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He spent the rest of his limited time pondering about his life and
concluded to a different definition of the meaning of happiness, morals
and regrets.
Many times, the last few words of a person are the most inspiring and
life changing ones. I believe it is because they are forced to think,
ponder and reflect about the real priorities of life since they do not
have the luxury of time as other normal people.
I hope that we don’t have to wait till we come to the end of our
lives that we stop living our lives ignorantly and foolishly. But learn
our lessons from these brave people who had to experience unfortunate
events that cut their lives short, but wise enough to change their ways
in the end.
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Below is an excerpt of his last speech to a class full of future
dental surgeons on 19th January 2011, about 10 months after his
diagnosis. He died on 18th October 2012:
His Background
Hi good morning to all of you. My voice is a bit hoarse from the chemotherapy, so please bear with me. I thought I’ll just introduce myself. My name is Richard, I’m a friend of Danny’s, who invited me here.
I’d just begin to say that I’m a typical product of today’s society.
Before this, I was talking about how the media influences us etc. So I’m
a typical product of what the media portrays.
From young, I’ve always been under the influence and impression that
to be happy, is to be successful. And to be successful, is to be
wealthy. So I led my life according to this motto.
Coming from a poor average family, back in those days, I was highly
competitive, whether in sports, studies, leadership. I wanted it all.
I’ve been there, done that. But at the end of the day, it’s still about
money.
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So in my recent last years, I was a trainee in ophthalmology, but I
was getting impatient, cos I had friends of mine who were going out into
private practise, making tonnes of money. And there I was, stuck in a
traineeship. So I said, ‘Enough, it’s getting too long.’ At that time,
there was a surge in protégé of aesthetic medicine.
I’m sure you’re aware, aesthetic medicine had peaked over the last
few years, and I saw good money in there. So much so that I said,
‘Forget about ophthalmology, I’m gonna do aesthetic medicine.’ So that’s
what I did.
The truth is, nobody makes heroes out of the average GP in the
neighbourhood. They don’t. They make heroes out of rich celebrities,
politicians, rich and famous people. So I wanted to be one of these. I
dived straight into aesthetic medicine.
People were not willing to pay when I was doing locum back in those
days. Anything more than $30, they would complain that “Wah, this lo kun
(doctor) jing qwee (very expensive)”. They made noise and they were not
happy. But the same people were willing to pay $10 000 for a
liposuction. So I said, ‘Well, let’s stop healing the sick, I’m gonna
become a beautician; a medically-trained beautician.’
And that was what I did – liposuction, breast augmentation, eyelid
surgeries, you name it, we do it. It was very good money. My clinic,
when we started off, waiting time was 1 week; 1 month; became 2 months;
became 3 months. There was so much demand that people were literally
queuing up to have aesthetic work done on them. Vain women – easy life!
So the clinic grew. I was so overwhelmed, from 1 doctor, I employed
2, then 3, then 4 doctors, and carried on. Nothing is ever enough. I
wanted more and more and more. So much so that we set up shop in
Indonesia to lure all the Indonesian tai tai’s. We set up shop, set up a
team of people there, to get more Indonesian patients to come in.
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So, things were doing well. I’m there, my time has arrived.
Around some time in February last year, I said, ‘OK, I have so much
spare cash, it’s time to get my first Ferrari. So there I was, getting
ready for the deposit. ‘OK! There comes my first Ferrari!’
I was looking for land, to share with some of my friends. I have a
banker friend who makes $5 million a year. So I thought, ‘Come, let’s
come together. Let’s buy some land and build our houses.’
I was at my prime, getting ready to enjoy. At the same time, my
friend Danny had a revival. They were going back to church, some of my
close friends. They told me, ‘Richard, come, join us, come back to
church.’
I have been a Christian for 20 years; I was baptised 20 years ago,
but it was because it was fashionable to be a Christian then. All my
friends were becoming Christians then. It was fashionable! I wanted to
be baptised, so that when I filled in a form, I could put there
“Christian” – feels good. In truth, I had never had a bible; I don’t
know what the bible is all about.
