What would you do if your child is diagnosed with cancer?

By Benita Aw Yeong The New Paper Tuesday, Jul 17, 2012

SINGAPORE - When she first heard that her young daughter was diagnosed with cancer, Ms Cynthia Lim's knee-jerk reaction towards chemotherapy was a visceral and immediate "no".

"There was the shock of having to deal with the disease. Then there was a bit of denial, which made it difficult to be rational," says the 32-year-old, whose four-year-old daughter Charmaine died from neuroblastoma last October.

"For someone who did not have previous exposure to cancer, the pre-conceived notions about the side effects of chemo were so deeply ingrained in me that I just did not want her to go through that." Charmaine (right) would have turned seven yesterday.

Eventually, Ms Lim came around to the idea that her child needed to undergo the treatment.

After reading voraciously about the disease six months after the initial diagnosis, Ms Lim realised chemotherapy was the only chance for her daughter against cancer.

The New Paper on Sunday approached Ms Lim after The Straits Times reported on Tuesday about a mother who objected to chemotherapy for her leukaemia-stricken son.

The 31-year-old prefers "natural therapies" at an alternative health and well-being centre in the US state of Arizona.

Ms Lim, who misses her daughter deeply and blogs about her occasionally, says she can relate to this mother.

"The doctors told me we should start it immediately. But at first, I kept telling them to give me a couple more days to think about it," she explains.

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What would you do if your child is diagnosed with cancer?