Cancer, faith and the family he almost lost

Kenneth’s message came shortly before he was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer. He was 52.

“He said he was in severe pain,” Juliana recalled. “I told my brothers that I was willing to walk through this journey with him, but I would need their help.”

Setting aside past hurts, the siblings rallied around Kenneth. They prepared his newly purchased flat before he was discharged from hospital and supported him through treatment, hospital admissions and the challenges that followed.

For Juliana, it became an unexpected chance to build a relationship with the brother she had never been close to. “I came to know Kenneth more deeply in the last two years of his life than in all the years before,” said Juliana, now 66. “He was a very simple man—and fiercely independent.”

An IT entrepreneur, Kenneth took pride in solving problems and managing life on his own. Even after his diagnosis, he resisted offers of help and insisted he could cope independently.

“The doctor gave him a prognosis of six to 12 months, which devastated him,” Juliana said.

Kenneth outlived that prognosis. But as the cancer progressed, Juliana became increasingly concerned about him living alone and raised the matter with his doctor, who referred Kenneth to MWS Home Care & Home Hospice (HCHH).

For more than a year, the multidisciplinary team, including Senior Staff Nurse Hazel Chua and Medical Social Worker Goh Wei Chuan journeyed alongside Kenneth, managing his symptoms, supporting his emotional well-being and helping him plan for the future—all while enabling him to remain where he most wanted to be: at home.

“He loved the freedom,” Juliana said. “The regular check-ins from the home palliative care team gave me assurance that he was being well cared for.”