According to Power Over Cervical Cancer (POCC), “Cervical Cancer is the 2nd most common female cancer worldwide with 500,000 women diagnosed every year!” In Singapore, about 200 women are detected with cervical cancer and about 100 die from the disease every year, according to Health Promotion Board of Singapore. According to the American Cancer Society estimates for cervical cancer in the United States for 2010, “there would be about 12,200 new cases of invasive cervical and about 4,210 will die from cervical cancer.” It can happen to any women around us!

I believe each and everyone of us can play a vital role in bringing down the numbers by sharing information of cervical cancer with family, friends, associates, colleagues and, as in my case, to strangers as what I am doing through this post.

Cervical cancer is caused by several types of a virus called human papillomaviruses (HPV), which is normally spread through sexual activity. “Most women bodies are able to fight HPV infection. But sometimes the virus leads to cancer,” according to National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH also states, “Cervical cancer may not cause any symptoms at first, but later, you may have pelvic pain or bleeding from the vagina.” According to the HPB of Singapore, signs or symptoms of cervical cancer may include:

Unusual or foul-smelling discharge from the vagina

Blood spots or light bleeding when you are not having your period or after menopause

Bleeding or pain during sex

And HPB of Singapore also mentioned that it is possible to have cervical cancer even if you do not experience any of these signs or symptoms.

Who are at risk? According to the HPB FAQ section for cervical cancer,

All women aged between 25 and 69 who:

Ever had sex

Had multiple sexual partners

Had sexually transmitted infections (STI) e.g. genital warts, genital herpes and HPV infection

Smoke

As the saying goes, “Prevention is better than cure!” A woman’s risk of developing cervical cancer can be reduced by having regular pap smears/tests which is an early detection screening program. According to the American Cancer Society,

“Cervical cancer was once one of the most common causes of cancer death for American women. Then, between 1955 and 1992, the cervical cancer death rate declined by almost 70%. The main reason for this change was the increased use of the Pap test. This screening procedure can find changes in the cervix before cancer develops. It can also find cervical cancer early — in its most curable stage.“

Although HPB of Singapore states in their FAQ section that pap smears should be done every 3 years, two of the most important women in my life, my mother and sister, are having their pap smears done almost on a yearly basis. Are the important women in your life having their pap smears done regularly already? Have you done yours?

Regardless of where you are in the world, together, we can empower the important and special women in our life over cervical cancer! Just simply by sharing information on cervical cancer, We Have the Power to Save Lives! You can find out more on how to reduce the risk of developing cervical cancer from the website of POCC.

“…what truly set Tom apart was his uncommon humanity, his intense concern for what ailed the hearts and the souls of his patients, and his unstinting generosity with his time. Despite the crushing workload he carried on his shoulders, no patient was ever rushed and no patient concern was ever belittled. A patient’s annual follow-up with Tom always ran for an hour or so, unheard of in this era of managed care. After each examination, Tom would sit, knee to knee with the patient, on a small sofa in his office and talk. He never interposed his desk. He treated you as equal.”

I respect and salute people who walked their talk! I’m quoting the above as my way of honouring a Dr. Thomas Graboys who was a great doctor, which can be so rare these days.

What also caught my attention when I was reading the book was a poem about death he found solace in. I, too, found these words comforting. Death is one heavy topic which some avoid, including myself at time, and yet it is journey everyone will take whether one chooses to or not.

I was chatting to a friend recently on Facebook and she was telling me about someone she knows in UK who is already starting to plan for his death and he was only in his twenties then. A thought immediately came to my mind then, “If we keep planning for our death, would we ever learn to truly live our life to the fullest?”

Death is a positive reminder that we would not be living forever; the time will come naturally or it may just creep up on us when we least expect. Death is just part of the whole package of living.

When the time comes for us, we will move from this end into a new beginning; “… I have only slipped away into the next room … I am I and you are you…” This poem is comforting as it described death as sort of a ‘new beginning’ that one takes on; death is not an end. I wish anyone who have lost could also find comfort in this poem.

I have the habit of sharing lessons, as what a dear friend of mine put it, with family and friends through email. I am not sure if they read the email 100% of the time because I rarely get a reply from them. It has always thrilled and delighted me to get replies once in a while. However, I was both happy and sad when I received a reply from this dear friend about a week ago. He was the one who shared the story of Dr. Kwek with me.

Although I did not know Dr. Kwek personally, reading the testimonials of his patients still saddened me. In a tribute to him, I learned how he had walked the extra miles. He was called up late in one evening by this patient’s sister and yet he turned up at the hospital’s A & E department just to visit this patient. They made a detour to his clinic later, at close to midnight, so that he could give this patients some jabs. A simple act like this could have been just a routine and norm for Dr. Kwek. However, for this patient, this simple act of kindness and concern meant a great deal and touched his life.

In my reply to this dear friend, I said, “It is very rare these days to find a good doctor who is not more interested in his/her pocket than his/her patient.” I hope Dr. Kwek story could serve as an inspiration to doctors and aspiring doctors. Just as the revenue is important to you (you and your family need to survive too, in order for you to have a peace of mind to help others), your patients are equally, if not more important as they have entrusted their lives to you.

From the video on Kindness by Amy Krouse Rosenthal which I had share in my last post, Amy asked, “What constitutes a life worthy of being remembered? How do you want to be remembered? Big questions to consider! A life worthy of being remembered will differ from individual to individual as one explores deeply within oneself. And how do one wants to be remembered? That could be a tricky question as how others remember us may not always be how we have wanted them to remember us.

Perhaps the question we need to consider is “What is/are the important things, the priorities, in our life 10, 20 or 30 years down the road?” It seemed that what were important to Dr. Kwek had naturally become the way of how people are remembering him now. The story of Dr. Eric Kwek Soon Kiat has enlightened me and straightened out my perspective. He had reminded me of the priorities in life.

To leave you with something my dear friend said, “Life has different plans for each of us, may all of us finish it without regrets.”

Back in 1995 - July 1997, taking the Double-Decker bus ride was the norm for me almost everyday. I would need to ride for almost an hour from my home to my camp and then another hour ride from my camp to home. I did that for almost everyday. However, I was always looking forward to the bus ride and to seeing the special someone every morning.

That is not the point. My nostalgic weekend has nothing to do with the girl I saw during the bus ride but the bus ride itself. When I was even younger, I was a loner. I did not like to mix with people and I did not have many friends too. I love taking bus. Almost every other weekend, I would go on hours of bus ride. It was always exciting to go on a bus ride.

Sometimes it was a ride to the airport where I would stay for awhile at the departure hall to looked at the planes taking off or landing. Sometimes I would take a bus ride to the beach where I would cycle to a quiet location and sat there for an hour or two. Almost everywhere I went, I took the bus.

Slowly I became sort of an ‘expert’ in bus taking but gradually a bus ride also became just a bus ride to get me from point A to point B.

In the book ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,’ it states:

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.

In the book, it suggests that the beginner’s mind is an empty mind which is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. On the other hand, the expert’s mind is one which thought that it had attained something and thus limited.

Thus the book suggests that we always keep our beginner’s mind. I did not really understand the full meaning of it until I boarded a Double-Decker bus on my way to meet up my friends. It was just another bus ride but when I got on the upper deck of the bus and sat down, I was brought back to my younger days of bus taking. Suddenly the bus ride became exciting and a ‘new’ experience. I was immersing in the view from the window.

For a while the possibilities seemed unlimited; new roads, buildings and places were discovered during the ride. The beginner’s mind at work. Same old bus ride but approached with a beginner’s mind brought new perspectives, experiences and excitements.