Aku mau bagikan testimoni dari Dr
\nRichard, seorang dokter kaya yang terkena kanker, dan meninggal. Mohon maaf, testimonialnya dalam bahasa inggris.<\/p>\n
Ringkasan saja: Dr. Richard Teo Keng Siang adalah seorang ‘biasa’ yg berjuang, bekerja keras dan
\nsukses luar biasa sebagai dokter kecantikan, kaya luar biasa. Di usia 40 tahun, single, dia punya segalanya: ketenaran, kekayaan, cakep dan dia rajin fitnes juga (6x seminggu\/tiap hari). Waktu dia diajak ke gereja dia akan bilang: “saya sangat sibuk di pagi hari, suruh gereja itu undurkan kebaktiannya menjadi jam 2, baru saya datang”. Dia arogan sekali
\nkarena dia merasa punya uang, punya segalanya..<\/p>\n
Dia bilang begini: coba saja, apa yg Tuhan bisa. lakukan untuk membuat aku pergi ke gereja
\nMaret 2012, dia lagi fitness, dia merasa gak enak di punggung, singkatnya (ntar baca yah) dia kena kanker stadium 4 langsung, dia kaget banget dan ga percaya. Pertama-tama dia menyangkal dan
\nmenyalahkan Tuhan, kenapa disaat2 TOP nya dia kok Tuhan beri itu. Akhirnya dia sadar, hanya itu 1-1nya cara Tuhan untuk membuat dia mengerti dan bersaksi.<\/p>\n
16 oct 2012 kemarin dia meninggal dunia di usia 40 tahun. Tapi kesaksiannya yang direkam
\ndan disebarkan oleh teman2 ikatan dokter kristen di Singapore, menyadarkan banyak orang kalo uang tanpa Tuhan itu kosong, HIDUP TANPA TUHAN itu sia2.<\/p>\n
Recorded at the Dental Christian Fellowship , on 24 Nov 2011, 8 months after his diagnosis.<\/p>\n
Richard would have liked to share this with you. We are doing this to continue his work.<\/p>\n
Please have a read and leave it behind for someone else to benefit from his sharing. <\/p>\n
If you would like a copy, please let any of his family or close friends know and we will be able to provide both the audio recording as well as the transcript.<\/p>\n
Thank you, and may God bless you richly.<\/p>\n
Below is the transcript of the talk of Dr. Richard Teo, who was a 40-year-old millionaire and cosmetic surgeon with a stage-4 lung cancer, sharing at a Dental Christian Fellowship Meeting. He would have liked to share this with you too.<\/p>\n
HIS BACKGROUND<\/p>\n
Hi good morning to all of you. My voice is a bit hoarse from the chemotherapy, so please bear with me. I thought I’ll just introduce myself. My name is Richard, I\u2019m a friend of Danny\u2019s, who invited me here.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d just begin to say that I\u2019m a typical product of today\u2019s society. Before this, I was talking about how the media influences us etc. So I\u2019m a typical product of what the media portrays. From young, I\u2019ve always been under the influence and impression that to be happy, is to be successful. And to be successful, is to be wealthy. So I led my life according to this motto.<\/p>\n
Coming from a poor average family, back in those days, I was highly competitive, whether in sports, studies, leadership. I wanted it all. I\u2019ve been there, done that. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s still about money.<\/p>\n
So in my recent last years, I was a trainee in ophthalmology, but I was getting impatient, cos I had friends of mine who were going out into private practise, making tonnes of money. And there I was, stuck in a traineeship. So I said, \u2018Enough, it\u2019s getting too long.\u2019 At that time, there was a surge in prot\u00e9g\u00e9s of aesthetic medicine. I\u2019m sure you\u2019re aware, aesthetic medicine had peaked over the last few years, and I saw good money in there. So much so that I said, \u2018Forget about ophthalmology, I\u2019m gonna do aesthetic medicine.\u2019 So that\u2019s what I did.<\/p>\n
The truth is, nobody makes heroes out of the average GP in the neighbourhood. They don’t. They make heroes out of rich celebrities, politicians, rich and famous people. So I wanted to be one of these. I dived straight into aesthetic medicine. People were not willing to pay when I was doing locum back in those days. Anything more than $30, they would complain that \u201cWah, this lo kun (doctor) jing qwee (very expensive)\u201d. They made noise and they were not happy. But the same people were willing to pay $10 000 for a liposuction. So I said, \u2018Well, let\u2019s stop healing the sick, I\u2019m gonna become a beautician; a medically-trained beautician.\u2019<\/p>\n
