Our Journey With Cancer: A Story About Faith, Hope and Love

By Kevin Lee

This book brings the reader on our journey with nasopharyngeal cancer, a rare type of head and neck cancer. It is a collection of my reflections especially during my medical treatment stage in 2017, and ends with the post-treatment ‘clearance’ stage which will take the next 4-5 years (2018-2022/23) that are the crucial monitoring time period like most forms of cancer. The intention of the book is to highlight awareness to the readers concerning the challenges that both patient and (especially) primary caregiver experience before/during and after. It is hoped that the contents shared here will provide the reader (especially if you are a patient and primary caregiver) with the courage and strength to overcome the challenges that lie ahead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716512391

Kevin Lee

KEVIN LEE is originally from the small town of Sturgis, Saskatchewan in Canada. He struck out for a career in radio right out of high school. It was on those long ‘overnight’ shifts that he began to work on his writing ‘urge’ when there wasn’t really a whole lot to do. He found that he really enjoyed putting his imagination down on paper and kept working at it while at home during his days off. One idea always turned into another and before he knew it, several short stories were done! He thought of taking it one step further and proceeded to give writing a novel a go! The process turned out to be long and tiring at times, but at the same time quite enjoyable! He found himself writing certain passages, taking a day off and then coming back to it and adding further to the developing story. Before he knew it, his first draft of a novel was done! He always had an interest in science fiction and fantasy with J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks being a couple of his favourite authors. It was from them that he found the inspiration to create his own ‘work’ and attempt to keep anyone who would read his material hooked as they had hooked him. The result was a couple of different ideas that eventually evolved into TRIO – Book One – ‘H*E*R*O*E*S’. It came together piece by piece until what you will soon read came to be. As the ‘TRIO’ and company continue on their travels in Book One the hope is that you will become as attached to the characters and their adventures as he did writing about them. You can look forward to reading further adventures in the not too distant future. Enjoy! Drop in on Kevin Lee’s website anytime to see what’s going on in the TRIO world and for all updates on the books, TRIO merchandise you can purchase, photo’s, various links and more! www.kevinleeauthor.ca

Book preview

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Our Journey With Cancer

– A Story About Faith, Hope And Love

By Kevin Lee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotation in a review.

Copyright © 2017 by Kevin Lee

Author’s Acknowledgements

There are some people I would like to acknowledge, and they are as follows:

The Almighty God, for His everlasting love and consistent presence in my life;

My wife Gladys for being my primary caregiver and constant companion; and

Everyone else who has been praying endlessly for me, thank you so much!

What is the book about?

This book brings the reader on our journey with nasopharyngeal cancer, a rare type of head and neck cancer. It is a collection of my reflections especially during my medical treatment stage in 2017, and ends with the post-treatment ‘clearance’ stage which will take the next 4-5 years (2018-2022/23) that are the crucial monitoring time period like most forms of cancer. The intention of the book is to highlight awareness to the readers concerning the challenges that both patient and (especially) primary caregiver experience before/during and after. It is hoped that the contents shared here will provide the reader (especially if you are a patient and primary caregiver) with the courage and strength to overcome the challenges that lie ahead.

More about the Author

I am a teacher, lecturer, educator, trainer, coach as well as mentor with interests in inspiration, motivation and personal development. My dream in life is to share my life experiences with as many people as possible so that they can learn from my mistakes and make better progress in life. I have only one goal in life, and that is to help as many people as possible learn from their past mistakes, just as I am learning from my past mistakes with help from other teachers, lecturers, educators, trainers, coaches as well as mentors I come into contact with during the course of my life.

My Journey with Nasopharyngeal Cancer

Tuesday 13 June 2017 - the day my wife and I discovered that I have cancer, and to be more precise, Nasopharyngeal Cancer (a rare form of cancer of the head and neck). This is on top of the fact that just a few months earlier, my wife had just been hospitalized for a major surgery to remove a cyst near one of her ovaries. She is fine, and all the tests carried out on the removed cyst shows no sign of any cancer. Now as if that episode was not enough to scare the both of us, now is my turn to go through the next 6-7 weeks of Radiotherapy (RT) / Chemotherapy (CT) treatment to get rid of the cancerous tumor located at the nasopharynx, which is the upper part of the pharynx (throat) behind the nose.

What prompted me to document my journey in written form came from the idea that I may possibly be able to give some hope to someone out there who may either be having the same condition as me, or is caring for someone with my condition (just like what my wife is doing for me right now). We have been most fortunate to have family members/relatives as well as friends providing support in ways beyond mere physical and spiritual aspects, and thanks to the Internet we are also connected to support groups that are giving us invaluable information to prepare ourselves for the upcoming treatment starting tomorrow (10 June 2017). Therefore, it is my humble wish that whatever I am sharing here henceforth may in one way or another give some sort of comfort to anyone out there embarking (or already embarked) on the same journey as I am about to do so.

Until the next blog, I pray for you (the reader) that God will watch over you and your loved ones; may He shower you abundantly with His blessings, and may He also pour down His endless love on you always. Amen!

Day 1: Start of Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy Treatment

Started both my first chemotherapy (CT) and radiotherapy (RT) sessions today (10 July 2017, not June as indicated in yesterday's post), and I must say it was quite an experience. According to the doctor, the effects from CT will be minimal (lower platelet count); and the more serious effects from RT will only be felt from the second week onwards, which would include mouth and throat ulcers accompanied by mouth dryness and appetite loss (which will in turn result in weight loss if I do not force myself to eat despite the pain in swallowing food). As such, I have informed my wife who is my primary caregiver to literally do whatever she needed to do to force me to eat as per normal; this may include blending my food like what she is already doing now because I had some bad tooth removed and am still waiting for my dentures to be ready on 25 July 2017, as well as scolding me if she had to like a little child who refuses to eat his vegetables!

Sounds harsh, you might say; well, I do not think so. You see, from the time I had my dental surgery to remove my bad teeth on 21 June 2017 until now my weight has already dropped from 63kg to 58kg despite my taking my daily blended meals and snacks every 2-3 hours all this while! I foresee more weight loss as time goes by, and I am hoping that it