“When my husband and I got married, having kids was always a given but not a priority in the first few years of our marriage.   When we finally decided to start having children, I was instead, unfortunately diagnosed with Stage 4 uterine cancer.

This put a stop to all our plans of having children.   Cancer is hardly something that a young couple ever thinks about and to go from having expectant hopes of a new life to clinging on to my own was devastating.

I was immediately put through surgery and chemotherapy as the doctors felt that it was necessary to start treatment as quickly as possible because it was an aggressive form of cancer and survival rates were not high.

It would be almost two years later, after we decided to go to National Cancer Centre Singapore for treatment, that I was diagnosed with an underlying genetic condition called Fanconi Anaemia, which makes me hypersensitive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The journey has been long and arduous, and it seems as though my condition is getting worse and the options I have are more and more limited.   The treatments seem to have little effect on the tumours and I am finding it hard to even eat small amounts of food. However, where I would ordinarily have found despair, I am actually in a good place.

It is hard to live with cancer and it is easy to feel sorry for myself, but I don’t want to be remembered as “the cancer girl”. I want people to remember me for the life I led in spite of it all and for the times that I have touched their lives.”

Keok Yanhui
Winner of The Singapore Health Inspirational Patient Awards 2017

The Singapore Health Inspirational Patient Awards is an annual award which honours individuals for their strength, courage and resilience in the face of healthcare challenges. 

Tags: IPA2017