And that was what I did \u2013 liposuction, breast augmentation, eyelid surgeries, you name it, we do it. It was very good money. My clinic, when we started off, waiting time was 1 week; 1 month; became 2 months; became 3 months. There was so much demand that people were literally queuing up to have aesthetic work done on them. Vain women \u2013 easy life!<\/p>\n
So the clinic grew. I was so overwhelmed, from 1 doctor, I employed 2, then 3, then 4 doctors, and carried on. Nothing is ever enough. I wanted more and more and more. So much so that we set up shop in Indonesia to lure all the Indonesian tai tai\u2019s. We set up shop, set up a team of people there, to get more Indonesian patients to come in.<\/p>\n
So, things were doing well. I\u2019m there, my time has arrived. <\/p>\n
Around some time in February last year, I said, \u2018OK, I have so much spare cash, it\u2019s time to get my first Ferrari. So there I was, getting ready for the deposit. \u2018OK! There comes my first Ferrari!\u2019 I was looking for land, to share with some of my friends. I have a banker friend who makes $5 million a year. So I thought, \u2018Come, let\u2019s come together. Let\u2019s buy some land and build our houses.\u2019<\/p>\n
I was at my prime, getting ready to enjoy. At the same time, my friend Danny had a revival. They were going back to church, some of my close friends. They told me, \u2018Richard, come, join us, come back to church.\u2019<\/p>\n
I have been a Christian for 20 years; I was baptised 20 years ago, but it was because it was fashionable to be a Christian then. All my friends were becoming Christians then. It was fashionable! I wanted to be baptised, so that when I filled in a form, I could put there \u201cChristian\u201d \u2013 feels good. In truth, I had never had a bible; I don\u2019t know what the bible is all about.<\/p>\n
I went to church for a while, after some time, I got tired. I said it\u2019s time to go to NUS, stop going to church. I had a lot more things to pursue in NUS \u2013 girls, studies, sports etc. After all, I had achieved all these things without God today, so who needs God? I myself can achieve anything I want.<\/p>\n
In my arrogance, I told them, \u201cYou know what? You go tell your pastor to change your sermon to 2pm. I will consider coming to church.\u201d Such arrogance! And I said 1 statement in addition to that \u2013 till date, I don\u2019t know I\u2019ve regretted saying that \u2013 I told Danny and my friends, \u201cIf God really wanted me to come back to church, He will give me a sign.\u201d. Lo and behold, 3 weeks later, I was back at church.<\/p>\n
THE DIAGNOSIS<\/p>\n
In March 2011, out of the blues \u2013 I was still running around, \u2018cause I\u2019m a gym freak and I always go to the gym training, running, swimming 6 days a week. I had some backache, and that\u2019s all I had, but it was persistent. And so I went for an MRI to exclude prolapsed disc. And the day before I had my scan, I was still in the gym, lifting heavy weights, doing my squats. And the next day, they found that half my spine had bone marrow replacement. I said, \u201cWoah, sorry, what\u2019s that?\u201d <\/p>\n
We had a PET scan the next day, and they diagnosed that I had terminal lung cancer, stage 4B. It had spread to the brain, half the spine, whole of my lungs were filled with tumour, liver, adrenals\u2026<\/p>\n
I said, \u201cCan\u2019t be, I was just at the gym last night, what\u2019s going on?\u201d I\u2019m sure you know how it feels \u2013 though I\u2019m not sure if you know how it feels. One moment I was there at the peak, the next day, this news came and I was totally devastated. My whole world just turned upside down. <\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t accept it. I have a hundred relatives on both sides, my mom and my dad. 100 of them. And not a single one has cancer. To me, in my mind, I have good genes, I\u2019m not supposed to be having this! Some of my relatives are heavy chain smokers. Why am I having lung cancer? I was in denial.<\/p>\n
HIS ENCOUNTER WITH GOD<\/p>\n
So the next day, I was still in a state of denial, still unable to accept what was going on. There I was lying in an operating theatre in a hospital, for a needle biopsy (for histology). There I was, just completed the biopsy, and lying in the operating theatre. The nurses and doctors had left; told me I had to wait for 15 minutes to do a check X-ray to make sure there\u2019s no pneumothorax (a complication).<\/p>\n
