Seizing opportunities, fighting to live: How young cancer patients deal with challenges and treatment
SINGAPORE: For the past iii years, life has been a juggling act for Shaun Lim.
Like most of his peers, the 24-year-old psychology undergraduate spends his time studying for examinations, too as rushing to run across deadlines for assignments and schools projects.
He is also battling cancer.
Mr Lim was diagnosed with stage 3 sarcoma cancer in July 2019. Information technology is a rare and aggressive form of cancer that affects bone and soft tissues. He was 22 years one-time then and had just started university.
Being young and active, Mr Lim struggled to process the news and was in deprival well-nigh his diagnosis.
"At that signal in fourth dimension, I was playing basketball game quite regularly and I was also going to the gym quite regularly also," he told CNA. "So it was one of the final things, in my mind, that could happen to me."
The reality of the situation just striking him a month later, when he started his treatment.
"I was warded for chemotherapy and that was when information technology finally sank in that I had cancer and that I had to become through treatment to get rid of it," he said.
Things took a plow for the worse in December 2019, when he had to undergo major surgery to remove a tumour in his abdomen. Information technology forced him to take a year-long leave of absence from academy.
Mr Lim was among the patients highlighted by the National Cancer Centre of Singapore (NCCS) equally it marks National Cancer Survivors Solar day on Sun (Jun 6).
It is a "celebration of life" that is marked annually around the globe.
"Participants unite in such a symbolic event to evidence the earth that life afterwards a cancer diagnosis can still be meaningful, active and productive," said NCCS on its website.
WHEN THE YOUNG Get CANCER
According to an annual study published past the Singapore Cancer Registry, which presented trends from 1968 to 2018, those under 39 years old historically make up less than 10 per cent of all cancer diagnoses per year.
NCCS said it sees between 450 and 550 new adolescent and young adult cancer cases each year.
While they are a relatively pocket-sized group, medical experts CNA spoke to said such patients face a singled-out fix of issues because of their age group.
Fertility preservation, too as the ability to render to work, are common concerns among young cancer patients, said Dr Teh Yi Lin, the managing director of NCCS' Cancer Education and Information Services.
"For young patients, particularly those who have yet to get married, or are newly married and who practise not have children, fertility may be 1 of the things that are on their heed," said Dr Teh, who is also an associate consultant at NCCS' medical oncology division.
"This is something that we do have to talk over with each private patient earlier they embark on treatment because diverse treatments can cause sub-fertility, and while our younger patients tend to recover fairly well, not all of them would be able to excogitate in the future."
Returning to normalcy or trying to restart careers later on handling could also exist challenging.
"Patients might feel like they are always feeling fatigued and that this might impact their twenty-four hours to mean solar day work, or day to twenty-four hours lives," Dr Teh said.
She noted that in some cases, patients who had an amputation equally part of their handling would as well have to get used to using a prosthesis and notice a job that accommodates their needs.
FIGHTING TO LIVE
Despite the odds stacked confronting them, young patients often demonstrate a "strong" decision and will to fight and alive, co-ordinate to medical experts CNA spoke to.
Dr Wong Seng Weng, a medical director and consultant medical oncologist at The Cancer Centre, said he sees between ii and v immature developed patients each year.
Virtually of them cull not to compromise on their treatment, ofttimes opting for aggressive therapy, he said.
"They have a lot to live for and they have many years ahead of them," he said.
"So if you give them strong chemotherapy, they accept information technology because they are able to handle side effects adequately well and also because they are young and their organ functions are very stiff."
It is a similar observation for Dr Teh who said that none of the young patients she has encountered so far has rejected handling.
That is despite knowing how tough information technology can be, she added.
Recalling a patient she lost last twelvemonth, Dr Teh said the man in his 30s, who had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, continued treatment even though the outlook was not promising.
"He had quite a scrap of side effects related to treatment but all the while, he told me that he wanted to live on for his child, so that he could come across his kid grow up," Dr Teh said.
"When the cancer got too ambitious, he was however fighting on, he was still trying to go to work and then that he could still save whatever of the savings for his spouse too as his kid," she added.
"It was definitely a heartbreaking journey, especially towards the cease, but seeing his determination … I think that was very inspiring."
FINDING Meaning IN HELPING OTHERS
For young people like Mr Lim, the cancer and handling also affected his social life.
"At the start, I couldn't get out and spend time with my friends and I couldn't play at the basketball court or go out for meals with friends … and so for a good period of fourth dimension, I felt a chip more isolated," he said.
Even after he returned to school, it was not without challenges.
"There were some moments where it was quite tiring because of the side effects of chemotherapy merely, I still had to continue studying for my quizzes or contribute to my group projects, study for finals," he said.
"Really looking back, I accept no idea how I did it, somehow I managed to pull through."
Mr Lim is not out of the woods still. He is due for a scan early on this calendar month that will determine whether the treatment has been successful.
In the meantime, he is planning for his time to come and is leaning towards a career path in psycho-oncology, a field that looks at the psychosocial aspects of cancer.
The hope is to be able to help others similar him deal with cancer, he said.
"With everything that has happened, it made me remember, every bit well as explore, the prospect of psychology," he said. "I desire to endeavour to give back to society, equally well as help current and future patients, by putting what I study into something meaningful."
As he waits for his 3rd yr at academy to begin in August, Mr Lim is volunteering at NCCS, where he helps to plan outreach programmes for young cancer patients.
"It's definitely fulfilling … and it's non a chance or an opportunity that I want to waste," he said.
"Afterwards going through everything, I've realised that life is pretty unpredictable and curt and so … if there's something that I want to practise, I shouldn't waste time thinking well-nigh unnecessary stuff and just go in and do it."
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/young-cancer-patients-treatment-challenges-cancer-survivors-day-248811
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