23 Dec 2010
It is the season of gift-giving, music and bingeing. And everyone has a Christmas wishlist. For two Singaporeans – a nine-year-old boy and a 56-year-old divorcee – their most fervent wishes are to be healthy again and to get back to life’s mainstream. Ezra Lim Xin had leukaemia. The boy had to be kept away from crowds to avoid getting infections. Mr Teo Choon Beng lost his hearing after radiation treatment for nose cancer. JOAN CHEW speaks to them about their hopes and aspirations
Christmas made an early appearance for nine-year-old Ezra Lim Xin this year.
His wish to be an entrepreneur was granted in January by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a charity which fulfils the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses.
So Ezra got to man a toy shop, serve “customers” and even don a business suit to receive an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award at a ceremony at Suntec Convention and Exhibition Centre.
His mother, Madam Kheak Tong Hak, a housewife, 44, recalled: “When Ezra arrived at Suntec Convention Centre chauffeured in a Lamborghini, there were many people present to welcome him and others who posed as reporters jostling for his attention.
“The foundation even had name cards printed for him to distribute. It made him feel important.
Everything was planned so that it felt real.”
Ezra suffers from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or cancer of the white blood cells.
The condition causes immature white blood cells to continuously multiply and crowd out normal cells in the bone marrow.
As a result, Ezra is at increased risk of infections, so his parents are careful to keep him away from crowds.
Since his diagnosis in October 2008, when he was seven, the family has not sat through an entire Thanksgiving church service, which lasts four hours.
As Ezra is about to complete his chemotherapy treatment, Madam Kheak feels more comfortable allowing him to attend the annual service this year. Ezra himself is looking forward to attending the service with his mum, dad – Mr Peter Lim, 44, self-employed – and brother, Jonah, 16.
The Primary 3 home-schooled pupil now looks no different from any other child except for his sparse hair, which is growing back after it fell out during chemotherapy.
However, Ezra is not self-conscious about how he looks and posed gamely for our camera.
In the first three months after Ezra’s diagnosis, Madam Kheak said that he was not an easy child.
He would knock over things when he was frustrated and run out of the house to avoid the weekly trips to the National University Hospital (NUH).
Over time, he earned himself the nickname of “Mr Wait” among the nurses as he would ask for time to steady his nerves before procedures were done through the port implanted in his chest.
Come February, those gruelling treatments will be over. His doctor, Associate Professor Quah Thuan Chong, head of the division of haematology/oncology at the University Children’s Medical Institute, NUH, said the prognosis for Ezra is good.
The following year will be crucial and he could have a relapse but Prof Quah feels chances of it happening is low at less than 5 per cent.
If Ezra remains healthy for the next five years, he will be deemed cured of leukaemia, said the professor.
According to Prof Quah, three out of 10 children with cancer at NUH have this kind of leukaemia and 85 per cent of them recover.
Ezra was diagnosed when his parents sought help for the unexplained bruising on his back and limbs.
He went through 10 months of intensive chemotherapy and now has daily medication to kill any residual cells that may result in a relapse.
Dr Quah said Ezra was lucky he did not have many of the symptoms of the illness, which include generalised weakness, frequent fevers and joint pains.
While the diagnosis was devastating, cancer has had its blessings, said Madam Kheak. “No parent would want to see her child go through what Ezra did, but the experience also taught him the spirit of giving,” she said.
She once bought Ezra a toy car set that he generously gave to a child in his ward who had brain cancer.
He made another using Lego bricks but, sadly, never had the chance to show it to his new friend, who died soon after.
Realising that there are other sick children less fortunate than himself, he also donated $20 out of a $50 prize he received from a recent art competition to the Christian Aid charity group.
Madam Kheak said she was heartened to see Ezra mature “from a boy who was afraid of chemotherapy to one who braved each session of pain”.
This year, he asked for a game console for Christmas and received it from Make-A-Wish last Wednesday.
