening to see/feel your body deteriorating, despite everything you are doing to get better. Once again, one is not in control. In actual fact, with cancer, there is no 'better'. There is just cancer that is evident, and then there is cancer that is non-evident. But the cells are there, prowling about, just waiting to take hold.

I went to see the radiation oncologist today - again, another scary round of side effects to wait for. At best, I will experience sunburn-like side effects, at worst the skin will deteriorate and peel off, exposing raw flesh, there could be some pain and I could lose the use of my arm. Oh, only one in a hundred experience that. Good grief, I have cancer - can I really expect to get lucky and be one of the 99 instead? Fingers crossed!

After six rounds of dose-dense chemo, I will still have cancer cells in me, which hopefully the radiation will kill.

In addition, I am told that tamoxifen, which will reduce the risk of recurrence, will also cause me to gain weight - breast cancer survivors report a range of 10 - 30 lb in weight gain. No, exercise will not help, nor will dieting. Most say the weight is there to stay. Not exactly reassuring, considering that breast cancer occurs in fat cells.

So, now, it is back to strict macrobiotics, only in smaller portions and more intense exercise. Got to get down to under my ideal weight asap before tamoxifen.

I am losing my grip - literally. I am dropping things all the time and I wonder if this is a sign of the neuropathy - loss of feeling in extremities. I do not close my fingers fast enough around the objects, so they fall. This is permanent, I'm told.

And, to round it off, I am losing my short term memory. Some days I feel I am min a fog and I cannot recall what I heard on the radio just seconds ago. Really.I find myself forgeting the simplest things - oh, why did you take out the onions again when I just put them away? Oh, did I not actually put them away? This is permanent and of course, being such a dedicated corporate soldier, my first thought was: how will I function in the workplace like this? Now, I am down to searching for books on how to stop Alzheimers' on Amazon.com. Maybe the mental exercises will help.

The only good thing is that - finally! - menopause has started. No period pain for the first time ever! Wonderful. Cannot wait to have the lot out. Mayhap the hysterectomy will mean more weight loss?

Must remind self - every cloud has a silver lining! Gotta look for, and antipate, them, and hope for the best. Got side effects? Well, at least I'm still alive to see another day...So, bring it on! Yeah. Ok.

2006-10-06T14:05:00.000+08:00

I have spent the last 4 months going to and fro with my insurance companies, trying to get some of the compensation that was promised when I first bought all the policies. All the insurance agents told me that it would take 10 days at the most, that there would be no problems with payment. Yes, we have done lots of these claims before, ten days max. Really? Seriously?

The next time you buy any insurance policy against illness, beware. I now understand the extensive investigation these companies put every claim through - 10 days max? Forget it. First of all, they poll ALL registered clinics in Singapore for records of any visits you might have made to them. Think that all of these would respond in 10 days or less, if you include the time it takes to issue a cheque? Really? Seriously?

Then they wait to see if other insurers will be paying you. Why? For a precedence? Why? Surely one company's product has nothing to do with the other? Nope, they wait.

Secondly, these illness policies are the ones with the highest margins. These are the ones the agents are told to push. Why are they with the highest margins, given that 30% of the population has cancer? Go figure.

Like all major financial institutions, when it comes to taking your money, they cannot issue an invoice fast enough. But when the shoe is on the other foot, they drag along. What about people who need the money for treatment? Those people who are struggling to make ends meet for their families, and who, like the responsible adults they probably were, bought insurance to keep their families 'safe'.

Singaporeans really need to stand up for themselves and demand their rights. I know many other people who have been diagnosed, and the insurers refused to pay. Apparently they NEVER pay without question - the first move is always refuse to pay. Is this what one calls an honourable, even conscionable, way to do business, especially when insurance is supposed to protect us from disaster and crisis that devastates? Every time I see an insurance ad with the happy three generation family, I feel like choking. Apparently, Singaporeans, when confronted with crisis, prefer to get through it, then forget it, rather than litigate.And insurers make hay out of this.

Don't be fooled by your friendly insurance agents - they are trained to be friendly and encourage you to part with your money. On a good day, I think that they do not know better, that they themselves trust the company's sales pitch that they have been trained to parrot.

Check out the track record of the insurer first - like any other product, it's caveat emptor. You will be putting in a huge some of your hard earned cash over the years - make sure you get what you deserve, and have paid for, back.

2006-10-05T22:45:00.000+08:00

A word about fatigue. If you are feeling tired over a period of time, weeks or months, you should get a check-up. I have recently discovered the meaning of fatigue - or rather, weariness. It is fatigue that won't go away, no matter how much you sleep. Or you are weary, but not tired enough to fall asleep. I have that now, and now I know it is because of the chemo, not because of remote office politics.

I have felt tired before, and in fact, I used to fall asleep in class in the afternoons. I had headaches and was convinced, at age 16, that I had a brain tumour. I went to see the doctor and he told me - guess what? - I was bored! Since leaving the classroom environment, and going to university where there was airconditioning, and since starting work, I hardly ever have headaches.

But I have been weary many times. I guess it is a consequence of being a bit of a workaholic and being in jobs which are deadline-driven. The days can be long and so my waking up feeling tired is not new.

However, I have to say that since just before Christmas of last year, I began to feel wasted by 3pm. I thought is was the work - one project after another, one business trip after another, no break until I was diagnosed with cancer in June. I wonder what my prognosis would have been if I had just listened to my body and had a check up back then.

I recall my aunt telling us that my Dad, who died of lung cancer, used to fall asleep while visiting them. If only he had had a check-up then, 10 years before he was diagnosed. An MRI would certainly have picked up his cancer.

My point is that the Singapore lifestyle of work, work, sleep, work, work, work, is a breeding ground for cancer. The stress, the lack of time to exercise, the quickly grabbed meals before we have to get back on the computer, coach the kids in their homework, drive them to their ballet and taekwondo classes - it is go, go go. No wonder we are tired. No wonder we do not notice, or think it is normal to feel tired. I listen to my friends talk about their lives and I feel empathetically fatigued.

Our lifestyle could be the death of us. Things are not going to get easier here. It is up to individuals to value their health, and to say: enough. Enough long hours, I am just going to leave the office while it is still light out.

Do yourselves a favour, seriously - call it a day - and get out of the office, spend time with your family, just veg. Free time with no agenda. Try it. It may be hard at first, but learning to listen to your body in quieter moments could save you. And if you are tired over a period of time - please, go get a check-up.

2006-10-03T23:05:00.000+08:00

There was launched over the weekend an advertising campaign for hospice care in Singapore. It used shock tactics - the headline on the full page, text-only launch ad said: I have lung cancer - and how are you? The idea behind the ads was presumably to bring cancer out of the shadows, and to get the general population to look at terminal cancer patients as people who are still alive, just on their final journey. The TVC I saw had a man saying: Come join me on my final journey.

I must admit that while I support the sentiment, I did not appreciate the tactics. We are all, in a sense, on our final journeys, whether or not we have cancer, and whether or not it is terminal. To me, shock as a strategy is an extreme form of interruption marketing and denotes an agency that simply did not spend enough time trying to understand the brief properly, or a client that lacks imagination, resulting in a campaign that is lacking in sensivity and maturity.

To use terminally ill cancer patients as the springboard for this lack of imaginative power is reprehensible, and in poor taste. I am not sure what the objective of the campaign is, or why this strategy was necessary - the fact that this is unclear is another weakness of the campaign. Shock campaigning also may have the opposite effect ie, to turn people off.

The tagline 'lifebeforedeath' makes nonsense of the fact that everyone diagnosed with cancer should be buoyed up, given as much hope as possible. This is what makes the difference on our respective journeys. Even if one is terminal, there are so many treatment options available today that more and more, people are defying the odds and living longer than the original 3-5 month prognosis for terminal cancer.