And there I was, lying on the operating table, staring blankly at the ceiling in a cold, quiet operating theatre. Suddenly I just heard an inner voice; it was not like coming from outside. It was inside. This small inner voice that I had never felt before. And it said very specifically, it said, \u201cThis has to happen to you, at your prime, because it\u2019s the only way you can understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
I said, \u201cWoah, why did that come from?\u201d You know, when you speak to yourself, you\u2019d say, \u201cOK, what time should I leave this place? Where shall I have dinner after this?\u201d You\u2019d speak from a first person point of view. You don\u2019t say, \u201cWhere should YOU go after this?\u201d Whereas the voice that came spoke as a third party. It said, \u201cThis has to happen to YOU, at YOUR prime, because this is the only way YOU can understand.\u201d At that time, my emotions just overflowed and I broke down and cried, alone there. And I knew then, subsequently, what it means to understand that why this is the only way.<\/p>\n
Because I had been so proud of myself, my whole life, I needed nobody else. I was gifted with things that I could do, why do I need anybody else? I was just so full of myself that there was no other way I could have turned back to God.<\/p>\n
In fact, if I were diagnosed with stage 1 or 2, I would have been looking around busily for the best cardiothoracic surgeon, remove a section of the lobe (do a lobectomy), do preventive chemotherapy\u2026The chances of it being cured is extremely high. Who needs God? But I had stage 4B. No man can help, only God can.<\/p>\n
A series of events happened after that. I wasn\u2019t sold after that, because of the inner voice, I became believing, prayers, all that. No I wasn\u2019t. To me, it was just \u2018maybe there was a voice; or maybe that was just me talking to myself.\u2019 I didn\u2019t buy the story.<\/p>\n
What happened next was that I was being prepared for chemotherapy. I started off with a whole brain radiation therapy first; takes about 2 -3 weeks. In the meantime they prepared me for chemotherapy, supplements etc. One of the things they used for chemo was a thing called Zometa. Zometa – they use it to strengthen the bones; once the bone marrow (replacement) is cured of cancer cells, it becomes hollow, so we need Zometa to strengthen the bone to prevent compression fractures. <\/p>\n
One of the side effects of Zometa is that it can cause osteonecrosis (bone death) of the jaw, and I had to have my wisdom teeth removed. Years ago, I had my upper wisdom teeth removed, cos it was giving me trouble. The lower ones didn\u2019t give me trouble so I said, \u201cForget it, just leave it.\u201d So of cause, Danny volunteered to remove it for me.<\/p>\n
So there I was, lying there in a dental chair, asking myself, suffering all the side effects of radiotherapy, and now I have to go through wisdom tooth surgery. As if I\u2019ve not had enough to suffer! So I asked Danny, \u201cEh, bro, is there any other way? Can I not go though this?\u201d He said, \u201cYes, you can pray.\u201d <\/p>\n
I said, \u201cWhat\u2019s there to lose? Ok lah, pray lah!\u201d And so we prayed. And we did an X-ray after that. Everything was all there, all the appliances and everything. And lo and behold, the Xray showed that there was no wisdom teeth in the lower jaw. I know most people have 4 wisdom teeth, maybe some have none, but to be missing one or 2, as I understand \u2013 I\u2019m not too sure, as I understand \u2013 is not that common.<\/p>\n
Still I was, \u201cNah, I don\u2019t care about that.\u201d To me, as long as I didn\u2019t have to take out the tooth, I was happy. At that point, I still wasn\u2019t sold on prayers. Maybe it was just a coincidence \u2013 for whatever it\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n
I continued meeting my oncologist, asking him, \u201cHow long do I have?\u201d I asked him. He said, not more than 6 months. I said, \u201cEven with chemotherapy?\u201d About 3 \u2013 4 months, he said. <\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t grasp that. It was difficult to come to terms. And even as I went through radiotherapy, I was struggling everyday, especially when I wake up, hoping that it\u2019s just a nightmare; when I wake up, it\u2019s all over.<\/p>\n
