I stood on the shoulders of giants

In My Words

"Don't ever lose faith in who you are, for that's what makes you different.
Don't try to turn yourself into someone everyone else is, for if that happens, the world is a poorer place."
- Sept 2005

Flying Fingers of

kelvin
in london
reading law
bloody stressed

Archives

I don't keep archives

Currently Reading

Company Law - Gower and Davies

in the mood for

Yi Lu Xiang Bei
- Jay Chou

Measure of a Man
- Clay Aiken

Public Airings

The Straits Times Selection

Singapore:To Me
Elitism
Musicianship
Work/Study

A Memory Stirs

The Highlights

Joan Chan
From the future
Ninth Exco
No Damn
WMD
July 7th
My words
My Story, Your Song
Open Letter
ISFJ

Linked to

Livvy
Kassie
Xf
Dana
Audrey

Say Hi to me

kelvgoh@gmail.com

I endorse

the LSESUSS Disco 2005
zouked@the phoenix

from you to me

Talkflooble chatterbox, a free javascript chat tag board / shoutbox / tagboard program for your xanga, diary, blogger or weblogfree puzzle of the day

free hit counter

It Drives Me

thanks to

Image: Yun Photo Gallery
Design: Blogfrocks
Powered: Blogger

I have spent much of the festive season pondering over many things. This entry has been waiting to be written since Christmas Eve, but it didn't, and I'm glad. It was supposed to be an entry full of angst and disappointment, full of sadness and despair, but an article I read in STI that evening changed everything.

Sunday Lifestyle, ST Dec 25, 2005
One life to live

by Sandra Leong

AT 18, all of Joan Chan's life lay before her.

The former Raffles Junior College student had just completed her A levels with good grades. She had been accepted to the National University of Singapore's architecture faculty and was due to begin the course this year.

She was an active sportswoman, captaining her college's softball team in her second year.

Then tongue cancer threw her plans off course.

The symptoms began in June last year when Ms Chan, then preparing for her A levels, discovered an ulcer on her tongue that would not go away.

Preoccupied with her examinations, she did not think much of it.

'Over the next few months, I noticed a drop in my immune system. I was getting sick more often, just minor illnesses like fever or colds, but definitely more often than usual,' the 19-year-old, whom LifeStyle contacted through the Singapore Cancer Society, recalls in a candid e-mail interview.

By November last year, a hard lump the size of a marble had appeared on the upper left side of her neck. She was eventually referred to a specialist in January this year, who told her that the ulcer was a cancerous tumour.

To top off the bad news, the cancer - which was in Stage IV, one stage away from terminal cancer - had already spread to the lymphnodes in her neck.

The gravity of the situation did not sink in till much later, says the daughter of a taxi driver and child-care teacher.

'At that point of time, I thought okay, go for the surgery, I'll heal. No big deal. Now that I think about it, it was bordering on the edge of foolishness.'

In February, she underwent a gruelling 15-hour operation where 'they cut off half the tongue, bisect the neck, remove the lymphnodes and take this big piece of muscle from your forearm to replace the tongue.'

She was hospitalised for 10 days, and 'went home looking like the bride of Frankenstein' because of all the tubes that had to be inserted into her.

Her speech was affected and she has to repeat herself to people sometimes.

But it was the chemotherapy and radiotherapy - and the side effects of these treatments - that followed that proved to be the real torture.

In pictures she sent to LifeStyle, she looks every bit the adorable schoolgirl, doe-eyed and smiley-faced. No surprise that, at first, her biggest concern was hair loss. 'I was already looking bad enough. I got stared at everywhere, even in the hospital where I thought people would be used to seeing someone like me.'

People came up to her to ask if she had been in a car accident, others pointed and made insensitive remarks. 'I still couldn't talk well after the operation, much less defend myself.'

Later, she had vomiting spells, hardened neck muscles and peeling skin. Hair loss became the least of her worries.

She sank into depression. 'I didn't go out, and cried myself to sleep most nights. There was just so much anger and pain that I couldn't direct at anyone. I was angry at everyone and everything for no one could help me and I couldn't do anything to help myself either.'

Seeing that her 'young and beautiful' peers were moving on without her also made her bitter.

Still, she completed her treatment by April and steadied herself for recovery.