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I went to church for a while, after some time, I got tired. I said
it’s time to go to NUS, stop going to church. I had a lot more things to
pursue in NUS – girls, studies, sports etc. After all, I had achieved
all these things without God today, so who needs God? I myself can
achieve anything I want.
In my arrogance, I told them, “You know what? You go tell your pastor to change your sermon to 2pm. I will consider coming to church.”
Such arrogance! And I said one statement in addition to that – till
date, I don’t know I’ve regretted saying that – I told Danny and my
friends, “If God really wanted me to come back to church, He will give me a sign.”. Lo and behold, 3 weeks later, I was back at church.
The Diagnosis
In March 2011, out of the blues – I was still running around, ‘cause I’m a gym freak and I always go to the gym training, running, swimming 6 days a week.
In March 2011, out of the blues – I was still running around, ‘cause I’m a gym freak and I always go to the gym training, running, swimming 6 days a week.
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I had some backache, and that’s all I had, but it was persistent. And
so I went for an MRI to exclude prolapsed disc. And the day before I
had my scan, I was still in the gym, lifting heavy weights, doing my
squats.
And the next day, they found that half my spine had bone marrow replacement. I said, “Woah, sorry, what’s that?”
We had a PET scan the next day, and they diagnosed that I had
terminal lung cancer, stage 4B. It had spread to the brain, half the
spine, whole of my lungs were filled with tumour, liver, adrenals…
I said, “Can’t be, I was just at the gym last night, what’s going
on?” I’m sure you know how it feels – though I’m not sure if you know
how it feels.
One moment I was there at the peak, the next day, this
news came and I was totally devastated. My whole world just turned
upside down.
I couldn’t accept it. I have a hundred relatives on both sides, my
mom and my dad. 100 of them. And not a single one has cancer. To me, in
my mind, I have good genes, I’m not supposed to be having this! Some of
my relatives are heavy chain smokers. Why am I having lung cancer? I was
in denial.
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His Encounter With God
So the next day, I was still in a state of denial, still unable to accept what was going on. There I was lying in an operating theatre in a hospital, for a needle biopsy (for histology). There I was, just completed the biopsy, and lying in the operating theatre. The nurses and doctors had left; told me I had to wait for 15 minutes to do a check X-ray to make sure there’s no pneumothorax (a complication).
And there I was, lying on the operating table, staring blankly at the
ceiling in a cold, quiet operating theatre. Suddenly I just heard an
inner voice; it was not like coming from outside. It was inside. This
small inner voice that I had never felt before. And it said very
specifically, it said, “This has to happen to you, at your prime, because it’s the only way you can understand.”
I said, “Woah, why did that come from?” You know, when you speak to
yourself, you’d say, “OK, what time should I leave this place? Where
shall I have dinner after this?” You’d speak from a first person point
of view. You don’t say, “Where should YOU go after this?” Whereas the
voice that came spoke as a third-party. It said, “This has to happen to
YOU, at YOUR prime, because this is the only way YOU can understand.” At
that time, my emotions just overflowed and I broke down and cried,
alone there. And I knew then, subsequently, what it means to understand
that why this is the only way.
Because I had been so proud of myself, my whole life, I needed nobody
else. I was gifted with things that I could do, why do I need anybody
else? I was just so full of myself that there was no other way I could
have turned back to God.
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In fact, if I were diagnosed with stage 1 or 2, I would
have been looking around busily for the best cardiothoracic surgeon,
remove a section of the lobe (do a lobectomy), do preventive
chemotherapy. The chances of it being cured is extremely high. Who needs
God? But I had stage 4B. No man can help, only God can.
A series of events happened after that. I wasn’t sold after that,
because of the inner voice, I became believing, prayers, all that. No I
wasn’t. To me, it was just ‘maybe there was a voice; or maybe that was
just me talking to myself.’ I didn’t buy the story.
What happened next was that I was being prepared for chemotherapy. I
started off with a whole brain radiation therapy first; takes about 2 -3
weeks. In the meantime they prepared me for chemotherapy, supplements
etc. One of the things they used for chemo was a thing called Zometa.