Christmas means many things to many people, but for Ezra it is a time of blessing. Asked if he has anything to say to other sick children, he said, softly: “I want to tell them: ‘Don’t be scared’.”
I want to tell other sick children: ‘Don’t be scared’.
2nd Story
For nine months, 56-year-old Teo Choon Beng lived in a world of silence.
Last June, his hearing deteriorated to the point where no hearing aid could help him.
He knew the inevitable had come – he was deaf.
However, the divorcee with two grown-up sons had beaten nose cancer back in 1991 and was determined not to be crushed by the subsequent loss of his hearing.
He said: “Even when I was diagnosed with cancer, I survived; I will definitely survive my loss of hearing.”
Not only did he survive, he also regained some of the faculty he had lost. This Christmas, Mr Teo will be able to enjoy the carols and have conversations with his friends thanks to the cochlear implants in his ears.
The unemployed man, who boasted about winning karaoke competitions in Malaysia in his younger days, is also looking forward to breaking into song once more.
It was very different this time last year when he thought he would never be able to hear the sounds of nature or human voices again.
The nightmare began 20 years ago when Mr Teo noticed that whenever he blew his nose, there were blood stains.
A biopsy at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) showed that he had stage 2 nose cancer – news which he said shattered his world.
“I questioned why I got it when I don’t smoke or drink. I felt very hopeless and depressed after that,” Mr Teo said.
At that time, he was about to embark on a new job as the business manager of a printing company.
He came clean with his boss about his medical condition and was prepared to resign.
To his relief, his boss instead allowed him to leave work early for radiation treatment at the hospital every afternoon for the next two months.
Mr Teo experienced side effects from the radiation, such as dry mouth, hair loss and poor eyesight.
The doctor warned that he might also lose his hearing. This is because radiation to the head region not only kills cancer cells, but could also damage other healthy tissues in the area, such as the cochlea.
Happy to survive cancer, Mr Teo brushed off the warning.
It was only in 2006 that he realised he had become hard of hearing and often had to be face to face with people to hear them better.
In the next four years, Mr Teo tried three different hearing aids, “with each one more powerful than the last”.
In all, he spent close to $10,000, but found that his hearing was still getting worse.
When he could not hear any sounds on the phone or voices from people’s moving mouths, he knew he was deaf.
He said: “Those days were hell. I prepared sheets of paper and gave them to people to write on when they needed to communicate with me.
“I knew no hearing aid in the world could help me anymore.”
His life became topsy-turvy. Once, he was in an accident when he reversed into another car despite the other driver blasting his horn at him.
So he was not surprised when his work contract was not renewed as he had difficulties communicating with his colleagues and boss, who wanted “immediate replies over the phone”, he said.
He has been jobless since last August.
But things began looking up in January when he went for a cochlear implant in his right ear at SGH after learning about the device. The implant consists of an external portion that sits behind the ear and another portion that is surgically placed under the skin.
It turned his life around as it bypasses the damaged parts of the ear and directly stimulates his auditory nerve, so his brain can recognise sounds.
As a result, he could resume normal conversations with people at close range of about 1m.
He had another implant in his left ear at Changi General Hospital (CGH) in September.
Though he cannot hear as well as before, he is enjoying every moment of hearing voices, which he had taken for granted for years.
He also reads people’s lips so he can process the sounds faster. This is something he taught himself by watching a DVD.
He is now looking forward to the sounds of the holiday season.
A free thinker, his wish is to have a simple Christmas dinner with his two sons, aged 17 and 28, whom he has not seen for five years after a misunderstanding.
Mr Teo, who lives in a three-room flat in Toa Payoh, hears better through his right ear at the moment. He said: “I hope the hearing in my left ear will soon be on par with my right so I can hear my loved ones’ voices more clearly.”
I want to hear my loved ones voices more clearly.
Click here for jpeg format
Dept of ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat) Centre & Haematology
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