Thursday March 1, 2012

Squashing the rumour mill

So Aunty, So What?
By JUNE H.L. WONG

When you are a famous person, do you tell when you are stricken with a serious illness?

MY friend is sick. You might know her; she is often in the newspapers and the society pages. She's not an actress, singer or reality show host. She's neither a politician nor a royal. But she certainly knows almost all of these people and they know her.

She is a well-known figure because she used to organise fabulous high society events for her clients, hence her moniker “PR Queen of Malaysia”. But in recent years, she has been in the limelight for her own original Stylo event, which she developed as a key social and fashion fixture with the yearly F1 races in Malaysia and overseas.

She is famous enough to be recognised on the streets but not so famous that she is mobbed.

Not giving up: Nancy intends to add another ‘title’ to her name – cancer survivor.

Ordinarily, she is able to “control” that fame. When she needs to, she steps out in her glamorous persona to promote her events. And when they are over, she happily steps away and be pretty normal a businesswoman juggling her busy career with family life, which includes raising a young son.

But as you may know by now, my friend Nancy Yeoh has cancer.

You know because the media reported it after she announced it at her press conference on Tuesday to introduce her Stylo partners and sponsors and the foreign performers and models she's bringing in.

It was an extremely brave and honest thing for her to do. Make no mistake, if she could, she would have preferred to keep it private.

But the cancer couldn't have caught her at a worse time. It is just two-and-a-half weeks to Stylo 2012 and she has always been the heart, soul and face of Stylo.

Much as she would have liked to quietly go away and get herself treated, she couldn't. Already word had leaked out and the gossip mill went into overdrive and Nancy and her team were overwhelmed with calls and SMSes asking whether there would be Stylo.

There was fear and concern that there would be a huge hole in the F1 calendar of events.

Her unexpected diagnosis had indeed thrown her and the team off. But after the initial shock, it was back to work. There was no way that they were going to let down their sponsors and partners. The show must go on.

With her surgery scheduled two days after her press conference, Nancy had to decide whether to tell of her medical condition or not.

Nancy and I have been friends for more than 20 years and I know behind that larger-than-life persona of big hair, bling-bling and designer clothes, is a down-to-earth gal with a really generous and loving heart who will go out of her way to help friends and family.

So I was more than happy to spend three hours with her over iced teh tarik and Diet Coke going over the pros and cons.

What Nancy didn't want was for her personal crisis to overshadow Stylo. Worse, for people to think she was using her illness to elicit sympathy or as a publicity stunt.

She certainly doesn't expect her illness to turn her detractors or critics into friends and supporters. “If they disliked me before my cancer, I would like them to continue to do so. Anyway, I see this as a temporary setback,” she said.

What we both agreed on that night was that she has nothing to be ashamed of. She has uterine cancer, the fourth most common cancer in women in Peninsular Malaysia, according to the Malaysian Oncological Society (after breast, colorectal and cervical cancer).

While doctors have identified some risk factors that can increase a woman's chances of getting uterine cancer (which can't be detected by a Pap smear, unlike cervical cancer), the exact causes are unknown. So what that really means is it can happen to any woman.

Nancy did ask “Why me?” because she is a careful eater and she doesn't drink or smoke. But that is the way of the big C. It is capricious, and with an increasingly polluted world with all kinds of dreadful chemicals polluting our air, water and soil, we are all at risk.

Another thing she railed at was the bad timing.

“If it had been detected three months ago, I would have been able to just go away and get treated. Or even right after Stylo. But for me to find out just before we open, it really is a bummer!” she said.

As it is, she was admitted the day after the press conference. While she can trust her capable team to carry on, if she didn't explain why she suddenly vanished, the rumour mill would definitely have gone into overdrive and her staff, family and friends would have been bombarded with queries.

And that is exactly why she made the difficult decision of going public: to stop the speculation, assure her business partners, friends and supporters that she is, as she put it, “not quite ready to drop dead”.

Indeed, as we discussed it and she declared on Tuesday, she fully intends to add another “title” to her name cancer survivor.

Long-time readers will remember managing editor June H.L. Wong's ruminations when she wrote Clove's monthly editorial under A moment please'.

After a long hiatus, she returns with a new column.

It's called So Aunty, So What?' because as a proud baby boomer, she believes a modern-day aunty can be pretty cool and happening with a unique take on all and sundry.

> The writer had planned to start her column with something humorous and light-hearted but the need to tell what her friend is going through overruled any desire to be funny.

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Thursday March 1, 2012

Squashing the rumour mill

So Aunty, So What?By JUNE H.L. WONG

So Aunty, So What?
By JUNE H.L. WONG