When advanced cancer arrives: how a caregiver turns anxiety into love and clear thinking
When someone close to you falls seriously ill, the person caring for them often carries a burden as heavy as the patient's own. When Jawin (Wang Chun-chieh) was diagnosed at 47 with a rare and difficult advanced lymphoma, his wife Hiris, herself a group CEO, put her career on hold to become his teammate and medical decision-maker.
On this episode of Pills and Bills, Hiris describes in her own words what it was like to accompany her husband through a life-or-death fight: how a caregiver can move past anxiety, weigh reason against feeling, and build good communication and support.
An unclear diagnosis and treatment abroad
For six months before his diagnosis, Jawin ran a fever almost daily and no one could find the cause. Hiris considers that uncertain wait the hardest stage of all. Rather than stay stuck in emotion, she moved fast: packing up the household to cut costs, arranging for their cat to emigrate, and gathering medical information step by step.
Once the diagnosis was confirmed as a rare extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type (ENKT), she coaxed and cajoled her husband to Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong. Through repeated chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, she took on the decision-maker's role much as a business owner would, carrying the weight of very high self-paid costs and keeping treatment moving.
Turning anxiety into clear thinking
Hiris admits she has always been prone to anxiety. Going through this, she learned that anxiety does nothing for the illness; what helps is facing it and seeing clearly what can be done right now. Her practical lessons for caregivers:
- Don't over-search online: internet information tends to frighten more the more you read. Rely on professional medical advice and on material backed by scientific data.
- Return to the basics: caregivers don't need to restrict a patient's diet so strictly that it becomes a burden. During chemotherapy, being able to eat, sleep and keep some strength is what matters most.
- Accept help, and know when to let go: patients sometimes refuse help to prove they still can, but appropriate help lets both people find connection and a sense of taking part, even amid helplessness.
Building support through love and communication
Facing medical bills and life-or-death choices, Hiris chose to tell her husband plainly that she loved him. Caregiving, she believes, should come not only from duty but from love. That openness meant she never hesitated over financial or medical decisions, and gave Jawin deep trust and security.
She also encourages caregivers to practise thanks in everyday life. Saying thank you, even for the smallest things, builds a positive emotional cycle between patient and caregiver and keeps guilt and negativity from accumulating.
Look after yourself to stay the course
Through long treatment, Hiris stresses that caregivers need time for themselves. A proper meal, a small sweet treat, or faith and quiet reflection — whatever keeps you steady. A caregiver who stays stable and healthy is the strongest support a patient can have.
The experience brought the couple closer, and Hiris hopes that by sharing it she can help other families facing the same path avoid some of the detours.
Pills and Bills unpacks the real problems that begin after diagnosis, every week.