Life was full of promise when everything suddenly changed. In October 2017, I began feeling an unusual sense of pressure in my chest — something I couldn’t quite explain. I went to a local hospital in Indonesia, and the CT scan revealed two tumors in my lungs, measuring 5 cm and 2 cm. The diagnosis came shortly after: mediastinal tumors, later confirmed as Hodgkin Lymphoma. It felt like the ground had been pulled from beneath my feet.
But my family and I refused to sink into despair. A few years earlier, my aunt had been diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer at Stage IV and had received treatment at St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou. Her recovery was remarkable — no signs of recurrence after two sessions of minimally invasive treatment. Her words stayed with me: the hospital was more advanced, more scientific, and more effective than anything we had locally. That gave me hope.
On November 30, 2017, my mother and I flew to Guangzhou. From the moment we arrived, we were cared for. The hospital’s Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) conducted a thorough check-up and confirmed my diagnosis. They crafted a personalized treatment plan: interventional therapy followed by particle implantation.
I was nervous at first, but my aunt had prepared me well, and my attending physician walked me through every step. During the interventional therapy, anti-cancer drugs were delivered through my thigh. Aside from a mild sensation of warmth, I felt almost nothing. There was slight nausea afterward, but the chest tightness I had been living with — it was already lifting.
A week later, I underwent particle implantation. After that, my body felt like mine again. When I went out to explore the city, nobody could tell I was a cancer patient in the middle of treatment.
Before I was discharged, my doctor shared the CT scan results: the tumors had shrunk significantly, and my condition was under control. All I needed was to return for regular follow-up reviews. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude — toward my doctors, the nurses, and everyone who had walked beside me through those difficult weeks.
Leaving the hospital, I carried one clear vision with me: going back to school. I wanted to live up to every prayer and every act of care that had been given to me. This battle was not just mine — and neither was the victory.