To focus on death is to lose sight of the fact that each day that we are given is precious and should be lived for its own sake, not because the ending of it takes us a step closer to death. It is imperative after diagnosis to hold to a 'glass half-full' mindset.

Sure, cancer patients all face a loss of years, or weeks, of life. But to tell ourselves to live more fully just because of our wake-up call to me is doing the rest of humanity a disservice. I believe that as the ones receiving the wake-up call, we should be spending our time working with our loved ones to live better, indeed, live exceedingly well, even if we are not there to do so with them. And that means a focus on the quality of life in the here and now, and a readdressing of priorities. That is the legacy.

Paradoxically, a brush with death should really mean a resultant focus on life in all its forms, mysteries and glories. We none of us knows when the end will come - cancer or no. It is therefore irrelevant to focus on death. The message on cancer should be - celebrate life - NOW! This is what will keep cancer patients positive, and the attitude to cancer positive. Cancer needs to be taken out of the realm of dread whisperings, and made part of the buzz of daily conversation. It keeps us in the mainstream, and relevant. It keeps the discussion on cancer front and centre.

To highlight the terminally ill as being different from others is to marginalise them, and this is something that anyone with cancer will tell you they do not want - for themselves personally, or for their cancer.

2006-09-30T01:25:00.000+09:00

You know, the journey of cancer is one that forces us to be flexible. What this means is that increasingly, we have to learn to let go, and to focus just on what is important.

I have had a rough few days - my mother and her stress, the fact the the email went down and I lost connectivity right before a major holiday in China, so I will have to work all weekend to catch up, cooking up a family gourmet macrobiotic lunch on Thursday (ok, so I pigged out on non-macrobiotic roast duck and pork), both fridges in the house AND the cable TV box breaking down, and a 5 hour conversation with the Singapore Telecom guys trying to get my email up.

To top it all off, I have major pain in my joints, so my daily jogs may have to go the way of the dodo for now. Oh, and by the way, I have chemo-brain ie, memory lapses and delusions. In other words, I am turning into my mother!

I ask myself, though, would that be such a bad thing, to turn into my mother? In looking back at her life, her childhood (and it was not all plain-sailing), and looking at her today, I think my mother is to be congratulated. She is a survivor.

In a strange way, when I now hear people tell me that I am showing strength and courage, I see my mother in all of this, with her ability simply to just 'get on with it', to do what needs to be done - grumbling all the time, to be sure, but she does step up.

In spite of the fact that my siblings see my mother as negative, I see her as being indomitable. Sure, we will fight, disagree, shout at each other and boost each other's stress levels. And yes, we are diametrically opposed personalities.But ultimately, she has survived a lifetime of challenges and has still managed to be a giving person, even mellowed. Yes, there are regrets and sometimes bitterness. But these are being tempered by age, loneliness, acceptance.

It is easy to condemn our mothers - but the fact that we can stand on a distant shore and look back at them, and can take that different perspective, is to me the ultimate testimony of successful mothering. We can. I can.But only because my mother made it possible through her sacrifice for us. She worked to put us through school, bugged us about our homework, made us concious that we had a responsibility to graduate and get a good job to support ourselves with. She raised three kids who still love her, even if we find it difficult to live with her. Her sons, for example, will never hear anything negative said about their mother - unless they are the first to say it, of course. But that is only between us siblings.

I actually don't think that even five months ago, I would have had this perspective of my mother. But now, with cancer, I am learning that I cannot control all things, that there are some things I must let go of, and leave to God. Much of my mother falls into this category. She has survived a lifetime - you cannot expect to do so unscathed, unchanged.

Today, I am changed, but only because of her love and example. She has problems and issues - who doesn't? Will she be able or willing to take the steps to help herself? I don't know. I doubt it.

Can I do anything about it? Would she listen to me, her mere daughter? I know she won't, I am not one of her sons.

The only thing I can do is be a daughter to her. I won't be the best, I know. But I will be there.

2006-09-27T23:36:00.000+09:00

I am beginning to understand why people say God is sexist. If I look around at all my friends who are single career women, one thing that emerges is that our mothers do not understand us, or support us, in the same way that they support their sons.

In fact, I get the feeling, when talking to them, that our mothers do not think that women actually do real work. I work as long hours, sometimes longer than my brothers, and never have I ever heard my mother say: 'Oh, she is under alot of pressure.' However, my brother has to simply show up in a snit, and there she goes: "He is under alot of pressure.' When I am in a snit:' You are always in a bad mood'. Well, heck, yes. I am up at 9am everyday, on the computer from 9.30am to 7pm, with one hour for lunch, conference calls to 10pm, and I work from 10.30pm to midnight, with time worked in for 90 minutes of exercise, dinner and a shower, and yet - nary a word of acknowledgement. Mind you, I also have to do the washing up, some of the cooking and interpret every bill that comes in the mail because when I am around, my mother loses the art of reading.

It is these work hours that pays all the household bills, my cancer treatment, my legal fees and for the ineveitable trip back to Shanghai and the setting up of yet another house - and for all the things that are constantly breaking down around the house because my mother simply cannot anticipate and delays everything to the point that it does break down. I would appreciate some support.

It then is all my fault. Blame, blame blame. It is then my unhappy task to fit yet another thing - the light, the fridge, the clogged sink, the vacuum cleaner, the bloody mosquito that keeps her awake all night - without a word of thanks or acknowledgement. (If I were a man, she would acknowledge my contribution, but as her daughter...)

Never mind that mossies do not live for more than a week or two, there is apparently a mossie that is one of the Undead that has plagued her for 3 months now. There is possibly another explanation, but heck, I do not have the energy to figure it out. I bought an electric mosquito repellent - all it takes is to read the instructions (3 paragraphs) and plug it in. My mother reads the three pars and says: "what is a mat?". Another non sequitur: "Is there no mail today?" Well, I don't know, did you go check? Or when guests come: "I seem to recall so-and-so likes to eat this veg." Interpretation: 'I like this veg, and that's why we are having it."

God, I want to say this to you tonight. There was a reason I did not want to get married and have a brood of kids. I happen to like living alone. I happen to like being able to come home and be in a bad mood or a good mood, if I like, eat what I like, do what I like. I happen to like NOT having my moods affected by the antics of people around me. I happen to like being able to wake up on a weekend and do exactly as I like, not what someone else wants me to do. I happen to like being independent and happy. I am usually a positive person - unless I am living with a negative person. And I like being positive - especially now.

But here is why God is a sexist - our mothers belong to a generation where they were looked after, first by their fathers, then by their husbands. They naturally see the men as caregivers, daughters as people who are meant to be replicas of them ie, helpless, hapless, service oriented, meant to support the big strong men who are the providers - hail the big brave hunter-gatherer! And if I read the Bible, this is the type of stereotypical role most of the women in Bible play - think of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, Martha slaving away in the kitchen. Should we accept this in this day and age? How do women find their relevance in the Christian or biblical context?

God has evolved Asian women in a single generation from being dependent to being independent, to being the equivalent (or more) of men, but with more responsibilities. We have not yet been able to shed the way we were raised ie, as family care takers. Men are providers. Now, as single, working and financially independent women, we are both. Men simply carry on as providers - care is the woman's domain. Their wives, or their sisters, take on the roles of their mothers. Ten years ago, a behavioral therapist told me that there were alot of angry men in Singapore because the women are so much more capable, the men felt they were losing their social context. Well, blame your mummy, boys - and perhaps start to grow up. It certainly has been a long time coming.

