SY was 62-years-old when she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Her problem started with severe LIF (left iliac fossa) or left abdominal pain with difficulty in bowel movements and vomiting. There was blood in her stools. She struggled with her problem for about 3 months before going to see a doctor.

A colonoscopy done in August 2012 showed a sigmoid tumour with extensive colitis and ulceration extending from the tumour site to the ascending colon.

SY immediately had a surgery.

The histopathology report confirmed an infiltrating, ulcerating, moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma. The surgical margins were not involved but 5 out of the 12 mesenteric lymph nodes contained metastatic tumour. The omentum was free of tumour. This was a Stage C1 or Stage 3 (T3N2Mo) cancer.

SY was asked to undergo follow-up chemotherapy. Her family refused chemotherapy.  SY late husband had nose cancer and underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy. He suffered badly from the treatment. Not too long ago, a relative had cancer, underwent surgery and chemo and then died. So the children did not want SY to go through the same journey. SY’s children came to seek our help in September 2012.

The first week of taking our herbs, SY had diarrhoea 7 to 8 times a day. But this problem resolved by itself after a while. She complained of poor appetite. After taking Capsule E, this problem was resolved after a week. She gained 1 kg after this. Apart from this, SY did not have any more problems. We never get to meet with SY at all because the family did not want her to know that she had cancer.

SY’s progress was monitored through blood tests as follows:

For three years on CA Care Therapy, SY was doing fine. Her CEA was always within normal limit (below 5.0). Then in November 2015, SY’s children were alarmed as the CEA had increased to 9.5. They came to ask why for the past 3 years, SY was doing fine, and now the CEA was starting to increase? My answer to them is blunt and simple: What sin have you committed? Your mom must be eating all those bad food that we tell you not to eat!

At first, the children’s reaction was “to defend the indefensible.” No, she is on her proper diet! Really? No need to think too far behind. In September 2015 her CEA was at 3.5 and 2 months later it shot up to 9.5. What did you eat these past 2 months or what did you do wrong?

Slowly, we begun to unearth the answers of what went wrong!

1. SY started to eat things like tosai, huat koi, kaya pau, putu mayong, chee cheong fun, poh piah, biscut, etc. Her justification was why can’t she eat all these since she is healthy now? She did not get any cancer anyway! (Note: those of you who do not want to tell your dad or mom that he/she ever has cancer, please take note!).
2. From 2 October 2015, one of SY’s children opened a shop to start his business. SY was tasked with baby-sitting her grandchild. She was stressed out by this. She became bad tempered and she slept late, even as late as 1 a.m. and woke up as early as 5 a.m.

Our advice to SY’s children: Go home and have a family meeting.

• Decide whether you all want your mother to live a longer life or you want to continue to make her a baby sitter and she will be dead soon after that.
• Also if she wants to get well again, stop eating bad food.

Listen to our conversation that day.

Part 1: Three years on doing fine with CA Care Therapy

Part 2: Stress and bad food — recipe for disaster!