Zometa – they use it to strengthen the bones; once the bone marrow
(replacement) is cured of cancer cells, it becomes hollow, so we need
Zometa to strengthen the bone to prevent compression fractures.
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One of the side effects of Zometa is that it can cause osteonecrosis
(bone death) of the jaw, and I had to have my wisdom teeth removed.
Years ago, I had my upper wisdom teeth removed, cos it was giving me
trouble. The lower ones didn’t give me trouble so I said, “Forget it,
just leave it.” So of cause, Danny volunteered to remove it for me.
So there I was, lying there in a dental chair, asking myself,
suffering all the side effects of radiotherapy, and now I have to go
through wisdom tooth surgery. As if I’ve not had enough to suffer! So I
asked Danny, “Eh, bro, is there any other way? Can I not go though
this?” He said, “Yes, you can pray.”
I said, “What’s there to lose? Ok lah, pray lah!” And so we prayed.
And we did an X-ray after that. Everything was all there, all the
appliances and everything.
And lo and behold, the X-ray showed that there was no wisdom teeth in the lower jaw.
I know most people have 4 wisdom teeth, maybe some have none, but to
be missing one or 2, as I understand – I’m not too sure, as I understand
– is not that common.
Still I was, “Nah, I don’t care about that.” To me, as long as I
didn’t have to take out the tooth, I was happy. At that point, I still
wasn’t sold on prayers. Maybe it was just a coincidence – for whatever
it’s worth.
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I continued meeting my oncologist, asking him, “How long do I
have?” I asked him. He said, not more than 6 months. I said, “Even with
chemotherapy?” About 3 – 4 months, he said.
I couldn’t grasp that. It was difficult to come to terms. And even as
I went through radiotherapy, I was struggling everyday, especially when
I wake up, hoping that it’s just a nightmare; when I wake up, it’s all
over.
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As I was struggling, day after day, I went into depression, which is
the typical denial, depression blah blah blah that you go through. But
for one reason, I don’t know why, there was this specific day that I was
supposed to meet my oncologist.
At about 2pm, I felt this sudden surge of peace, comfort,
and in fact, a little happiness. It was just overflowing. For no rhyme
or reason, it just came about 2pm, as I was getting ready, dressing up
to meet my oncologist. So much so that I Whatsapped all my friends that,
“Bros, I just feel so good suddenly! I don’t know why, it just came!”
And it was only days, or was it weeks after, that Danny revealed to
me that he had fasted for 2 days for me, and he was bargaining with God,
and fasted for 2 days, and he ended his fast at that exact same point,
about 2pm thereabouts, that this surge of sensation came to me for no
rhyme or reason. And I didn’t know that he was fasting for me. And when
he ended the fast, I felt that sensation!
Whoa, things were getting a bit too coincidental. I was starting to
buy a bit of the story, but still I wasn’t sold. As days passed by, I
completed my radiotherapy, about 2 weeks plus. Getting ready for chemo,
so they let me rest for a few days.
See, the mortality rate of lung cancer: Lung cancer has the highest
mortality rate. If you add up breast, colorectal (colon) cancer, and
prostate cancer (the top few cancers in Singapore for men and women), if
you add up the mortality rate of these 3, it still doesn’t add up to
lung cancer.
Simply because, you understand, you can remove the prostate, the colon, the breast, but you cannot remove your lungs.
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But there’s about 10% of lung cancer patients who do pretty well for
some reasons, because they have this specific mutation; we call it the EGFR mutation. And it happens, only 90% of the time, in Asian ladies who never smoked in their lives. Me, first of all, I’m male.
Secondly, I’m a social smoker. I take one a day after dinner;
weekends, when my friends offer me, I take it as well. I’m a light
smoker, not a social smoker. But still, my oncologist was still not
hopeful for me to have this mutation.
The chances of it happening for me was maybe 3-4% for me to get it.
That’s why I was being primed to go for chemo. But through all the
intense prayers, friends like Danny, people who I don’t even know, it
turned out that, during my waiting for chemo, the results came back that
I was EGFR positive.
I was like, “Woah, good news!” ’cause now I don’t have to undergo
chemo at that time, because there’s this oral tablet that you can use to
control this disease.
