Light at the end of the tunnel

Cancer patient Mandy Lee stays positive despite high medical costs

PETALING JAYA: Cancer patient Mandy Lee Fei Mien (pix) is certain there is light at the end of the tunnel despite needing RM1.4 million to cover her medical costs.

Given less than two years to live when she was diagnosed with a rare form of non-hodgkin lymphoma in 2014, Lee said the battle with the disease has made her stronger and has brought her closer to self-realisation.

Lee was only 21 and pursuing her medical studies at Xi’an Jiaotong University in China when she discovered she had cancer, that started in the immune system.

Her academic pursuit came to an abrupt stop.

Having outlived her projected life expectancy, Lee said: “Despite all the negative things that came out of it ... the tears, the disappointment, the treatments, the medicines, it actually brought me closer to myself.

“It made me see things from a different perspective … not negative but more positive.

“I choose to eat positively, I realised that I can see more good than bad in any situation.

“There are many other beautiful things that I have learned along the way.”

Lee is currently undergoing treatment at the World Medical Hospital in Bangkok, where she receives immunotherapy but not chemotherapy.

“The regiment includes the latest chimeric antigen receptor t-cell (CAR-T cell) therapy, allogenic natural killer (NK) cell therapy, Gc-MAF as well as Interleukin-2 therapy.

“These treatments are approved by the Food and Drug Administration and they’re a promising game-changer treatment for aggressive refractory or relapsed nonhodgkins lymphoma patients like me.”

She is also undergoing emotional and art therapies to ensure a balanced treatment.

“My treatments happen six times a week (Monday to Saturday), we also have meditation once a week and yoga sessions for about an hour every day.

“Apart from this, we also go through art therapy once a week where we are taught to express ourselves through paintings.”

Lee needs to undergo CAR-T cell therapy as soon as possible as the cancer cells have mutated and are “acting aggressively”.

“I have already started GcMAF but in order for me to start the CART & NK cell therapy, I would need to come up with the full amount first.”