As I was struggling, day after day, I went into depression, which is the typical denial, depression blah blah blah that you go through. But for 1 reason, I don\u2019t know why, there was this specific day that I was supposed to meet my oncologist. At about 2pm, I felt this sudden surge of peace, comfort, and in fact, a little happiness. It was just overflowing. For no rhyme or reason, it just came about 2pm, as I was getting ready, dressing up to meet my oncologist. So much so that I whats-apped all my friends that, \u201cBros, I just feel so good suddenly! I don\u2019t know why, it just came!\u201d<\/p>\n
And it was only days, or was it weeks after, that Danny revealed to me that he had fasted for 2 days for me, and he was bargaining with God, and fasted for 2 dyas, and he ended his fast at that exact same point, about 2pm thereabouts, that this surge of sensation came to me for no rhyme or reason. And I didn\u2019t know that he was fasting for me. And when he ended the fast, I felt that sensation!<\/p>\n
Whoa, things were getting a bit too coincidental. I was starting to buy a bit of the story, but still I wasn\u2019t sold. As days passed by, I completed my radiotherapy, about 2 weeks plus. Getting ready for chemo, so they let me rest for a few days.<\/p>\n
See, the mortality rate of lung cancer : Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate. If you add up breast, colorectal (colon) cancer, and prostate cancer (the top few cancers in Singapore for men and women), if you add up the mortality rate of these 3, it still doesn\u2019t add up to lung cancer. Simply because, you understand, you can remove the prostate, the colon, the breast, but you cannot remove your lungs.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s about 10% of lung cancer patients who do pretty well for some reasons, because they have this specific mutation; we call it the EGFR mutation. And it happens, only 90% of the time, in Asian ladies who never smoked in their lives. Me, first of all, I\u2019m male. 2ndly, I\u2019m a social smoker. I take one a day after dinner; weekends, when my friends offer me, I take it as well. I\u2019m a light smoker, not a social smoker. But still, my oncologist was still not hopeful for me to have this mutation. <\/p>\n
The chances of it happening for me was maybe 3-4% for me to get it. That\u2019s why I was being primed to go for chemo. But through all the intense prayers, friends like Danny, people that I don\u2019t even know, it turned out that, during my waiting for chemo, the results came back that I was EGFR positive. I was like, \u201cWoah, good news!\u201d Cos now I don\u2019t have to undergo chemo at that time, because there\u2019s this oral tablet that you can use to control this disease.<\/p>\n
Just to share with you some idea \u2013 this is a CT scan \u2013 thorax \u2013 of my lungs, before treatment. <\/p>\n
AFTER BEFORE <\/p>\n
Every single dot there is a tumour. You can see all the mets (metastasis) there. This is just one single plane. Literally I had it in both lungs, and I had literally tens of thousands of tumour. That\u2019s why the oncologist told me, even with chemo, at most 3-4 months.<\/p>\n
But because of this mutation, they have this oral medication. This is what happened after 2 months of treatment. As you can see over here; this is what God can do. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m still here having this opportunity to share with you. As you can see over here, the difference between before and after treatment.<\/p>\n
At that point, I said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s to be expected, isn\u2019t it? The medicine is good.\u201d I\u2019m still not buying the story. Well, the guys prayed for me and the tumour markers started to come down. 90% of the tumours were wiped out, and the tumour markers came down to more than 90% over the next few months.<\/p>\n
But still, you know, once you have the clinical knowledge, you know the statistics. One year survival, two year survival; having all this knowledge is not a good thing. Cos you live with the knowledge that even with all this, the cancer cells are so unstable, they keep mutating. They will overcome and become resistant to the drugs, and eventually you\u2019re gonna run out of medication.<\/p>\n
