I completed 15 fractions of Radiotherapy treatments at KPJ Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital in November 2020. This was part of my scheduled course of treatments as a HER2 Positive Breast Cancer patient.
To mark the completion of a set of treatments, one of my two Radiation Therapists took my suggestion to introduce a new tradition at the hospital, by ringing a bell. They do that Down Under he said. He explained that he completed his education, training and certification as a Radiation Therapist in Australia.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Let me show you what inside a Linac Treatment Room looks like.
The two capable key people behind my daily radiation treatments are Mohd Khairul Mohd Zambri and Mastura Rahmat. Both are my Radiation Therapists.
It takes a four-year degree program to become a Radiation Therapist. You need to obtain a professional certification after you graduate. So, it’s not some kind of push button technical job as some people may think. It’s a certified professional field.
See that donut looking machine? That is a radiation therapy machine used for my treatments, Elekta from Sweden. The wings on top will rotate during radiotherapy to beam radiation ray on targeted areas in three different angles, and each angle takes about five minutes or less.
The targeted areas were measured precisely before each radiotherapy fraction. Then a cooling beeswax gel pad would be placed on top of the skin as a protective barrier between my skin and the radiation ray which is 99% heat and 1% radiation. I needed to stay stationary and could not move, not even an inch for about 15 minutes during radiotherapy treatment.
Those odd-looking rubber moulds that were used to hold my neck, arms, torso and legs are crafted in Belgium. I call it Mr. Mould.
I was just thinking, my Radiation Therapist was professionally trained and certified in Australia. The radiation therapy donut looking machine is from Sweden. The rubber mould used to keep me in place during radiation therapy is from Belgium.
Malaysian technologist, Australian expertise, Swedish technology and Belgian craftsmanship. Sounds awesome.
What was not so awesome, was that I used to always find used radiotherapy hospital robes hanging on the changing room wall, almost every time I went in to change into that red tartan robe for my radiotherapy treatment.
What is wrong with placing used robes into the dirty laundry bin after using so it would not be an eye sore for the next user of the changing room?
It is about practicing good hygiene and positive habits too. Thinking about the next person who’s going to use the space. I believe it’s called thoughtfulness. Or mindfulness. Whatever it is called.
What I usually did for almost fifteen weeks, every time without fail, was to put away those used robes people left hanging on the wall into the dirty laundry bin before I leave the changing room. Not only my own used robe, other people’s used robes too.
Before I leave the changing room, I made sure that it is in order before I turn off the lights and close the door.
My intention was always to leave with at least one positive improvement than when I first entered any space. Be it a physical place or a personal space. To leave it in excellence.
I was trained during my Asiaworks Leadership Program journey to cultivate this lifelong habit of to living life in excellence. During the leadership program too, we made a contract or a promise to our future self on how we want to live our life from that moment onwards. Mine is to be a “Loving, Passionate and Powerful Woman”.
It was not in vain that I became a torch bearer in my batch of Asiaworks Leadership Program in 2008. My course mates and I took the opportunity to become game changers when we took a field trip to Kelantan to build a kindergarten, surau and toilets for a poor village in Bachok. All 22 of us in my batch organised fund-raising activities to raise RM22,000 within two weeks.
That was the first time I get to sell flowers by the road side, cafes and mamak shops. That was the first time I get to wash cars to raise funds for our Wow Day Project in Kelantan. Those unforgettable humbling experiences had taught me the meaning of humility, vulnerability and persistence.
The earlier batches of Asiaworks Leadership Program had taken orphans on trips to the zoo, visited the old folks’ home, did community service by cleaning up beaches or forests, and things like that, and around the Klang Valley for their Wow Day Project.
I would say that my course mates and I were all the game changers because we were the first batch in the leadership programme to have organised a Wow Day outside of the Klang Valley. All the way in Kelantan, nonetheless!
We stretched our horizon to beyond what is ordinary, because we were so hot and madly in love with our life goals and were raring to go. Ordinary people living our life in an extraordinary way, that was how we want to live our life. I still do.
Sometimes it takes just one person or a group of people who gives a damn enough, to change the world. Being a game changer, that is what it takes.
I do it by to BEING the positive change I want to SEE in this world.
Change the game little by little, one step at a time. Be a good influence on people whenever there are opportunities. Slowly but surely, a drop of good deed can become an ocean if you do it constantly.
I hope to inspire you to be a game changer too.
