Volunteer's work goes on despite cancer

Nurse Josephine Teo continues to go on missions abroad

FOR more than a decade, she taught others how to handle emergency cases in hospitals. Then in March last year, senior nurse clinician Josephine Teo, 53, needed emergency treatment herself.

After three months of persistent backaches, the veteran from Singapore General Hospital's (SGH) Department
of Emergency Medicine was diagnosed with metastatic cancer - the disease had spread from its primary site to other parts of the body.

In her case the cancer was also in her breast liver and lungs. "I called my lawyer and made a will," she said. Within a week, she had undergone surgery of the spine to battle the cancer, leaving it "soft as tofu", surgeons told her.

As she lay in bed for two weeks, assailed by doubts of survival her days of volunteering seemed far away.

Since then, radiation and oral chemotherapy treatments have allowed her to return to work, and Madam Teo is spending time volunteering again.

"I never take things for granted now," said the mother of a 21 year old girl, a fashion student. "I am prepared to go any time."

With that philosophy she returned to Malang in East Java Indonesia two months ago to wrap up a two year
project that began in 2007.

She wants to head overseas again

"We are surrounded by Third World countries that need our help," she said.

She would know. She had been part of a team of eight volunteers who flew to Malang twice a year from 1997 to 2003 to shore up its rudimentary emergency medical systems.

The team, assembled by the Singapore International Foundation comprised five doctors and three nurses
from SGH, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and National University Hospital.

Each time, they spent one to two weeks coaching poorly trained doctors and nurses in cardiopulmonary resuscitation trauma management, nursing, triage and resuscitation techniques.

She also travelled to tsunami-stricken Banda Aceh in December 2005 one year after the city was destroyed - to teach first aid to schools and orphanages Cambodia in 2005 to train nurses, and Timor Leste in 2006 to conduct medical check ups in an orphanage.

She credits her family, church friends and colleagues for being pillars of support, and encourages others fighting cancer with these words: "Be positive Continue to fight the good fight and someone will be there to accompany you on your journey."