Most of us single career women have decided not settle for a man, but a soulmate. If one does not turn up, well, we are ok on our own. Unlike our mothers, we have choices and we make them - to have kids, to NOT have kids. To not be trapped like our mothers. Show me a man who can survive in the same way without a woman - go on, I dare you.

Mothers of the world, the next time you begin to start to trade on your relationship with your daughters, think about the woman as someone else, NOT your daugther whom you raised in your image. Rather, this is a person with strengths, weaknesses, stresses and a life that is quite different from yours and what you expected hers to be. You need to recognise that. Otherwise, you are going to end up alone, because I assure you, with a career and no partner, having to deal with everything on their own with zero emotional support, and having to go into the office to deal with male bosses who are as needy as mothers, there is not alot of emotional strength left over for a whingeing, blamey geriatric at home, no matter how well-intentioned your daughters are.

I chose not to have kids. I never want kids - of any age. A mother, a companion, a friend, sure. But NOT kids - ever.

So, God, why are you putting me in a position where I am feeling more and more that my mother needs to be looked after - worst of all, by me, the child she gets along least with? The one she has always been at odds with? The one who deals with her the worst, who handles her the worst? Why not ask one of my brothers? Why me, God?

2006-09-25T00:26:00.000+09:00

I am pleased to report that I have just completed 4 our of 6 rounds of chemotherapy. I was started on Taxotere on Saturday and absolutely loved it - what I mean, actually, is that Taxotere is a much easier regimen to take than FEC. I got home, had a good lunch, napped for 2 hoursa then actually got up to jog 3km at 6pm. Today, I managed to walk through the Orchard Road shops for 3 hours with no fatigue at all. Just a week ago, I would have been sweating with tiredness. Bought a bunch of clothese to celebrate - so much for good intentions and sticking to a budget.

So, fingers crossed, the only way is up now, baby - or so the song goes. That's all I can do with the cancer for now.

The next thing to fix is the rest of my life - the job, the finances, and my spirituality. Quite a tall order. I am taking it a day at a time - trying to control type A tendencies and worrying away at things. I still have not been able to meditate much because I am afraid of what I might hear - but I sense I will be starting soon.

Right - back to a video on DH Lawrence now. Then to bed...

Good night, all.

2006-09-24T03:23:00.000+09:00

B http:www.medicalnewstoday.com/sections/cancer-oncology

2006-09-24T03:18:00.000+09:00

Breastcancerandme
href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/sections/cancer-oncology/

2006-09-24T01:31:00.000+09:00

I have been quiet for some time but this was due to the inevitable round of preparation pre-chemo hit. I need to buy higher-than-high fibre veggies, make sure they are cooked because there is simply no time on the day of. I have to go for the round of tests and doctor visits to make sure I am fit enough to take the hit. And I have to make sure I am a little ahead of my work deadlines so that I can take it easy in the first couple of days of the workweek after the chemo hit. All in all, very stressful.

And as one goes through all of this, one is reminded again that one is ill. You see, the second week after chemo is when you get stronger, and the third week usually is the best. So you think you are doing ok, that you have the Big C beaten. But no, the round of visits to hospitals and doctors remind you that the process is still ongoing and the fat lady, in fact, will never sing out on this one. It is something you will carry with you all the rest of your life. You are reminded that there is something that is bigger than you that is in charge of your life - and this is hard for all of us, in varying degrees, to swallow.

My uncle posted a comment a week ago, asking why, when faced with such life challenges, some people get 'better', while others just get 'bitter'. You know, I would love to say that I am one of the ones who get 'better', but sometimes, especially in the stress of week 3 pre-chemo, I do get a little 'bitter'. Why me, I ask again. Why now? What do You want from me? We are told that God has a plan for all of us. I would really like to know what kind of plan this is. I am sure there is some big thing out there that I, being a puny human, cannot see or understand. I have to TRUST. Sometimes, I just get fed up and would really like a roadmap.

So, the answer I guess, is that it is not just all 'better', or 'all bitter'. I think most of us have a little of both mixed in, but the question is in the proportions. I have bitter moments - but I am trying to work hard at keeping the positive moments a lot more plentiful. Sometimes, other people just annoy you, or bring up the 'bitter' element. We cannot avoid that. So, I guess the trick is to screen them out, and seek the positive out of every experience. Oh, the boss is an idiot? Never mind, at least I don't have to see him every day and when I talk to him on the phone, he cannot see the faces I am making. See? A silver lining.

Oh, the insurance companies are not paying up? Oops, am still working on that one.

Again, all this is a journey and a moment of bitterness does not make a bitter person. It is how we handle the bitter bits - like cooking bitter gourd for example. There are things we can do to minimise the bitterness. And that is the same with life. Know it, understand the reasons for it, deal with it. And that's it. Easy, no?

2006-09-14T00:35:00.000+09:00

Today, I received an incredible email. It was from Cathy in the US. I surfed some cancer blogs last week, and came across hers, called: I will thrive. She had been diagnosed with breask cancer 6 years ago, but found recently that it had come back, and had spread pretty widely. And yet she says she will thrive.

Anyway, I left a comment, and she emailed me to encourage me.

This woman's courage and generosity humbles me. How does someone think of reaching out to a total stranger at a time like this?

Cancer does bring out the best in people, it shows us the good, the best part of being human. I have had so many positive experiences since being diagnosed, so much more than in 'normal' life. I ask myself, why does it take a dread disease diagnosis for this to happen, for people, including me, simply to be kind?

I see an object lesson in Cathy's ability to reach out - perhaps we need to keep taking that step that takes us beyond our own concerns to reach out to someone not within our immediate circle more often. Perhaps we need to make it a point to do so - regularly. It is like going to the gym - we need to make a conscious effort, and to keep it up.

There are many cancer survivors in the world - and I have discovered, since surfing all those blogs, that we all ask the same questions, and are seeking something...more. We read so many stories of people who have survived the cancer and treatment and changed their lives as a result.

That's Category A. Category B: people who are still searching, still waiting to hear from God, or whatever higher power they believe in, on what they should do. Sometimes, there is nothing. They go back to their lives and carry on, no change, even when initially they might have wanted to change. Cathy says perhaps we are never meant to know the answer to the 'why me?' question.

I wonder which category I will fall into? I believe, if God's track record in my life is anything to go by, that I will see something coming out of it for me, but it may not be the whole picture. I believe that is what we are not meant to see,and this can be really frustrating. We are only shown enough to help us move ahead to where we are meant to be. But to understand it all - well, I guess that's God's little secret to keep.

2006-09-13T19:14:00.000+09:00

Well, here I was thinking that no-one was leaving comments because they had no response to what I had been saying. Or that they preferred the one-one-one route ie, email - indeed, most people have been emailing me their comments. I was really embarassed when my uncle emailed me to say that he could not find the 'comment' button! Sure enough when I looked for it, I could not find it ie, I had not enabled it!

Anyone who has worked with me will know that I can only talk technology, not 'do' it. Well, that's my PR training for you - spin, spin, spin!

Anyway, I've done something to enable comments. I hope it works. Just click on 'comments' at the bottom of this post. Unfortunately, if you want to leave a comment on the previous posts, you will have to do so on this post, and all subsequent posts - a limitation of this software.

So - leave a comment, let's start a conversation on this blog.

2006-09-12T19:51:00.000+09:00

My mother is getting old - not just physically, but mentally, too. She cannnot, for example, remember anything she is told. She sometimes cannot even remember she has been to a particular shop an hour ago, even if she bought something in it. She often accuses other people of moving or taking stuff, when in actual fact, she might have moved it, or chucked it out, herself.

