SINGAPORE – Ms Jamie Ng had everything going for her at the start of 2022.
The then 23-year-old, who used to create new clothes for her Barbie dolls as a child, was working her dream job as a fashion designer and merchandiser at a home-grown fashion brand.
She had completed a bachelor of arts (honours) in fashion studies with the University of East London via the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 2021, even clinching a best studentship award from the academy. The Covid-19 pandemic’s work-from-home rules allowed her to work and study at the same time.
She was brewing plans to turn her YouTube channel, xoxo, Jamie (www.youtube.com/@jamiengjin) into a vlog for her life as a fashion designer.
About to turn 24 in August that year, she was looking forward to a holiday to Germany since Covid-19 travel restrictions had been lifted.
The outlook changed on Feb 1, 2022, the first night of Chinese New Year.
She was lying on her left side on her bed, using her mobile phone, when she felt intermittent pain near her left breast. There was a small lump about the size of a quail’s egg, she realised, after trying to massage away the pain.
She saw a general practitioner two days later as soon as clinics opened after the festive season, and was referred to a private breast surgeon, who did an ultrasound scan, mammogram and biopsy on Feb 7.
Her surgeon, who had initially told her not to worry given her young age, broke the news to her three days later.
Further testing revealed she had Stage 2 triple negative breast cancer. This is an aggressive type of invasive breast cancer that spreads faster, has fewer treatment options and tends to have a worse prognosis, according to the non-profit American Cancer Society’s website.
“I think my mum was in denial because she kept asking the doctor the same questions, like ‘Are you sure the result is correct?’” Ms Ng, now 26, says of that fateful day.
“I was in shock, but I’m a positive person and I wanted to take care of her feelings first to make sure she didn’t break down. I started searching online for the survival rate and other stuff to stop myself from thinking too much about it.”
Her usually reserved father, who is 66 and self-employed, brought her to tears when he reiterated his support with the incantation, “My daughter is the bravest”, in Mandarin. Her elder sister, 28, confessed later that “she thought she was going to lose me”.
Ms Ng also recorded reaction videos featuring her friends – their expectant faces registered shades of confusion, shock and grief after she revealed her diagnosis. She shared these clips as part of a cancer diary on her YouTube channel during and after her year-long treatment.
The 15 videos, which she started recording during her chemotherapy sessions that began in March 2022, dive into the details of a breast cancer patient’s journey from a young person’s perspective.
She chronicled the different tests she had to take to get a diagnosis, chemotherapy side effects, going through immunotherapy and how she froze her eggs. She also documented her double mastectomy in August that year at the National Cancer Centre Singapore, after finding out that she had the BRCA1 gene, which puts her at risk of a relapse.
When her housewife mother, 56, who does not cook regularly, took pains to make nourishing herbal pork soups and pear drinks for her, the gesture made her feel “very loved”. She shared the drink recipe on her channel too.
One of her most emotional videos shows her distress in the mirror as she watches a hairstylist shave off her precious locks, which she had earlier trimmed from waist- to chin-length because of her cancer treatment. Hair loss is a common side effect of chemotherapy.
At one point in the video, the stylist hands her a box of tissues and comments on how brave she is.
“One of the biggest challenges I faced was my self-image, which I think applies to a lot of young women losing their hair. I was quite devastated at that point because my hair grows very slowly. It was also one of the big concerns of people who asked me about chemo,” says Ms Ng, who loves to change her hairstyle to suit her dressing style of the moment.
Supported by her friends, she tried to reframe the loss as an opportunity to experiment with wigs of different colours and lengths.
She says she started her vlog after failing to find relevant and comprehensive information about managing cancer in Singapore, especially for those in her Gen Z age group. She felt others in the same shoes would want to know what to expect at every stage of their journey, and decided to put her design school skills to good use.
Her video on her first chemotherapy session is the most popular, with more than 10,000 views to date, but it was the private messages she received that touched her heart.
“At least one person every month would ask me on social media: ‘I was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Can I ask you some questions?’” she says.
Recently, a young woman told her she felt braver and more able to go through her cancer journey after their conversation online. “I received her message when I was having a bad day, so I felt like everything I did was worth it,” Ms Ng says.
After her treatments were completed in late 2022, she quit her job to spend a gap year recovering and fulfilling her travel dreams. Over the span of a year, she used some of her insurance payout, and spent a month travelling around Europe, as well as several cities in China, and Thailand and Indonesia.
In Europe, she was won over by the more relaxed pace of life and learnt to laugh off potentially stressful moments.
After her gap year, she joined her sister and became an insurance agent, “hoping to create more awareness of health protection to younger generations”.
She says she no longer plans for the long term. Instead, she aims to “focus on living every day happily and cherish the time with my family and loved ones”.
Ms Ng, who helps the Breast Cancer Foundation in its outreach events and has signed up as a befriender, says young women should not shy away from the topic of breast cancer and regular breast self-examinations, thinking they are too young to be afflicted.
And even if it is bad news, they should keep a positive mindset, says Ms Ng, whose favourite inspirational phrase is “after the storm comes the rainbow”.
“I believe in the law of attraction. When I’m positive, it will attract a positive outcome.”
