Tow Shung Tan

My life took an 'interesting turn' on Oct 19, 2007 when I was diagnosed with metastatic esophageal cancer. How roles have changed... A week prior, I was a fellow in Hematology / Medical Oncology seeing patients with cancer. Today, I myself have become a 29 year-old cancer patient.

This diagnosis was obtained after an evaluation for an enlarged left neck lymph node. My only symptoms were heartburn and slight difficulty swallowing. As the cancer has metastasized to a distant lymph node, we decided to start on chemotherapy first. The chemo regimen is EOX (Epirubicin, Oxaliplatin and Xeloda) every 3 weeks, Xeloda is given as pills twice daily. I had a good response to EOX and then underwent concurrent chemotherapy and radiation. After completing chemotherapy and radiation I was in remission, with no signs of cancer on the scans. Since the diagnosis, there has been an outpouring of love and support from family, friends and co-workers. I truly appreciate all of your love and concern. May God bless you all richly even as you have been a blessing to me and my family. I received my last cycle of chemotherapy in May 2008, and was getting PET scans every 3 months as follow up. However, on my November 2008 PET scan, there were a few suspicious areas noted and biopsies did confirm cancer recurrence.  I then underwent more chemotherapy followed by a neck surgery and radiation therapy to remove the cancerous lymph nodes.  TY and myself got married in June 2009.  However, soon after that we found out that the cancer had returned in the bones.  We restarted chemotherapy in July 2009.