This is something that has, I feel, been exacerbated by my father's death eight years ago. She had never lived alone, and now, she has been living alone for eight years. I used to be the last of the children living with her but I could not deal with it once my father died. There was no-one else to take things out on, except me. I used to spend all my days in a bad mood. I had no joy. I avoided going home, and when I was home, avoided coming out of my room, just to be able to have some peace and quiet.

Now, none of us kids want to live with her. My youngest brother has offered a few times to have her live with him but that is because he is good at living in a bubble. The cancer has meant that I am living with my mother again, and again, I find myself locking myself in my room, avoiding coming out.

I almost moved out today after yet another tirade. But conversations with friends changed that - they all have the same issues with their mothers. They all spend time well away from them when they live with them. Their advice is: shut it out.

What is it about our Asian culture that makes it so hard for us to cut those apron strings? I have British friends who have no hesitation leaving difficult parents to their own devices. One friend even evicted her 80-year-old mother from the flat she had bought for her 20 years ago, in order to sell it. I would have a hard time doing the same. But she is now living well and happily in Australia, off the money from the sale, and God has not seemed to smite her.

I am learning one important thing, though - that no-one can really take away your joy unless you allow them to. The world is full of crap, with people who have their own issues and who will inflict this on you, if you let them. The key is not to let them - but it is hardest with family and people you care about.

Never having learnt the art of getting on with people, my mother is increasingly isolated, with a shrinking friendship circle. Never having had to make all her life decisions on her own, she is fearful and anxious about the smallest things. As her daughter, I feel sad that her life is evolving this way. No-one should have to live in loneliness, especially my mother, who is an extremely giving person.

I sense I am in transition again, with regards to my relationship with my mother and even, I suppose, my evolution as an adult - at my great age! I suppose the key to adulthood is to distance oneself, to become more of a watcher than a participator. To wait to see how things evolve, rather than acting on impulse or offering an unwanted (and sometimes unnecessary)opinion, and sticking one's foot in it.

Well, I'm willing to give adulthood a go! Will open the bedroom door now, got to get my dinner.

2006-09-11T23:55:00.000+09:00

Wow, was I high on octane today! I woke up, switched on my computer and did not look up until it was time for my evening jog. I was so engaged, I even forgot to eat. Got alot of work done - and this after having been up till 4.30am last night finishing a proposal. Unfortunately, I only get my A into G when the wolves are at the door - or in this case, the boss.It was a good proposal nonetheless and so inspired, I kept at it today.

Now, after having managed a 3km jog, am preparing for an early night for an early start tomorrow.

Some days, when I have very, very good working days, I completely forget I have cancer and that I am 'ill'. Still not, nyah nyah!

This is kinda risky though, because I still believe that this is a wake-up call and I need to be able to understand and interpret the call. So when I feel good and normal, I catch myself and force myself to slow down, and take a few meditative breaths. I am afraid that if I am too cavalier, God might put me through a recurrence just to get my attention again.

So, I am still waiting for...God. I play scenarios in my mind - perhaps I am meant to begin outreach for cancer patients? Perhaps I need to downshift my job? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. I am still convinced that God will show me the door when he is good and ready. On the other hand, I have been told that sometimes God needs to be told what you want. Right now, that's simple - to be cured. Oops, now that I have got that out of the way, other needs come screaming in - winning the Lotto for a start.

I catch myself again. Breathing...waiting...

2006-09-10T00:00:00.000+09:00

There is alot wrong with the standard of service in Singapore, and there are certainly many theories about the reasons for this phenomenon. So let me add my two cents' worth.

My theory is that Singaporeans are so used to reading the lame excuses and justifications fed us by various government PR practitioners in the press that we hold these up as a benchmark. It must be the standard by which we judge ourselves and service responses, since the Government uses this - the Singapore Government, you know. The best in the world, the cleanest, most professional - you know... superlative, superlative, superlative.

The trouble is, as Singaporeans are beginning to realise, these standards should not be the benchmark, that they are severely lacking. Even the civil service has acknowledged this and is trying to change. Well, thanks alot. We had decades of lame excuses, and now, we expect to erase this with a campaign or two. You've got to hand it to us for can-do-ism.

I would have more respect for our service staff (and that includes the civil service) if they would simply drop the lame excuses, treat us all like the intelligent people most of us are, admit error, and correct the service lapse - without the Singapore knee-jerk of throwing money at the problem. Forget too the abject aplogising, bowing and scraping, and tell me how you are going to fix the service lapse so that I will be motivated to want to use your service again. (Unfortunately, we can't always vote with our feet, since most of our major infrastructure service providers are the only show in town.)

What has this to do with cancer? Well, my low immunity means that I can only go to restaurants which are not too crowded. Today, I asked a restaurant service person taking my reservation to try to seat me in an isolated corner. No can do, was the response. Please, I said, I know that if the restaurant is crowded, it would be difficult, but can you just leave a note in your reservations book so that the people seating guests can try to accomodate. We do not do that, says the service person. OK. I ask to speak to the manager, who understands immediately, and says he will take care of it. He said that the person (a Singaporean, confirmed the manager when I asked) I had spoken to was simply not too good at communicating in English.

Now, do not Singaporeans speak English? Have I missed something or is not our education system English-based? I think a Primary 6 command of English would have enabled the service person to understand me.

So, add to the many issues surrounding our service levels, let me add one more: we do not all speak the same language. We say it is English, but the evidence speaks to the contrary. Poor service is not due to poor training, lack of pride in the service profession, lack of clear explanation of customer needs, or even a low IQ. After all these years of independence, of 'one nation, one Singapore', we have a problem that continues to rear its ugly head - we simply do not speak the same language. We are not really communicating.

The next time your service needs are not being met, ask yourself if the person you are talking really comprehends (let alone understands) what you are saying, where you are 'coming from'. The spin doctors tell us English is the lingua franca here. Really? With our melting pot society, we may need to face that 'spin' is sometimes nothing more than part of the (white)wash cycle.

2006-09-06T23:28:00.000+09:00

Today, a colleague sent me a text message, saying: There must be more to life than work." It was 9.40pm when I received this text, and the poor girl was still in the office.

This is day 5 after my third hit of FEC and it was harder to take than the earlier two. I am really tired and literally need to simply just lie down for an hour or so in the afternoons. I am also nursing a very sore throat, and more than the first couple of times, am feeling alternatively chilled and feverish. I quietly dread the rest of the chemo. I hate not being 100%.

While I lie down, I run through in my mind the deadlines I have outstanding, and how I can manage them most efficiently, even as I get the rest I need.

So, I muse to myself: there must be more to life...

Unfortunately, just what that 'more' is, remains, well, undiscovered, unrealised. I do not have kids, so no joy there. No life partner, either - that's one window that remains closed. My family - certainly, but they have all their own 'more to life' elements, and I am not top of their list. Ditto my friends.

So, here I am, at a certain age, still wondering what I have done with my life, and what my legacy will be. What is the 'more' we should all have, apart from working to put food on the table, pay the mortgage, and the taxes and fund our retirement. Incidentally, looking at the various trends, unless you strike it rich, or were a very canny investor in your youth, most of us will suffer a reduction in living standards during our retirement. Would all those years of corporate strife, politicking, brown-nosing (yeah, don't kid yourself, you would have done it a time or two...) have been worth it?

(The most engaged I feel is when I am talking about my work with people, planning programs etc... is that ALL there is?)

Today, even as I fight a sore throat, fatigue, chills, I cannot help but think about deadlines. In the words of a pop philospher...'What's it all about...".

At times like these, I feel a distinctly socialist rumblde, and think that we might have been better off when we all owned our own veggie patches and chickens, spent our days fishing, evenings knitting and weaving, and did not have to answer to the 'man'.

