I didn't want to lose my voice

Madam Tan Siew Eng had cancer just above her voice box. She describes how she went on a course of treatment that allowed her to keep her voice.

It started when there was something stuck in my throat. Or so, I thought. I had this feeling for a few days, that something was in there, and it caught as I was swallowing.

I went to see doctors – they scanned it and told me that there was nothing wrong.

But there was. I can’t swallow properly. I can’t even drink water. Finally, when I began choking on my own saliva, when I felt like there was a fish bone stuck in my throat the whole day, my daughter brought me to see a doctor at the hospital.

There, they did some kind of scope – they still could not find anything. But soon after that, there was a lump visible from the outside.

The doctors told me that something was growing in my throat. They needed to operate on me, and they needed to take my voice box out along with my tumour. I would lose my voice box if they saved my life.

Well, you know, I am 78 years old. I don’t want to lose my voice.

I nursed my husband for many years, after he had a stroke. He died in 1997, but in the last few years of his life, he could not speak, could not tell us what he wanted, what he was thinking.

I did not think I could live like that. I can’t write so without my voice, what am I to do? What is a human being without a voice? Better to keep my voice box – so I refused surgery. My children were at their wits’ end, I can tell you that!

So we went for a second opinion. One of my children had a friend at work who knew a doctor. When we met Dr Ang (Peng Tiam), he told me that there was a chance that we did not have to operate.

He gave me two options. One option is to go ahead and remove the tumour together with the voice box. The other option is to combine chemotherapy and radiation to treat the sickness. If successful the voice box can be saved.

I went through some months of chemotherapy in 2005. It was terrible on some days. I was weak, nauseous. After radiation, my skin got so dry it peeled, and I had to keep applying cream. But it is something that you just have to go through.

There are many options when you get sick. I listened to the options and make my decision. I am glad we asked for a second opinion.

During the days of treatment, I watched TV, played with the handheld games that my grandchildren lent me. I was not bored, but perhaps a little anxious.

Today, I am healthy again. I stay at home most days and go to the void deck for a walk if I feel energetic enough. I don’t talk much – I am a quiet person by nature. But I talk to my younger sister almost every night on the phone.

When my five children and grandkids come and visit, they know I am here for them. I can have little conversations with them. I don’t have anything important or very wise to say. I am just glad that I can still talk to them, let them know what I feel, what I am thinking.

It’s not what you say, but the kind of life you have when you keep your voice.