Just to share with you some idea – this is a CT scan – thorax – of my lungs, before treatment.
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Every single dot there is a tumour.
You can see all the mets (metastasis) there. This is just one single
plane. Literally I had it in both lungs, and I had literally tens of
thousands of tumour. That’s why the oncologist told me, even with chemo,
at most 3-4 months.
But because of this mutation, they have this oral medication. This is
what happened after 2 months of treatment. As you can see over here;
this is what God can do. And that’s why I’m still here having this
opportunity to share with you. As you can see over here, the difference
between before and after treatment.
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At that point, I said, “Well, it’s to be expected, isn’t it? The
medicine is good.” I’m still not buying the story. Well, the guys prayed
for me and the tumour markers started to come down. 90% of the tumours
were wiped out, and the tumour markers came down to more than 90% over
the next few months.
But still, you know, once you have the clinical knowledge, you know
the statistics. One year survival, two-year survival; having all this
knowledge is not a good thing. Because you live with the knowledge that
even with all this, the cancer cells are so unstable, they keep
mutating. They will overcome and become resistant to the drugs, and
eventually you’re gonna run out of medication.
So living with this knowledge is a huge mental struggle, a huge mental torture.
Cancer is not just about a physical struggle, it’s a huge
mental torture. How do you live with no hope? How do you live with not
being able to plan for the next few years? The oncologist tells you to
bear with it for the next 1 – 2 months. So it’s a lot of struggles as I
went through: March, then April. April was my lowest point, in deep
depression, struggling even as I was recovering.
His Acceptance and Peace
And one of those days, I was there in bed, struggling in the afternoon, asking God, “Why? Why do I have to go through this suffering? Why do I have to endure this hardship, this struggle? Why me?”
As I fell asleep, in my dreamy state, a vision just came, that says Hebrews 12:7-8.
Now mind you, at this time, I had not read the bible. I have no clue
what’s Hebrews, I don’t even know how many chapters there are. Totally
clueless.
But it says Hebrews 12:7-8, very specifically.
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I didn’t think too much of it. I just continued sleeping. Then I woke
up, and I said, “What’s there to lose? I’d just check it out lah!”
Danny had bought me a bible; it’s still quite new. I said, “It’s ok,
just try.” So I flipped to the Old Testament. Hebrews to me sounds like
something ancient, so it should be in the Old Testament right? So I
flipped through the Old Testament. No Hebrews there. I was so
disappointed.
Then I said, “Maybe New Testament, let’s have a look!”. WOW – New
Testament, there’s Hebrew’s!! It says Hebrews 12:7-8. It says, “Endure
hardship as discipline as God is treating you as His children.”
I said, “WAH!! Where did that come from?” I was getting goose pimples
all over my body. I said, “This can’t be, right?” I mean, what’s the
chance of somebody, who has never read the bible, to have a vision of a
chapter of a specific verse, that answers my question directly?
I think God called to me directly as I was there sleeping, struggling
with it, asking God, “Why do I have to suffer? Why do I have to suffer
this?” And God says “Endure hardship as discipline as God is treating
you as His child.”
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At this point, the chance of that happening is even lesser than my
EGFR being positive. There’s just no way; there’s so many millions of
thousands of verses in the bible, how can I just conjure up something
like that?
So at that point, I was sold I said, “YOU WIN! YOU WIN!!”
Ok , I was convinced. And so from that day onwards, I started
believing in my God. And the last time I heard that inner voice was the
end of April. And that inner voice, same thing, in the afternoon, as I
was sleeping (this time I wasn’t struggling, just going to sleep).
In a dreamy state I just heard Him say, “Help others in hardship.”
It was more like a command, rather than a statement. And that’s when I
embarked on this journey, helping others in hardship. And I realised
that hardship is not just about being poor. In fact, I think a lot of
poor people are probably happier than a lot of us here. They are so
easily contented with whatever they have, they’re probably pretty happy.
Hardship can happen to rich people; it can be physical hardship,
mental hardship, social, etc. And also over the last few months, I
started to understand what this true joy is about. In the past, I
substituted true joy with the pursuing of wealth. I thought true joy is
about pursuing wealth.
