My mother’s cancer battle taught me these 5 important life lessons

On TV, learning someone you love has cancer is a sudden dramatic experience. It’s just a normal day, you’re in high spirits, then you get the call. Your phone slips out of your hand, and a single tear streams down your face.

Now let me tell you how I found out my mother has cancer.

I was at a Hardee’s (Carl’s Junior everywhere else) in Minnesota. I just graduated a week ago, and it’s my birthday. My friends buy me a burger and shake to celebrate. Midway through, I get a call from my dad. I excuse myself and step out onto the snow-covered sidewalk. The conversation went like this:

Dad: Happy birthday.

Me: Thanks pa.

Dad: You finished with your studies already, right?

Me: Yes, last week.

Dad: Oh good. I want to tell you that your mummy has breast cancer. She was diagnosed a few months ago but we didn’t want to distract you from your studies. Anyway, she’s fine, don’t worry about it, enjoy your birthday. Mmmmm.. okay, bye.

*Hangs up*

And there I was, in the howling winter wind, holding my phone with a surprised pikachu face.

I later asked my dad why he chose to tell me at that particular time. He said telling me once I graduated was “the next step” in the unexpected path a cancer diagnosis took my family – the fact it coincided with my birthday didn’t even occur to him.

Getting cancer is a life-altering event for anyone. But in many ways, it alters the lives of those around them as well. And since I came back to Malaysia, I’m seeing how it’s changed my family… and me.

Let’s start off with the one I feel the most strongly about…

My mom’s cancer made me eternally skeptical of “miracle cures” and Whatsapp “advice”

When you get cancer, two kinds of people pop up. Those who forward you “miracle cures” out of misguided helpfulness, and unscrupulous salespeople selling you “miracle cures”. Add that to forwarded stories of certain plants or fruits “killing cancer cells”, and you’ll soon find yourself growing Sabah snake grass in the garden.

In my mom’s case, we also had a snake-in-the-grass.

My mom got close to an “ex-nurse” at the hospital. She claims she lost faith in “Western medicine” after discovering the ancient traditional healing properties of ganoderma. And it just so happens, she’s an “advisor” to a company “pioneering the cancer-healing properties” of ganoderma.

I’m not saying that alternative therapies are useless, but there is a difference between a nutritional supplement and a cure. In my mom’s case, it wasn’t so much the product itself (Ganoderma is shown to have many potential benefits) but an unethical salesperson taking advantage of a vulnerable cancer patient.

Over the course of their “friendship”, this lady convinced my mom to give up medical treatment in favor of those products. On top of that, my mom was also taking up various diets to “starve the cancer cells” forwarded by friends, and – yes – we grew Sabah snake grass because a relative said it was a traditional cure.

When my mom’s condition badly deteriorated and she had to go back to the hospital, her “friend” disappeared. Once my mom stopped buying the products, we never heard from this “friend” again.

I spoke to Dato’ Dr. Fuad Ismail, an Oncologist (aka cancer doctor) at one of the best cancer treatment hospitals in Malaysia – Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur. He says my mom’s experience is something that’s sadly quite common.

“I always feel that unscrupulous salespeople always say, ‘I’ve got a secret sauce for cancer cure!’. So trying to dissuade a patient from alternative therapies is very difficult.

I’m not so clever. I don’t have a secret sauce, what I offer is standard. Nowadays, I don’t try very hard [to dissuade them] because it’s not easy to cure cancer. So, the treatment is tough.”

– Dato’ Dr. Fuad Ismail, Oncologist, Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur

In fact, he says that doctors can never promise or guarantee a patient will be cured of cancer. The only thing he can do is quote statistics.

So what this means is that…

It’s a doctor’s job to be realistic with you

It can be quite demoralizing when a doctor doesn’t give you full assurance that they can cure you, or even seem detached despite what you’re going through. And the reason is because they need to ensure they can make clear and unbiased medical decisions.

“If you get attached to your patient, it affects your judgment.

If my son has cancer, I’m not supposed to treat him. My judgment is clouded. I might give more aggressive treatment because I want him to be cured, or not aggressive enough because I don’t want him to suffer. That’s why doctors will be sympathetic but they try not to get attached to patients.”

– Dato’ Dr. Fuad Ismail, Oncologist, Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur

So when my family gets so much assurance from unethical sales people and forwarded messages but much less from a doctor, it’s hard to not start drinking the kool aid sirap limau. In actual fact, we weren’t seeing my mom getting better. We were seeing the side effects of the treatment wear off. And this is a very, very bad thing.

Essentially, cancer treatment is not one-off. They are a continuous series that can run for 6 months or more. And you shouldn’t stop the treatment once it’s started. It’s kinda like stopping your open heart surgery halfway and going to the mamak for a teh tarik.

“You take cuti, cancer don’t take cuti. When you recover [from side effects], cancer also recovers. Then it’s back to square one. You just get side effects and you’re not cured.”

Nowadays, Dato’ Dr. Fuad will explain the treatment plan to his patients and give them some time to do further research and make a decision. However, he will advise them to look for reputable sites as “there is a lot of fake news out there”. Gleneagles has a very informative site for cancer, but you can also leverage on central agencies such as the National Cancer Institute.

And perhaps this next part is the toughest for family members.