Today, all these are quaint 'hobbies'. Personally, I do not feel the need to begin catching, much less plucking (notice I prefer not to mention the bloodier aspects of chicken harvest) the darned birds. It's just the simplicity of the life that beckons, I guess.

It seems to me that big business has turned us into automatons, like so many factory workers. Now, apart from those who sit one below Board level, we are simply variations of the many factory hands and machines that sprouted during the industrial revolution.

Has our quality of life really improved? More money to spend, sure, but also, more hours spent making it, only to have banks and taxes take it away. Our kids and family structures are falling apart, and it really says something when one is confronted with one's own mortality and yet, we find that our entire self-identity is wrapped up in our jobs.

What about our humanity? I fear that the Career might have taken that away from us. Something certainly needs redefining. The idea of a 'career', or perhaps what it means to have lived, to have been human? It would be sad if we can only equate our time here with 'building a career', 'working for the man', 'putting the kids through school...'.

So, again, I ask...'What's it all about...?".

2006-09-04T04:38:00.000+09:00

My oncologist, herself a praying woman, confirmed it for me on Saturday when I went for my third and final round of FEC - I will be starting on a Taxotere regimen the next time. She said there was no other explanation for how well I was taking the chemo, except prayer. My uncle, who works with cancer patients in a hospice in Penang, had said already that it was very rare for someone to have almost no physical side effects from chemo(not counting hair loss!).

Considering the state of my health prior to the chemo - being overweight, severely under-exercised, asthmatic and a basic scaredy cat - I am surprised that I am considered to be 'doing well'. 'Amazing', is the word my oncologist uses. She told me:" I have seen patients crawling in here, on a sikit-sikit (Malay language for 'small') dose of FEC!"

And so, I would like to thank profusely all the people, my family, old friends and new, who have been praying for me and ask that they keep praying for me to continue this journey in good health. I am in return, praying for all of you, whatever your needs are - you know who you are!

This latest round of chemo was harder than the last - the first bowel movement was simply impossible until I did 30 minutes of tai chi. It must be the continual half squat position the exercises are done with! Anyway, I finally triumphed and now am being kept awake simply by heartburn rather than a painful tummy. Thank goodness for Mr Odell's video shop, which has kept me sane during some of the lowest points of my life. Escapist video is a highly recommended form of therapy, especially British movies set in buccolic splendour. Ah, the joys of watching the Brits celebrate their eccentricities on celluloid!

In fact, as I reflect, I think this journey started as, and will continue as, largely a spiritual journey. God has always operated in a fairly consistent manner with me ie, he closes all doors and just leaves one open a crack and I will have no choice but to go through that door, sometimes (although not this time, too much in shock) with teeth gritted in sulking rebellion. My selection of my two doctors so far were through two such cracks - and both choices (God's, not mine!) were excellent.

Trust, I guess, at this point, is the keyword. The number of people, even total strangers such as the operating theatre nurses, who were so willing to pray with me, and for me...such comfort from all corners. It has been amazing - and very reassuring. "You are being looked after,", Sister Edwina, my spiritual director, told me. Neither of my brothers customarily attend mass, but now one does (with his family, no less!) and the other actually prays for me. Who would have thunk it?

After two years in China, where I did not attend Church because the only service I could find was in Korean (go figure!), it is good to come back to a Christian community and to speak to friends about my spirituality. I recall when I first walked into Mount Alvernia hopsital, where I had the first operation, I had to walk under a huge crucifix - and I felt a sense of homecoming - although I was rather frightened at the time. I did say I was a scaredy cat!

I guess this is what this particular life journey is all about for me. I am apprehensive, because God's journeys are never easy - especially since I am a type A personality! It does sometimes end up being a battle and no matter how many times I go through God's tests, I still fight, and still seek to have things my way. Sometimes I am just plain mad at God. Why me, I shout. I wish I had the total submission I see in others, things would be much easier. I comfort myself by thinking there must be a reason why God made me the way I am, I just haven't figured it out yet!

But I have to also admit that in the past, no matter how much I resented some of the choices I have had to make, it all came out right in the end. It is the journey that is tough. This too, shall pass, one of my editors used to tell me. So, I remain hopeful...cautiously. And I will focus my world view on the here and now, taking refuge in prayer and, increasingly, meditation. I am sure that God will show me the customary door open-a-crack when the time is right - and he will make sure I darn well recognise it!

Now...guess what? The heartburn seems to have gone away. To bed, to bed...

2006-08-31T11:57:00.000+09:00

I have been eating really well lately. My mother has excelled herself with adapting some of my childhood favourites to macrobiotic standards. For example, a fish moolie, sans salt, chilli and coconut cream but using instead organic, unsweetened soya milk. It was surprisingly good and I did not miss the salt at all.

Last night was a major culinary triumph for her - mee rebus, macrobiotic style. For those who are not mee rebus cognoscenti, this is a noodle dish with a gravy made from sweet potato and dried shrimp (or beef stock,depending on which ethnic group's mee rebus we are talking about). My mother uses a recipe handed down from my grandmother. No specific portions of anything, just 'a handful of this, a soupcon of that, sweet pototo - aga-aga, lah...'. Totally a family secret recipe. Strictly speaking, shrimp is not mainstream macrobiotic, but anchovies are, which is what we put in instead of shrimp.

If you use wholewheat noodles, this is totally macrobiotic, and if you also have a boiled salad starter, which we had, it is macrobiotic in food proportions too. The result was surprisingly fantastic!

When I tell my friends (foodies all)I am macrobiotic, they cringe, and feel sorry for me. They think I now lead a life of deprivation. Although my mother cooks the stuff, she refuses to eat it - hats off to her for at least cooking it! But you know, I am totally absorbed with trying new recipes, making substitutions and coming up with meals that support my need for widely varied meals in any single week. In my family, we are used to eating a variety of cuisines in any one week - Western, Malay, Nonya, Chinese, Thai, Middle Eastern, Greek, - you name it. Traditional macriobotic cuisine, in the sparse Japanese Zen tradition, is an initial shocker. But I am discovering that the joy of macrobiotic cooking is taking the principles and making them into a cuisine that is totally unique to you.

And that is the heart of the macrobiotic philosophy - flexibility, and enjoyment of food (and life). This is yet another journey of discovery that I am beginning to enjoy. And this is totally compatible with the lifestyle and philosophy that cancer survivors find themselves having to inculcate.

So, for lunch it will be - oil-less fried brown rice with chickpeas, stinky bean (petai to those have been initiated!), daun kedok (sp? - a herb lost to HDB development, but still alive in select back gardens), and green veggies. It is going to be fabulous.

Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it, I eat extremely well, and am STILL losing weight. 18 lbs and counting! What more could a girl ask?

2006-08-30T06:20:00.000+09:00

Well, today I am living with the consequences of taking control of my life - my brother is not speaking to me. I wonder if I should get in touch to explain that when I said not to come round any more, I meant - to jog. Then again, I think to myself, why should I? I understand that forcing me to exercise and jog to his standards is part of his therapy, because needs to feel he is helping. But it ain't therapeutic to me, and I am the one with cancer.

Right now, I cannot support anyone else's emotional issues. Someone (a breast cancer survivor) told me when I was first diagnosed that I had to be selfish, then I should not over-exert myself just because other people need to feel that they are 'helping'. This is what I am doing now. Perhaps I could have been more tactful. But then again, perhaps other people could recognise that these are less than usual circs. (I know, I know, I do it to myself because I insist that I am normal and ok -which is true...for the most part).