So living with this knowledge is a huge mental struggle, a huge mental torture. Cancer is not just about a physical struggle, it\u2019s a huge mental torture. How do you live with no hope? How do you live with not being able to plan for the next few years? The oncologist tells you to bear with it for the next 1 \u2013 2 months. So it\u2019s a lot of struggles as I went through: March, then April. April was my lowest point, in deep depression, struggling even as I was recovering.<\/p>\n
HIS ACCEPTANCE & PEACE<\/p>\n
And one of those days, I was there in bed, struggling in the afternoon, asking God, \u201cWhy? Why do I have to go through this suffering? Why do I have to endure this hardship, this struggle? Why me?\u201d <\/p>\n
As I fell asleep, in my dreamy state, a vision just came, that says Hebrews 12:7-8.<\/p>\n
Now mind you, at this time, I had not read the bible. I have no clue what\u2019s Hebrews, I don\u2019t even know how many chapters there are. Totally clueless.<\/p>\n
But it says Hebrews 12:7-8, very specifically.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t think too much of it. I just continued sleeping. Then I woke up, and I said, \u201cWhat\u2019s there to lose? I\u2019d just check it out lah!\u201d Danny had bought me a bible; it\u2019s still quite new. I said, \u201cIt\u2019s ok, just try.\u201d So I flipped to the Old Testament. Hebrews to me sounds like something ancient, so it should be in the Old Testament right? So I flipped through the Old Testament. No Hebrews there. I was so disappointed.<\/p>\n
Then I said, \u201cMaybe New Testament, let\u2019s have a look!\u201d. WOW \u2013 New Testament, there\u2019s Hebrew\u2019s!! It says Hebrews 12:7-8. It says, \u201cEndure hardship as discipline as God is treating you as His children.\u201d<\/p>\n
I said, \u201cWAH!! Where did that come from?\u201d I was getting goose pimples all over my body. I said, \u201cThis can\u2019t be, right?\u201d I mean, what\u2019s the chance of somebody, who has never read the bible, to have a vision of a chapter of a specific verse, that answers my question directly?<\/p>\n
I think God called to me directly as I was there sleeping, struggling with it, asking God, \u201cWhy do I have to suffer? Why do I have to suffer this?\u201d And God says \u201cEndure hardship as discipline as God is treating you as His child.\u201d<\/p>\n
At this point, the chance of that happening is even lesser than my EGFR being positive. There\u2019s just no way; there\u2019s so many millions of thousands of verses in the bible, how can I just conjure up something like that?<\/p>\n
So at that point, I was sold I said, \u201cYOU WIN! YOU WIN!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Ok , I was convinced. And so from that day onwards, I started believing in my God. And the last time I heard that inner voice was the end of April. And that inner voice, same thing, in the afternoon, as I was sleeping (this time I wasn\u2019t struggling, just going to sleep). In a dreamy state I just heard Him say, \u201cHelp others in hardship.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was more like a command, rather than a statement. And that\u2019s when I embarked on this journey, helping others in hardship. And I realised that hardship is not just about being poor. In fact, I think a lot of poor people are probably happier than a lot of us here. They are so easily contented with whatever they have, they\u2019re probably pretty happy.<\/p>\n
Hardship can happen to rich people; it can be physical hardship, mental hardship, social, etc. And also over the last few months, I started to understand what this true joy is about. In the past, I substituted true joy with the pursuing of wealth. I thought true joy is about pursuing wealth. Why? Cos let me put it to you this way, in my death bed, I found no joy whatsoever in whatever objects I had \u2013 my Ferrari, thinking of the land I was going to buy to build my bungalow etc, having a successful business.<\/p>\n
It brought me ZERO comfort, ZERO joy, nothing at all. Do you think I can hold onto this piece of metal and it\u2019s going to give true joy? Nah, it\u2019s not going to happen. <\/p>\n