But last month, doctors found another small lump on her left collar bone which again turned out to be malignant. A pocket of fluid in her neck was also potentially cancerous.

She could not go for radiotherapy again so soon. An operation was also ruled out as the infected areas were too near a major artery.

The only option left was chemotherapy, which reduces but does not cure the cancer.

She says plainly: 'The cancer will come back again and again. Each time I would have to go for chemotherapy till I do not respond to any more medicine and die.'

The apparent finality of the situation helped her achieve some clarity. 'It wasn't until this relapse that I realised that I could really die soon. I started to let go of a lot of anger.'

She toyed with the idea of not going for a second round of chemotherapy but realised that 'with the chemotherapy, I could still have years ahead of me. I still have loads of people who love me'.

Besides the support of her family - her mother quit her job to look after her - her friends have also been pillars of strength.

Seeing that she was stuck at home, they painted a mural in her room depicting a fairy wonderland so she could feel like she was in a 'magical world'.

'Sometimes when I feel like giving up, I look at the wall and it's as if I can feel their love for me so I know I have to hang on...

'I'm not going to let cancer have its way so easily. If I'm going down, I'm not leaving without a fight.'

Though she had to withdraw from her place in the architecture faculty, she is determined to go back to school.

'As much as I hate to admit it, I do like studying. I just feel like I will regret it for the rest of my life if I did not go to university. There's so much more to know, so much more to learn.'

-------------------------------------------------

It struck me like a thunderbolt. I am so used to complaining about the inadequacies in my life, the bouts of loneliness, the disappointment at not being able to get a job in London, not having limitless wealth to buy the nice clothes and nice car I hanker after... But for other people, like Joan, they have so much more to lament.

I once told a friend, security breeds arrogance, and arrogance breeds ignorance. I think that's exactly what has happened to me. Over the past few years of my life, I have only seen what I want but do not have, but I have not seen what I have and what others want. I wake up every morning without having to worry about whether I have food to eat. Term time, I throw on a Zara coat and take a 5 minute walk to school every morning. Along the way I pass by the Royal Courts of Justice. If I venture further, I enjoy Thornton's ice cream at Covent Garden Market. Every now and then, friends sit across the table or the meal, and we share laughter and cheer. I grab a sumptuous dinner from an eatery most nights. I turn on the shower and warm water flows out. And every night, I go to bed without worrying whether I will wake up when the sun rises the next day.

These are what I've grown to expect of my life. Like that top-dollar job at a bank or law firm, or that swanky apartment I hope to live in. But many other people have simpler wishes and desires than these which I hanker after. Lesser dreams maybe, but no less important to them.

I know what it is like to have a dream. The side panel of this page will reveal more than one instance in which I have shared dreams of mine, and trust me, I badly want those dreams to come true. For me, the achieveability of these dreams largely lie within my control. If I work hard enough, these are what I can achieve. But for many others, like Joan, or a kid in Burundi or the Central African Republic, their dreams are beyond their own control.

But what if for a moment, there is something I can do for those dreams?

I have been given an education. I have been blessed to be given the opportunity to understand international affairs. Inside me I know there is a conscience and a heart, guided by my Faith and faith. I am not incapable.

But why have I continually ignored the many opportunities I have to make a difference to the lives of other people? To work in sectors where the fruits of my labours a shared with many, many people, rather than come back to me and me alone. Opportunities where the things I do make a genuine difference to the lives of millions of people, rather than making millions for myself?

I know deep down inside, whether I make money or not is not something I regard as particularly important. Important yes, but not as important as being happy and contented with what I am doing. When do I feel the happiest? When I am helping people that matter to me achieve their dreams.

Many people around me care for little else but getting that glamourous job at an illustrious institution, and I admit that it is with some envy that I look at them. I don't deny that there are times where that is all that matters to me, because I want to be as good as them, to live up to what they have achieved. But all the while I have ignored one thing: why do I have to live up to them and not they look at what I've achieved and they work towards what I have done?

Having said so much, it is ironic that I may desert all my beliefs and take on that very same high-paying job my friends take on, for that is the reality of the world. But I am no longer blinded that that is all which matters.

I particularly like the phrase, and I think it apt at this juncture.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live..."
- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

You may not know it, and you don't even know me, but Joan, you have helped change my life, and I thank you for it.

kelvin was inspired at 1:22 AM