SINGAPORE - "I am suffering
more than parents who have children with cancer because I know the cause, and I
tried to prevent the tragedy, but I couldn't. So I felt I have failed as a
mother."
These are the words of a
31-year-old businesswoman, who is against chemotherapy for her
leukaemia-stricken three-year-old son.
In an entry published on the
blog, Our Place International, she reveals what she calls the "complete
side" of her story in response to a Straits Times report on Tuesday.
She is resisting conventional
treatment for her son because she believes that the "brutal treatment will
kill him".
Instead, the divorced mother, who
cannot be named because of a court order, wants to place her son in an
alternative health and well-being centre in the US state of Arizona.
The centre, named Our Place
International, advocates "self-healing" through fasting, exposure to
sunlight and a diet of largely raw, organic food and which is devoid of meat
and dairy products.
The Ministry of Community
Development, Youth and Sports has stepped in to ensure the boy is placed in KK
Women's and Children's Hospital until a decision is made on the type of
treatment he will receive.
The mother explains in the blog
entry that her insistence on having her son treated at the centre has made her
family and those around her think she is crazy.
"Everybody listens to the
doctors. I just wanted to provide a healing environment for (my son). I know he
will not get better in the hospital," the mother says.
She claims that doctors told her
that chemotherapy would weaken the immune system and make him prone to
infections.
"When infections set in,
chemo has to stop and the patient has to go through a course of antibiotic
treatment," she says.
Doctors also told her that her
son's disease had an 80 to 90 per cent chance of being treated effectively, but
the mother felt that going through chemo would mean that her son had "more
to lose".
"I know that there is a
higher chance of recovery by following the natural laws that all creatures
follow when they are not well (and well), i.e. fasting, sunshine, pure eating
and loving care," she writes.
"I know in my heart that no
amount of treatment or chemo can help (my son) get better.
"The cause has to be
removed. He needs to get in the sun, get in the garden, he needs to rest his
body and nourish his body with fruits and vegetables, and he needs the best
example(s) from all the adults in his life.
"It may be difficult for any
mother to comprehend my rationale, but I know that I must get better because
this war has just begun, and I need to get stronger in order to fight
this," she adds.
Dr Toh Han Chong, head and senior
consultant at the department of medical oncology at the National Cancer Centre
Singapore, cautions that while the mother's intentions may be well-meaning, it
can be dangerous to ignore conventional methods of treatment.
"Compared to 50 years ago,
the world of medicine has advanced significantly in terms of its ability to
manage the side effects of chemo, be it fatigue, nausea, or the risk of
infection," he maintains.
"There is significantly less
concrete data to support the efficacy of alternative treatment in comparison to
the volume of data and info available for conventional treatment.
"To allow a negative
impression of chemo to cloud your judgment and to ignore the many years of
well-designed studies is regrettable and quite worrying," he adds.
Benita Aw Yeong
This article was first published
in The New Paper.
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