True joy comes from interaction with other people. And at a lot of times, it is a short term pride, the past. When you pursue your wealth, Chinese New Year is the best time to do it. Drive my Ferrari, show off to my relatives, show off to my friends, do my rounds, and then you thought that was true joy? You really think that those guys who sold you your Ferrari, they share their joy with you? And your relatives, wow, they share this joy with you? In truth, what you have done is just to illicit envy, jealousy, and even hatred. They are not sharing the joy with you, and what I have is that short-term pride that wow, I have something you don\u2019t have! And I thought that was joy!<\/p>\n
So what we have is basically a short-term pride at the expense of somebody else. And that wasn\u2019t true joy. And I found no joy at all on my deathbed, thinking of my Ferrari \u2013 to hold on to it, sayang it?!?<\/p>\n
True joy I discovered comes from interaction. Over the last few months I was so down. Interaction with my loved ones, my friends, my brothers in Christ, my sisters in Christ, and only then was I able to be motivated, able to be uplifted. To share your sorrow, to share your happiness \u2013 that\u2019s true joy.<\/p>\n
And you know what makes you smile? True joy comes from helping others in hardship, and because I\u2019ve gone through this, I know what hardship entails. In fact, there\u2019re some cancer patients who tell me a lot of times, people come up to them and tell them, \u201cStay positive. Stay positive.\u201d Yah, right. You come in my shoes and you try to stay positive! You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about!<\/p>\n
But I have the licence. So I\u2019ve been going out to meet other fellow cancer patients, to share with them, encourage them. And I know, because I\u2019ve been through it, and it\u2019s easier for me to talk to them.<\/p>\n
And most importantly, I think true joy comes from knowing God. Not knowing about God \u2013 I mean, you can read the bible and know about God \u2013 but knowing God personally; getting a relationship with God. I think that\u2019s the most important. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve learnt.<\/p>\n
So if I were to sum it up, I\u2019d say that the earlier we sort out the priorities in our lives, the better it is. Don\u2019t be like me \u2013 I had no other way. I had to learn it through the hard way. I had to come back to God to thank Him for this opportunity because I\u2019ve had 3 major accidents in my past \u2013 car accidents. You know, these sports car accidents \u2013 I was always speeding , but somehow I always came out alive, even with the car almost being overturned. And I wouldn\u2019t have had a chance. Who knows, I don\u2019t know where else I\u2019d be going to! Even though I was baptised it was just a show, but the fact that this has happened, it gave me a chance to come back to God.<\/p>\n
Few things I\u2019d learnt though:
\n1. Trust in the Lord your God with all your heart \u2013 this is so important.
\n2. Is to love and serve others, not just ourselves.<\/p>\nThere is nothing wrong with being rich or wealthy. I think it\u2019s absolutely alright, cos God has blessed. So many people are blessed with good wealth, but the trouble is I think a lot of us can\u2019t handle it. The more we have, the more we want. I\u2019ve gone through it, the deeper the hole we dig, the more we get sucked into it, so much so that we worship wealth and lose focus. Instead of worshipping God, we worship wealth. It\u2019s just a human instinct. It\u2019s just so difficult to get out of it.<\/p>\n
We are all professionals, and when we go into private practise, we start to build up our wealth \u2013 inevitably. So my thought are, when you start to build up wealth and when the opportunity comes, do remember that all these things don\u2019t belong to us. We don\u2019t really own it nor have rights to this wealth. It\u2019s actually God\u2019s gift to us. Remember that it\u2019s more important to further His Kingdom rather than to further ourselves.<\/p>\n
Anyway I think that I\u2019ve gone through it, and I know that wealth without God is empty. It is more important that you fill up the wealth, as you build it up subsequently, as professionals and all, you need to fill it up with the wealth of God.<\/p>\n
I think that\u2019s about it. It\u2019s good to share. Thanks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n