About me

My Story and why I started

Around the time of my mom’s diagnosis, I was going through a difficult period of my life as I moved to Singapore to enter the military. Stressed and overwhelmed, I was focused on staying afloat and making it through each day. Between trying to adjust to the army life and pursuing my own goals, I gave little thought to my family or the health we had, I had always assumed it was something I could rely on.

With everyone in the family caught up with their own lives, we rarely had the chance to sit-down and talk together. So, when my dad had unexpectedly asked me to join a video call with the whole family one afternoon, I quickly sensed something was wrong. A checkup had revealed a mass in my mom’s breast and that she would need to fly from the United States to Singapore for surgery. Throughout the entire conversation, they never once used the word “cancer”. Their voices were steady, solemn rather than visibly sad. They looked directly at my sister and I with expressions that seemed carefully controlled, as if showing emotion might give permission to panic. They explained that we were only told because the situation had become something serious that we needed to know. In that moment, the diagnosis was presented as something purely practical to manage rather than something that could be emotionally discussed. For my parents, saying less was a way of protecting us from all the worry and stress, and in the weeks that followed, my sister and I became equally careful about our feelings and what we shared with them, not wanting our worries to add to theirs. In the end, our reluctance to create a space to speak openly to one another and share how we felt left each of us feeling unspoken and struggling alone.

After the call, the difficulties I had been facing in the military no longer occupied my thoughts in the same way. Instead, I felt the guilt of absence from my mom. I spoke with my sister about how she was doing back in the US; she told me that she seemed drained and tired much of the time. Even though they lived together, they found it difficult to talk about what my mom was going through. In Singapore, I could feel the stress my dad faced too, yet when we sat down for meals, we rarely discussed it.

                These experiences made me wish we had somewhere outside our family to talk. My sister and I still found ourselves with worries we did not know how to share, while my mom and dad kept much of their experience to themselves, not wanting to add to our stress. Yet, I also hesitated to confide in people I knew. I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me, see me differently, or feel they had to be more careful about what they said around me. I wanted a place where my mom could speak without feeling she had to reassure us, and where my sister and I could express our concerns without worrying her or changing how others treated us. This became my reason and motivation to create ThroughItTogether. This would create an outlet for all of us to relieve our stress, and to find others we can relate to without feeling the burden of the added worry we place on others.

                  One thing that seemed to help my mom throughout treatment was using her stationary bike. She returned to it almost every day when she felt well enough, even during a period when she often seemed exhausted. And after every session, I noticed that it seemed to make a difference to her mood. Having seen how tired and drained she could be, I became interested in something she was doing for herself that appeared to help her feel better. I turned to research and explored topics on exercise and mental well-being in adults with cancer, particularly its potential to help with depression and anxiety. That became the starting point for the 12-week exercise program. I wanted to turn what I was learning into something people could use in their daily lives. Because treatment affects everyone differently, each program is tailored to every individual. The aim is to make exercise feel manageable and give people another way to support their well-being, including those who might not yet feel ready to talk about what they are going through.

                  I started ThroughItTogether with my family’s experience in mind, hoping to offer the kind of support that we would have appreciated. Through its community and exercise program, I want to give people affected by cancer more ways to look after their mental well-being. My hope is that people can use this space in whatever way that helps them, and leave feeling a little less stressed and a little happier, making each day affected by cancer a little easier.