The hardest kind of support family members can give, is emotional support

Emotional support is highly subjective because it really depends on the person who needs it, and the family dynamics. We usually imagine emotional support as being a shoulder to cry on, but there’s a lot more to it.

One thing my mom paling pantang is what she calls the sorry you’re going to die face. It’s that face someone puts on to demonstrate sympathy or concern, which crosses the line into pure pity. It’s unintentional, but it gets annoying when it’s the face people give you every time you see them.

And yes, we sometimes mistake physical support for emotional support. For example, it’s one thing to drive my mom around because she’s tired or disoriented after treatment; but another to stop her from doing any work.

Essentially, we had to learn where to draw the line between letting my mom live life as normally as possible, and making her feel useless.

“Sometimes when the patient goes out to eat, someone will say ‘Eh how can you eat that, you got cancer!’. I don’t think that’s useful, it gets in the way sometimes.

If everybody treats you as if you’re going to keel over the next day, you also get worried. You start thinking ‘What did my doctor tell [the family] that he didn’t tell me?'”

– Dato’ Dr. Fuad Ismail, Oncologist, Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur

And of course, part of your worry might be for yourself.

If my mom has cancer, will I get cancer too????

Not gonna lie, my sister and I are insured up to our eyeballs. Actually, even our eyeballs have critical illness and personal accident coverage. We started seriously looking into our policies after we saw my mom’s medical bills.

Because we often hear that cancer is a genetic disease, we might think that genetic = hereditary. Well, that’s not always the case. Dato’ Dr. Fuad says that, in most cases, cancer is age related; meaning your risk of getting cancer is higher the older you get.

This is because your genes continue to mutate throughout your life. Over the years, these mutations may stack up or happen in important areas and lead to cancer.

“Before 50, in general, you are less likely to get cancer. But after 70, cancer is very common. If somebody gets cancer at 70, we don’t think that’s a familial cancer. That’s just a routine cancer. Bad luck or whatever you want to call it.”

– Dato’ Dr. Fuad Ismail, Oncologist, Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur

On the other hand, there are certain types of cancer genes that are hereditary. An example is the BRCA1 gene. Angelina Jolie went public about her double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes as a preventive measure because she carries a mutation in this gene. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother died from cancer before the age of 55.

While the gene itself is rare (1 in 1,000), a female BRCA1 carrier has a 60% – 90% chance of developing breast cancer or ovarian cancer. In contrast, the rate of cancer in Malaysia is 1 in 10, or 10%.

Whether hereditary or not, the treatments are still the same.

“Once you develop cancer, whatever the cause, whether it’s just spontaneous, genetic, radiation-linked, infection-linked, whatever it is… it’s a cancer, and it will be treated the same way.”

In this regard, the field of cancer treatment is also advancing. As part of the IHH Healthcare Malaysia group, Gleneagles Hospitals doesn’t only offer a comprehensive range of cancer treatments, but IHH Healthcare Malaysia is also actively providing the highest standards of care though advanced medical technologies that can ensure the most accurate diagnosis possible, and the most effective treatments. In many of these cases, that also extends to comfort during treatment.

I got to see a Gamma Knife machine, which uses 192 precise beams of radiation to shrink or stop the growth of tumors over time. Gamma Knife radiosurgery isn’t new, but it’s evolved in recent years. Nowadays, patients can choose to wear a custom-fitted mask instead of a head frame for a more comfortable and non-invasive experience.

Dato’ Dr. Fuad says there are more advances in cancer treatment than he can count, “…and that’s me working full-time in cancer therapy”. More importantly, there are also medications that practically eliminate some side effects like nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy.

“The only thing that we don’t have anything for is hair loss. So if I have something for hair loss, I will sell it and happily retire.”

You can also click here to find out more cancer statistics in Malaysia.

Cancer is an ongoing battle

In a strange way, my mom’s cancer brought our family closer together. It sounds cliché, but I learnt to truly value the moments we spend together. And the medical treatments gave us more time to appreciate these moments.

After being in remission (few or no cancer signs) for over a year, we got the news that we were prepared for but didn’t want to hear. My mom’s breast cancer had metastasized to her liver.

Cancer metastasis basically means that the cancer cells have traveled through the blood to a different part of the body. Dato’ Dr. Fuad says that certain types of cancer prefer certain areas. Prostate cancer, for example, prefers the bone (no pun intended). Meanwhile, breast cancer can go anywhere.

The takeaway here isn’t how my mom’s story will end – perhaps that’s an article for another day. The takeaway is to get a cancer screening, and don’t delay treatments. Early-stage cancer is much easier to treat.

If you’re over the age of 40, you should be getting a health screening once a year, or every 2 years if you’re under 40. All Gleneagles hospitals offer comprehensive health screenings – not just for cancer but for other diseases or conditions as well. You can check out their locations and health screening process here, or head over to this link for their latest promotions and package deals.

“Cancer is really one of the very few diseases where it is invariably progressive. Let’s say you get a chest infection, sometimes you need antibiotics, sometimes you don’t. You can survive without treatment.

But if you have cancer, in general, you won’t. It grows. It grows and it grows. It’s fairly relentless. My advice is to get treatment, and quickly.”

– Dato’ Dr. Fuad Ismail, Oncologist, Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur

Oh, and stop forwarding unverified claims about cancer cures.