For the first time, I need to take care of myself, and not everyone around me. I cannot fix everyone else's problems (which, being type A, I think I can!), such as my mother's ongoing battle with the TV/DVD/VCR remote control(s) and all manner of electronic devices, including the lights in the house(cannot read what's on the buttons, cannot remember what they all mean, ergo the TV is on the blink, lights are not working). Ditto for the mobile phone - for 'no-one is phoning me back' read: I have done something wrong but would rather blame the phone and everyone else).

Arrgh. Help!!! No wonder in the more developed West, all cancer patients are automatically referred to a shrink. Roll on the day when that happens here as well. Meanwhile, I will continue to focus on me and use my favourite coping mechanism - stick head in terra firma - when I have to. The meditation mantra du jour is: z-o-n-e o-u-t...

2006-08-27T23:31:00.000+09:00

Today, a stranger smiled warmly at me in the supermarket, and it almost brought me to tears. She had looked at my hat, realised that I was undergoing treatment for cancer (nothing hides the baldness) and gave me a gentle, encouraging smile.

For the first time for about 6 weeks, I felt - funnily enough - frightened. All this time, I have been fighting for the right to normalcy, to be able to continue working the same hours, to be perceived as though I am ok. But today, something as small as a smile brought my human frailty sharply to mind.

Everyone has been telling me to take it easy. Most people say that they have friends and relatives who have gone through what I am going through, and I cannot be expected to be 'normal'. "No-one expects much of you right now," someone told me. I thought it was funny at the time because I expected much of myself.

Now, after the smile incident, I wonder if I have missed the plot. Perhaps I should be less optimistic, less confident that I can beat the cancer. That I will get through chemo, radiotherapy and the final surgery and then be 'normal'. Perhaps I won't make it, that I won't survive the next 5 years. Even as the thought occurs I force it away. I won't think negative thoughts, I refuse to.

Such introspection brings sadness. Every experience, no matter how fleeting, becomes something to be clung to...again. And always, lurking in the background, there they are - Fear and Panic. I refuse to acknowledge them. Cancer is serious. It is not something to be got through, but lived with. Oh God.

This is why I cling to activity, I guees. So that I don't have to think. I know sooner or later I will have to confront Fear and Panic, but that time is not now.

I am told by long-term cancer survivors that the fear and panic never go away competely. That they become constant companions. For now though, I will continue to cultivate my art - that of sticking my head firmly into terra firma, and pretending that Fear and Panic don't exist.

And they don't - for how can something exist if I refuse to acknowledge them? There - poof! - they are gone.

2006-08-24T10:19:00.000+09:00

I am beginning to think that hair is highly overated, and a sexist tool to keep women 'in their place'.

Today is my second day of being completely bald - what a feeling! My scalp is cool all the time. When I had hair, I would have to go through the routine of wash and condition every day, hair mask once a week, blow drying and rubbing serum through every day. I was obsessed by shampoos and had a whole range of different shampoos and conditioners in the bathroom - the theory being that if you use a different shampoo every day, your hair does not accumulate deposits from any single shampoo and therefore looks thicker, shinier etc.

Now, though, it is 'wash and go'. Being bald cuts 40 minutes from my daily routine. In fact, I would prefer to be able to go bald permanently. But I fear it would be too much for most men to take. The women seem supportive when I mention this - but the men! God forbid that they have to deal with a bald woman. (Bald men are ok, though).

Why should this be? Someone told me that without hair, we would too much like men and they wouldn't be able to pigeon-hole us - this would make the poor dears run scared because we would become more like men than women and therefore their world would come crashing down around their ears.

This is one more choice women will have to fight for. We are brought up with the idea that our hair is our crowning glory. Romantic bodice rippers tell us that the heroines have gorgeous tresses, long flowing hair all the way down their waists. Shampoo ads perpeatuate this by showing women with impossibly long, computer-doctored hair - and a man casting admiring glances in her general direction. And we women, myself in my pre-cancer days included, are suckered into rushing out and buying every single one of these shampoos!

But we should be able to choose NOT to have hair if we want - and be accepted in spite of it. Not discriminated against.

The movement to use real women with real curves in advertising has paved the way - but baldness really is the final hurdle towards true female emancipation and equality of the sexes. I wonder how far away we are from this? Can we actually imagine a futureworld, where men and women are so equal (I might have seen this in a sci-fi flick) where we are ALL bald?

The battle begins - as it always does - within the female psyche. Are we ready to let go of our hair?

As for me, I am having lunch with a hapless male, so I guess I will have to put on my wig!!!

2006-08-22T19:52:00.000+09:00

Today I celebrate as a day of liberation. I decided to take ownership of my life back and faced up to some facts about having cancer:

a) Being bald is just...fantastic. Apart from seeing whether or not you have stick-out ears (mine are not!), you actually look better without hair. When it is hanging limply off your scalp in patches, looking like a horror movie doll with glued on hair, you do look ghastly. But now, with a shiny bald pate, I actually look healthy, full of life! Go figure...So, yay, no hair! Scalp feels minty cool and I cannot wait to sweat it out in a jog.

b) I told my personal trainer ie, my brother, to take a hike. I was being pushed to jog, being told I had to be fit. Good grief. Face it - I have cancer, I am going through chemotherapy. Who gets fighting fit during chemo? I refuse to jog to the point where I have to come home to nap. I want to be energised at the end of the session, not worn out. It's all in your mind, he tells me. You're not panting so you cannot be tired. Crap. I am tired. Full stop.

c) Since I am housebound due to low immunity - massive sessions of online retail therapy! I put everything I want into the shopping cart, but most of the sites I like (Barney's, Nordstrom, Macey's, Bloomingdales etc) do not ship to Asia. Yay! High end therapy without the financial pinch. Fantastic!

d)I let go of the job issues. I may not have a job at the end of the year, but all I can do is speak my piece and do a good job where I am asked. If that does not help, well, worrying about it now won't help, anyway. Onward, ho!

e) I told all my colleagues across the region and in HQ that I have cancer. The concerned emails, offers of support overwhelmed and touched me. But more than that, I was able to release this burden of the 'cancer' secret.

Ultimately, I have decided to put myself out there, cancer and all. Naked scalp and all. And I put myself first. Concerned relatives pushing me eat all manner of stuff, brothers making me jog, bosses giving me strife because of their own inadequacies...enough is enough. Right now, I am first and last in my universe. Everybody else can just deal. 'Nuff said.

2006-08-20T01:06:00.000+09:00

'Be still and know that I am God'.

I think this is one of the most beautiful lines in the Bible. I don't quite know where it is from, but I have had occasion in the past - many, many times in fact - to take great comfort from this single, simple, yet rich-in-meaning sentence.

Essentially, what it means is - to me - be at peace, for I, God, am in control. I will look after you, for you are Mine. I will do great things for you, go to any lengths for you, perform miracles for you. There is no need to worry or fret. Such is the length and breadth of almighty God, and His love for us.

This line is also on a plaque in the meditation room in my church. It was put up during a week when this sentence kept appearing - in Gospel readings, when I read the bible, in Christian publications I received in the mail, even in email messages. I felt it was something at that time that God particularly wanted to tell me.

Today, my cousin, who was diagnosed with cancer about a month after me, sent me an email with this sentence in it - and it reminded me of the times I had heard this line before. And as before, I take great comfort from it. (Thanks, Jackie!)

So(for now, at least), I will be still. I will seek this stillness where God is. And as I lay me down to sleep, I am, for now...OK.

2006-08-19T11:18:00.000+09:00

Well, they warned me that there would be days like today - bad days, depressing days. More hair came off in the shower today - the hair fall is less even now. Today, I look like a dog with mange. In a word, I look ghastly.

I have never been particularly concious of my looks, since they were never really what I considered one of my 'core assets'! But I do look bad now. I look ill. And no matter how I tell myself that I am ok, that I'm doing ok, I guess I really am not.

