Breast cancer survivor finds God, changes her career and lifestyle, and starts a YouTube channel to inspire others
- When Candy Lee was diagnosed with breast cancer, it took her on a journey of self-discovery and improvement
- She changed her lifestyle, looked at alternative therapies, started going to church and shared her journey on a YouTube channel to help other cancer patients
For Hong Kong resident Candy Lee, a cancer diagnosis inspired a journey of self-discovery which led her to change her lifestyle and career. She also found strength and solace in religion.
“Cancer transformed my life. It taught me the importance of loving and accepting myself and to take responsibility for my physical health and mental well-being,” says Lee.
It was during a routine health check-up in December 2016 that a lump was found in Lee’s left breast that turned out to be malignant. She was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. “A colleague had been diagnosed with breast cancer, which prompted me to go for a check-up, something I had ignored for years.
“The diagnosis was a shock and I was in denial for a while. I was worried for my family, especially my kids,” says Lee, who was 41 at the time of her diagnosis and the mother of two children, aged 13 and 11.
At a private hospital, Lee had surgery to reconstruct her left breast but the cost exhausted her medical insurance cover. She received her follow-up chemotherapy and radiation therapy in a Hong Kong public hospital.
“I didn’t have much knowledge about insurance,” says Lee, who was fortunate to have bought critical illness insurance coverage just five months before her diagnosis.
“I wondered what would have happened if I had not bought the additional coverage. I was worried that my insurance cover and my earnings would not be adequate to cover future medical outlay.”
A desire to be better informed and equipped on insurance protection choices, and to guide others who might also be in the same predicament with their coverage options, prompted a career change. Lee, who had worked at a publishing house and as an IT consultant before her diagnosis, joined the insurance industry.
Lee also took charge of her health. “Cancer made me realise the importance of being fit and having a healthy diet and lifestyle,” says Lee, who began running in 2018 to become stronger. “I started by running small distances. At first, I could barely run 100 metres at a time, but I slowly built up my stamina to run up to 8km (five miles).”
“Exercising and eating healthy made me feel lighter and stronger,” says Lee, who also enrolled in an online course, ‘Understanding Cancer Metastasis’ from Johns Hopkins University, to be better informed about her condition.
Lee also looked at alternative methods to help her boost her immunity. She took vitamin C therapy (administering high doses of vitamin C through intravenous methods) and hyperthermia treatment (a cancer treatment where certain parts of the body are heated up to temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius) at Hong Kong’s LifeClinic, an integrative health and medical clinic, specialising in cancer care.
