No cover and now no job for Sony boss hit by incurable illness

Kelly Chew Siang-kiang was supposed to start her first day in Sony's Asia headquarters in Hong Kong on January 2, 2007.

Six months earlier, the Singapore-based music executive had been promoted to a HK$2.2 million salary and a senior marketing role.

Her new role, which involved growing a multimillion-dollar business involving the promotion of leading Western artists throughout the region, had been so time-consuming she hadn't had a chance to relocate permanently to Hong Kong.

But Chew never made it into work that day. When she woke, her face was ashen, her head pounding and she felt nauseous.

Instead of the office, she headed straight to a doctor's clinic. As soon as he saw her, he asked her if she was anaemic, which she wasn't. That afternoon the doctor, by now extremely worried, called and told her to head straight to hospital since her levels of haemoglobin - the protein which carries oxygen in blood - were so low she could fall unconscious at any time.

Chew, her mother and daughter caught a taxi to the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital in Happy Valley. There were more blood tests, which showed her haemoglobin level had fallen to just three; the normal level for a woman is 11. The nurses were amazed she was still conscious.

She was checked for leukaemia and was given nearly three litres of blood. A sample of her bone marrow was taken, but nothing untoward was found.