Today is a day that I am re-learning lessons I thought I had learnt about faith, about trusting in God, and allowing him to work in my life. I am having to acknowledge that my faith is not as strong as it could be. I have to forcibly remind myself, as I did when I had to learn my mathematical formulas in school, that God has proven himself trustworthy before when I had need of Him and that He will prove Himself again. Somehow, though, today, it all rings rather hollow, like so much blah blah blah. There is no soul-echo.

Concerns about job stability, financial security, ability to keep paying for treatment because all the insurance companies are looking to squirel out of their obligations...there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Again, I have to acknowledge that this is a day-by-day journey - one day at a time, one step at a time, one decision at a time. The rest we must leave up to God - hard for a type A control freak like me. Taking the quiet way forward is so un-me!

But I will have to anchor my faith somehow. I will. I will...somehow, I tell myself. But even as I do so, I know that this is not the way forward.

2006-08-18T13:29:00.000+09:00

Two days ago, someone whose balanced judgement I respect, said something to me that turned on a lightblulb: "Simone, you have to deal with people as they are, not as you think they ought to be."

This is what, I suppose, is at the crux of maturity (a highly mis-used word, in my opinion!) - an elusive goal which I am challenged every day to reach. It is certainly easier if one acknowledges feet clay and other disaapointment and shortcomings, thereby dealing with - and it would be ok if everyone was equally laissez-faire. But the truth of the matter is that almost everyone - myself included - demands better. Why can't you be more patient/mature/understanding/charitable...?

Other people are constantly judging us, fairly and unfairly - yet are so unwilling to see the splinter in their own eye. I suppose it is a coping mechanism, otherwise the shock of really looking at ourselves might be too much to bear for some of us.

Well, here's what I think - we can either sit back and accept the world as it is, and shrug our shoulders in resignation, or we can demand a better world. How do we progress if we take an accepting attitude? How can things get better unless people see that gaps between what is and what might be, and look to address the gap? What hope is there for humanity if we don't look at the possibilities and try to get there? Surely this is what is at the heart of the human spirit - the heart of hope?

It is easier to sit back and say 'Ah well...". It is easier to sidestep our responsibilities as thinking, envisioning human beings, and focus on our own workaday issues. But if we all do that, what hope is there for the future of the human identity? Surely, when we were created, we were created to be more than just a surviving species?

As human beings, as people, we have a destiny to fulfill, and each of us must seek to make a difference in our own ways, in all our encounters. It is not easy - in fact, it is usually bloody hard especially when no-one wants to hear you and brands you 'difficult' or 'demanding'. But it is our right, our inheritance, that we must be continually driven to do so. We owe it to all those who have striven before us, to ourselves and people striving today, and most of all, to our children and the generations who will bear the legacy of everything we do (and do not do) today.

2006-08-17T13:34:00.000+09:00

What does a woman do when she feels uncertain - or even if things are going swimmingly? Retail therapy is the answer! After years of being totally focused on work and going into the office (I don't have much of a casual wardrobe), I am finally being irresponsible. I have a casual, boho-chic wardrobe, am dressing half my age and am experimenting with all sorts of headwear and hair accessories - all items I will never be able to wear into an office and still give the impression of being a responsible adult.

Why does cancer have to be a drag? Why can we not have some fun, wherever we find ourselves in life? Life does not not have to be hard strife, even though many times, as we each go through our daily challenges, we lose sight of this. We focus on getting through it. Why should we not enjoy 'it', have fun with 'it', tease 'it', challenge 'it', laugh in 'it's' face, kick 'it' in the butt?

Come on, it's all transitory anyway. Here today and gone tomorrow. Celebrate the moment - and live a little!

2006-08-16T22:36:00.000+09:00

I think I must be going through the 'anger' phase of accepting that I have cancer. First of all, I am really pissed off at the person who has given me his or her sore throat.

This is my pet peeve about Singaporeans. They have all been to school, learnt about germs and viral transmission - and yet, there they are in their hundreds (or thousands if it is Saturday on Orchard Road, or the Ministry of Sound) hacking, coughing, sniffing copiously. But will they go home and recover before they infect everyone else? Hell, no. I've got a germ, let me share it with everyone. Can't they be kiasu and less sharing about their germs, like everything else? What about the person coughing away and still saying,'No, I'm ok, I'm not ill.' Good grief.

Why cannot we be a more gracious society, like the Japanese? If they are ill, they venture out all masked up. That's consideration for you. Is there some sort of national pride in spreading as many germs as possible? Being a highly germified nation? The most germs per capita? What are our other favourite Singapore benchmarks? Did we not learn anything from SARS?

The second peeve today is the phrase; 'Oh, he's a not a bad person, just weak'. Are we supposed to excuse bad behaviour, back stabbing, victimising, because some is 'not a bad person', just weak? Oh, never mind, he is well intentioned. What do they say about the road to Hell? How often has anyone cut you that kind of slack? There is right and wrong, and all of us know where the line is. It's what we are taught in our cribs, it is adult society that teaches the fine art of excuse-making and dissembling.

Let's stop making excuses for bad behaviour, for wrongdoings by spinning this into the 'oh, he's just weak...' line. Too much spin doctoring from the Bush administration is rubbing off on to us. Bomb the hell out of an entire region and call it justice, rather than hegemony and vigilantism - wild west, cowboy-like, misguided do-gooding that has skilfully (evily?) spin-doctored violence and mayhem into holier-than-thou virtue. (While the world - disappointingly - stands on the sidelines).

Let's respect ourselves and our moral judgement a little more. Let's call a spade a spade - a creep (weak, nice or otherwise) is a creep, as is a backstabber, a lousy manager, a poor leader, a lazy subordinate, a poor team-player, a liar, a fair-weather friend, a coward, a selfish pig, etc. No more excuses and white-washing!

By the same token, let's celebrate (loudly) the positive in our lives - the loving mother, the solid friends, the mentors, the guides, the supports. Give thanks for all that is good and positive, generous, caring.

Life's too short for excuses, bleatings, and anything that is second rate. Do not put up with it any more.

2006-08-16T16:57:00.000+09:00

Remember the days of the TV detective series, Kojak? When 'bald was beautiful'? Well, I am losing my hair now and seeing my own scalp for the first time. The last time I had a naked scalp, circa about a hundred years ago when I was toothless and in diapers, I cannot remember. I have photos, and I think the baldness sat better back then.

In fact, I am amused by my baldness. My latest party trick is to reach into my remaining mop and casually pull out a hunk of hair saying: 'Look, no roots!". But I know it makes people feel uncomfortable, and even as they laugh, they look away. Why don't you try putting on a scarf, they say. What about your wig? When are you going to start using it? My brother goes on about bald patches. As if vanity were an issue for me right now.

Quite frankly, this is not my problem. It is theirs. I am still me, underneath the skin. I still grin the same way - the teeth look a little bigger than usual because I have lost some weight, that's all. But I am still me, baldness, sarkiness, sour disposition, loud opinions, and all.

Why disguise it? Everyone I meet these days knows I have cancer, knows what I am going through. I am not embarassed by it - in fact, this whole journey is becoming rather fascinating. I am getting to know myself, my body and different people in many different ways. It is a learning journey.

So, baldness is not my problem, it is everyone else's. It makes people uncomfortable. And that's normal. But here is what I want to say about it - we are still the same people, even if we do have cancer. We are still the same friends, lovers, siblings, daugthers, sons, mothers etc, you have always known - all right, maybe a little changed because of our journey, but still, we are US.

Look beyond the bald skin, please, and see us again, as we once were, still are, and will continue to be - and deal with us, relate to us, as the people we are today and indeed, have always been.