Why? ’cause let me put it to you this way, in my death-bed, I found
no joy whatsoever in whatever objects I had – my Ferrari, thinking of
the land I was going to buy to build my bungalow etc, having a
successful business.
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It brought me ZERO comfort, ZERO joy, nothing at all. Do you think I
can hold onto this piece of metal and it’s going to give true joy? Nah,
it’s not going to happen.
True joy comes from interaction with other people. And at a lot of times, it is a short-term pride, the past.
When you pursue your wealth, Chinese New Year is the best time to do
it. Drive my Ferrari, show off to my relatives, show off to my friends,
do my rounds, and then you thought that was true joy?
You really think that those guys who sold you your Ferrari, they share their joy with you? And your relatives, wow, they share this joy with you? In truth, what you have done is just to illicit envy, jealousy, and even hatred.
You really think that those guys who sold you your Ferrari, they share their joy with you? And your relatives, wow, they share this joy with you? In truth, what you have done is just to illicit envy, jealousy, and even hatred.
They are not sharing the joy with you, and what I have is that
short-term pride that wow, I have something you don’t have! And I
thought that was joy!
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So what we have is basically a short-term pride at the expense of
somebody else. And that wasn’t true joy. And I found no joy at all on my
deathbed, thinking of my Ferrari – to hold on to it, saying it?!?
True joy I discovered comes from interaction.
Over the last few months I was so down. Interaction with my loved
ones, my friends, my brothers in Christ, my sisters in Christ, and only
then was I able to be motivated, able to be uplifted. To share your
sorrow, to share your happiness – that’s true joy.
And you know what makes you smile? True joy comes from helping others
in hardship, and because I’ve gone through this, I know what hardship
entails.
In fact, there’re some cancer patients who tell me a lot
of times, people come up to them and tell them, “Stay positive. Stay
positive.” Yah, right. You come in my shoes and you try to stay
positive! You don’t know what you’re talking about!
But I have the licence. So I’ve been going out to meet other fellow
cancer patients, to share with them, encourage them. And I know, because
I’ve been through it, and it’s easier for me to talk to them.
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And most importantly, I think true joy comes from knowing
God. Not knowing about God – I mean, you can read the bible and know
about God – but knowing God personally; getting a relationship with God.
I think that’s the most important. That’s what I’ve learnt.
So if I were to sum it up, I’d say that the
earlier we sort out the priorities in our lives, the better it is.
Don’t be like me – I had no other way. I had to learn it through the
hard way. I had to come back to God to thank Him for this opportunity
because I’ve had 3 major accidents in my past – car accidents.
You know, these sports car accidents – I was always speeding , but
somehow I always came out alive, even with the car almost being
overturned. And I wouldn’t have had a chance. Who knows, I don’t know
where else I’d be going to! Even though I was baptised it was just a
show, but the fact that this has happened, it gave me a chance to come
back to God.
Few things I’d learnt though:
1. Trust in the Lord your God with all your heart – this is so important.
2. Is to love and serve others, not just ourselves.
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There is nothing wrong with being rich or wealthy. I think it’s
absolutely alright, ’cause God has blessed. So many people are blessed
with good wealth, but the trouble is I think a lot of us can’t handle
it. The more we have, the more we want. I’ve gone through it, the deeper
the hole we dig, the more we get sucked into it, so much so that we
worship wealth and lose focus. Instead of worshipping God, we worship
wealth. It’s just a human instinct. It’s just so difficult to get out of
it.
We are all professionals, and when we go into private practise, we start to build up our wealth – inevitably.
So my thought are, when you start to build up wealth and
when the opportunity comes, do remember that all these things don’t
belong to us. We don’t really own it nor have rights to this wealth.
It’s actually God’s gift to us. Remember that it’s more important to
further His Kingdom rather than to further ourselves.
Anyway I think that I’ve gone through it, and I know that wealth
without God is empty. It is more important that you fill up the wealth,
as you build it up subsequently, as professionals and all, you need to
fill it up with the wealth of God.
I think that’s about it. It’s good to share. Thanks.
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