Cancer Diaries: Letting go of outcomes, expectations and clutter

Malay Mail

9 hours ago

AUG 13 — May 2026.
That's the earliest mammogram appointment I can get from KL General Hospital
While I don't need one so soon (I'm still waiting for a radiotherapy date and mammograms can only be scheduled within six to 12 months after completing the treatment), I'm still a little gobsmacked at how far out that is.
Still, I'm not that hard up that I can't afford to pay for a mammogram at a private centre myself if I think it's warranted, so we'll just see how it goes.
In other news I still don't have a radiation date and am deciding not to worry too much about my recurrence risk.
All those calculated percentages are just possible odds and I would do better to look after myself, not stress myself out, and instead busy myself with one of my multiple hobbies.
A friend, trying to be helpful, said that Beacon Hospital 'only' charged RM40,000 for a regular 23-day course of radiotherapy.
That's nice and all but spending more than half my annual salary on radiotherapy when I can just wait a few more weeks for a public hospital appointment?
I'll just be patient.
Recovering from cancer has left me little time or energy to look after my collection of knick-knacks so declutter I must, because I struggle to bend over to dust low shelves.
It's a pain having too many interests and hobbies because I only have one bank account.
I went on a Facebook group for gifting things and gave away a large portion of my doll collection.
One mother told me that her son had always wanted boy dolls but she hadn't had money to spare for them — now he and his sister can play with their dolls, formerly mine, together.
Play, I think, is vital.
Children need to be allowed to be children instead of, as a former minister suggests, being rushed into finishing school as soon as possible so they can be new bodies for the workforce.
Play broadens the mind, exercises the imagination and even colours the future.
Child me used to look into a mirror and pretend I was reporting for 'live' TV and while I never ended up in broadcast journalism, I think that desire to 'report' things has never gone away.
Recovering from cancer has left me little time or energy to look after my collection of knick-knacks so declutter I must, because I struggle to bend over to dust low shelves. — Unsplash pic
My canes are no longer a real help for me these days so they have gone to a nice senior citizen recovering from hip surgery.
One of my spare photography lamps that keeps falling over on me when I try to clean my spare room is also going to a new owner.
I have enough things in my life trying to kill me, thank you.
Of course some self-righteous people would declare maybe if I'd been more frugal I'd have been able to self-fund my cancer treatment.
That's laughable — what I spent on my dolls wouldn't cover even a tenth of what I've had to spend on my diagnosis alone.
Unless you earn a five-figure salary and live like a monk, it's next to impossible now to save enough for a major medical emergency.
The worst thing is that insurance isn't even guaranteed to cover your procedures being a gamble in itself (that your insurance provider won't screw you over) so for most of us public healthcare remains a saving grace.
It's distressing that the government won't approve further health spending to 'not increase national debt', implying that it's perfectly OK instead to let Malaysians instead go into debt to stay alive.
Then we have Indonesia clamouring to send their nurses over here which might quickly fill up positions, but I wonder how those foreign nurses will be able to live on wages that Malaysian nurses find untenable.
It's also been eye-opening for me seeing on cancer forums people being near-hysterical at the mere mention of chemotherapy.
The problem, I think, is that people see the side effects of cancer treatment more than they see what happens when people die of untreated cancer.
You know why that is? Because cancer patients die and don't hang around long enough for the public to witness what happens when you try and cure cancer with wishful thinking.
I feel a little guilty sometimes because I've tolerated the treatment and drugs fairly well, not even getting nauseous and running a fever only once, very briefly.
My legs and hands are still stiff but I find I can go down stairs a little easier, if I warm my legs up beforehand.
I don't know what the future brings and if my cancer will return, but what I will do is marvel that right now I'm alive and cake tastes good again.