2006-08-15T17:46:00.000+09:00

How do you convince other people that a diagnosis of cancer, or a course of chemotherapy, does not automatically mean that you have one foot in the grave? That you are still capable of being a thinking, contributing human being, with lots of life in you yet, and with lots yet to give? Here, I refer to people who take your responsibility for your life away from you by saying, 'Well, given your situation, I did not want to burden you...'.

What crap. I resent being pigeon-holed, and limited because I have cancer. I resent not being allowed to contribute, not being able to convince people that I am taking the chemo exceptionally well, just because...'well, its chemo you know...'. What do I have to do - dance on the bar counter stark naked?

The life-connection is what pulls cancer-sufferers through, and turns them into cancer survivors. 'Positive discimination' (a stupid contradiction in terms if I ever heard one) is simply an excuse to discount you, and is a mediocre form of charity for the uneducated, uninformed, and uncompassionate,people with a moral superiority complex. When you are well, you would not accept such treatment. Why should someone with a cancer diagnosis, looking to make whatever time they have left as meaningful as possible, do so?

We are NOT dead yet, and for many of us, it will be a long, long time before we are! We have the right to live fully, and demand of the people around us to allow us to live fully. Do not accept paltry excuses for caring - demand the kind you need. This is for everyone, not just cancer sufferers.

Cancer survivors - stand up and be counted!

2006-08-15T00:11:00.000+09:00

It is funny how, even when having cancer consumes you,life keeps rearing its ugly head. I have had a very stressful couple of workdays (I need to work to pay the bills). My manager, because I am working from home, is sticking the knife into my back. Just what I need. And since the job is in Shanghai and I am resident in Singapore, I am far too easy a target.

While things were going well, I thought I could get through treatment, then go back to Life. Now, I am beginning to think - perhaps I need to reassess my life and job. Do I want something so lacking in common decency that your manager tries to stick you when you are diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer? What kind of bastards are they?

I cannot get past the anger - and actually, what should have been a really good day (taking Day 2 of the second round of chemo very well) has turned out to be a rather waste of a day dealing with the office crap. And I do not have the time to waste on this. Every day should be as close to great as I can get it.

What is the point of this post - well, merely to vent, to ruminate and to stay open to any suggestions from the universe - apart from 'nuke the bastards', of course.

2006-08-06T23:13:00.000+09:00

Today is my first post for about a week. The reason is that I have been too busy to make a post. I have caught up with work, launched two new marketing programs, caught up with friends, explored the far reaches of Singapore for organic vegetables and innovated new macrobiotic recipes.

In other words, I am catching up with my life, after about 10 days feeling 'not quite right, but not quite ill'. I have had a very good week am feeling fantastic, engergised and connected to life.

Chemotherapy prepares you for the rest of your life as a cancer survivor. Before you begin, you feel frightened. There's no other word for it. One is simply terrified. Will I be able to keep my food down or will I spend days face down in toilet bowl? Will I lose weight, become cadaverous, and will all my hair fall out in one fell swoop, turning me into a fright I cannot recognise as myself?

Once the oncologist puts the drug in you, you live from hour to hour, waiting for the side effects to manifest, starting with the initial coldness in the stomach area, the taste of blood in your mouth, the feeling of 'not being quite 100%'.

Then begins the journey of cancer survivors. Life is lived from day to day - in thankfulness from day to day, for each experience that is not 'not feeling quite right'.

Thanks for each day I don't throw up, each day I can eat a full meal, each day I can go about normal things. Thanks for every day that I feel stronger, that I wake up smiling, feeling good to be alive. Thanks for the friends who take time to stay in touch, for the date pudding and ice cream that I am not actually supposed to eat now that I am macrobiotic - yum! And for the warm wind and sunshine on my face as I sit in the taxi, relaxed from retail therapy, windows down so I don't catch any germs being harboured in an airconditioned cab. (To think there was a time I would rather have cut my right arm off than go without airconditioning!)

Each day is different, unexpected. No longer taken for granted. Every experience is savoured, turned over at the end of the day like a slowly melting toffee in the mouth, but remembered with pleasure once gone.

Cancer rewires you. I have just begun the journey. I hope, God willing, it will be a very, very long one.

2006-07-28T10:47:00.000+09:00

I got up today and celebrated life. I had my first normal poop of the week, 5 days after my first chemotherapy session. I am feeling good. I am going to have a good day and a great weekend!

2006-07-28T01:06:00.000+09:00

Well, it is today Day 5 of my first cycle of chemo. Life is settling into a routine - get up in the morning, go for a brisk walk, have a high, high, high fibre breakfast then try to do a poop - shower and the day begins at 1pm!

Not bad, except the late start means a late end. I work on the computer at night and keep going, hence the late start. Must try to reset my hours to something more normal.

Today, I got a very nice text message from a breast cancer survivor - this is what it said: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face to you and give you peace; he is your strength.

These little vignettes make each day easier, and lighter. I thank the Lord for people such as these who are so willing to spare some of their time for a stranger.

Sometimes, it is those from you you expect nothing who give the most. This is something I have learnt - with the initial diagnosis, everyone flocks around. But with the wearing on of time, it appears that it is the fellow cancer sufferers and survivors who will rally - perhaps they know what it is like.

The sad part is that I am not more than mildly disappointed in the rest - perhaps it says something about the quality of my life and my own relationships that I need to review and change. Perhaps it is only with crisis that people act - when you are not appearing to be going through a rough time, people think - 'oh, she's ok, we don't need to bother too much right now.'

But it is appropriate now to reassess. The question now is - with what time I may have left, who do I want to include? Who is important? What do I need to do to be able to stand and attest to a life that was well-lived - and sometimes it is the people who want to be a part of that life that is testimony.

2006-07-26T23:48:00.000+09:00

Today is day 3 after my first chemotherapy session with FEC. My oncologist tells me she is putting me on a dose-dense regime ie, a higher than normal dose of 'e', which will hopefull reduce my risk of recurrence drastically. Well, hey! whatever it takes.

According to the blog posts I had read on FEC, I had expected to be completely out of it for a week. But it was surprisingly a non-event. I managed to do some light shopping after the chemo at about 3pm, get home and sleep the rest of the day away. Got up for dinner, visited with a couple of guests, then slept until 8am. Got up on Day 2 to run some errands, then did a full day's work from home in front of the computer, including a conference call at 7pm!

Day 3 - did a brisk walk, triumphed over the constipation, even though am still fighting the major heartburn.

Lessons learnt - take the steriods! I forgot one dose yesterday and ate poorly, Made up for it today, though. Drink those litres of water. It's a must, especially if you hate feeling constipated! I had sunburn on Day 2 - so, start with the sunblock from Day 1.

Listen to your doctor. I had read loads and loads on the computer, and it is ok to be an educated patient. But take all your questions to your oncologist. They are the final word, not writers on the web whom you have never met. Bottom line - cancer is an individual journey and no single treatment course is experienced the same way.

Doctors all tell you that attitude is everything - some say at least half the battle. Take heart from that and build your heart for battle. Read, change what needs to be changed. Understand the enemy completely and arm your defenses, physical, psychological and spiritual. Cancer is beatable. And remember - God is still in the business of miracles!

Finally, tell your friends and family you are going to start chemo. Accept their wellwishes and prayers, ask for their help if you need it. Don't be afraid to talk about your fears. Real friends will understand and this is one way to start identifying who will be there for what side of yourself you want to show.

They may want to help but need to be told exactly how. They may not all call. But some will, and those calls are precious. They remind you that you are cared about, and worth someone's time and concern. Create opportunities for other people to reinforce your own positive feelings of self-worth. After all, other-perception is what builds, for most of us, self-perception.