All three women came to the CNA Women interview without a trace of makeup. None of them were models or ever wanted to be one.
There was 26-year-old Chong Hui Min, who lives with a 34cm metal implant in her left leg where much of her leg bone had been removed along with a fist-sized tumour 10 years ago. She had a rare bone cancer, osteosarcoma.
There was also 38-year-old mother-of-two Faith Lim, who lost her right breast to cancer, reconstructed it with tissue from her abdomen, and has three scars on her breast and abdomen
And there was 49-year-old mother-of-three Chua Gek San, who had leukaemia. Her weakened immune system left her vulnerable to a severe fungal infection that ate into the bone in her nose. Doctors had to remove her nose bone entirely.
These cancer warriors will be walking for the annual Fashion For Cancer charity event, on Sep 13, 2025, at The Westin Singapore. Proceeds for tickets will fund cancer research and patient support.
Chong was only in secondary school in 2015 when her left knee started to swell and hurt. “I was part of The Girls’ Brigade, and thought it was the marching and drills,” she said.
The pain was crippling and Chong bounced from doctor to doctor seeking answers. Finally, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive bone cancer that affects only around 20 people in Singapore each year.
“I was your typical 16-year-old – self-conscious, vain,” said Chong. “Before cancer, my hair was really long, and I had side swept bangs, and I liked to roll up my skirts [at the waist]
Suddenly, the teenager was thrust into chemotherapy, and shaved her beautiful hair. Then, three days before she turned 16, she underwent limb-salvage surgery in her left leg to insert a mega prosthesis, a large artificial implant used to replace an entire segment of bone.
“They had to drill holes into my thigh bone to hollow it out, fix a rod inside, and stabilise it with bone cement,” she told CNA Women.
“I sometimes still get pain from my prosthesis and it can be hard to walk on some days, even 10 years after the surgery,” says bone cancer survivor Chong Hui Min. (Photo: Fashion For Cancer)
“The scar is really huge. Because I lost so much weight from the chemotherapy – I was 35kg – I didn’t have enough skin to patch the scar back. They had to do a skin grafting, taking skin from my inner thigh to patch it back,” she said.
Because of the surgery, she has two long deep scars – one running along the back of her calf and another extending from the top of her thigh to her calf – along with an oval skin graft.
Lim was at the beginning of a different journey – motherhood. Her eldest daughter was almost turning three when she discovered she was pregnant with her second child in 2021.
Still comfort-nursing her toddler, Lim began weaning her off when she noticed persistent lumps in her right breast. She was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.
Faith Lim (left) was diagnosed with breast cancer in the first trimester of her second pregnancy. (Photo: Faith Lim)
“My first thought was, ‘Can I keep my unborn child?’” she said.
Doctors suggested a mastectomy to remove her right breast. Fearing for her baby if she underwent general anaesthesia, she postponed the surgery.
Instead, Lim proceeded with AC
At 32 weeks of pregnancy, on her doctor’s advice, she had an induced labour to deliver her baby early and begin cancer treatment sooner. Her premature baby spent more than a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and another three weeks in a special care nursery.
Lim visiting her premature baby at the special care nursery after she was born – she had postponed her breast cancer treatment for many months for her child’s safety. (Photo: Faith Lim)
Wracked with worry, Lim spent her first month after delivery shuttling between the hospital and home before she began chemotherapy again and eventually proceeded with mastectomy and breast reconstruction.
“I felt I had failed as a mother. My unborn baby had to go through chemotherapy. I had to give birth to her prematurely. She had to be at NICU. And because I was doing chemo, I was unable to breastfeed her,” she confided.
She was the career mum who juggled everything adeptly – three kids, and a job as a branch manager at a financial advisory firm. But in 2023, a day after hosting dinner for friends, Chua had a sore throat. Her doctor prescribed antibiotics, which caused diarrhoea.
Four days later, not only did her diarrhoea not stop, her blood pressure dropped drastically and she could not breathe. Chua ended up in the resuscitation room, and was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML), an aggressive blood cancer that left her unable to produce enough healthy blood cells or fight off infections.
Chua with a doctor friend who came to take care of her on her day off. (Photo: Chua Gek San)
Shortly after, she had a fungal infection that affected the bone of her nose. She had to have an emergency operation to remove it, to prevent the infection from spreading to the brain.
Her nose collapsed, changing her facial profile and affecting her breathing – she now feels like she has a perpetual blocked nose.
Chua needed a bone marrow transplant, donated by her daughter, to make healthy blood again. She underwent chemotherapy to prep her body for it.
The treatment caused her to lose her hair, and her skin became dark and discoloured. She also broke out in rashes, her face swelled, and she could not really open her eyes.
Chua (second from left) at a Hair for Hope event with her family. (Photo: Chua Gek San)
“I avoided going out for months because of this, and also because I was worried about infections. I felt this was not me. I was worried if I’d ever be normal again,” she said.
After a hard-fought recovery, all three women are now in remission.
Chong completed her degree, tied the knot last year, and started work as a research assistant five months ago. Lim is juggling her role as a financial advisor and raising her two daughters. Chua is back at work, and volunteering with different organisations to help elderly, low-income families and those in need.
But the healing journey continues after remission, said Lim.
“Before that, it’s rush, rush, rush… surgery, treatment, take care of children. It is only when the whole thing has settled down, then you realise that you forgot about yourself. You forgot to heal. You forgot to grieve over the loss of the precious part of your body,” she reflected.
“I realised my body looks so different now. I am not really someone who focuses so much on physical appearance, but it definitely affected me in ways that I didn’t know it could,” Lim added.
What Lim would tell her daughters about beauty: “You don’t have to conform to norms. You can be who you want to be.” (Photo: Faith Lim)
Chong also remembers when it used to really bother her that people stared at the scars on her left leg.
However, today, she sees her journey cancer, and the scars, as part of her life story – even a work of art.
Since the next chapter after cancer is something she can shape, she has “decorated” her right leg with tattoos to tell that story – a skipping cloud drawn by one of her dedicated caregivers, a lighthouse from her first family trip after her cancer. She now has five tattoos on that leg.
That’s how the three women ended up as unlikely runway models, though none of them know how to catwalk. They are part of the seven men and 18 women walking for Fashion For Cancer, representing cancers such as breast, nose, lung, pancreas, prostate, blood (leukaemia), bone (osteosarcoma) and the lymphatic system (lymphoma).
Chong is the patient lead for the Adolescents and Young Adults Oncology support group at National Cancer Centre Singapore and says she is walking at Fashion For Cancer for these cancer patients. (Photo: Fashion For Cancer)
Chong said that cancer has given her a whole new perspective. “Everyone is so scared of relapse. Because I’m cancer-free now doesn’t mean I won’t get it next time. I’ve just come to accept the fact that I’ll die one day, and I don’t know at what age. For now, it’s not just about living, but the quality of it,” she said.
Lim added: “What is more important is the internal work to be confident on stage no matter how I look after cancer or the scars I have.
“I’m not runway material, I’m on the heavier side, my double chin is always showing, but I have to remind myself to be comfortable in my own skin. I have already overcome such a big hurdle – cancer. I don’t have to look conventionally beautiful. I am beautiful in my own way,” she said.
“I didn’t want to be seen as weak and vulnerable at first. So the biggest challenge for me was to open up about my experience,” says leukaemia survivor Chua. (Photo: Fashion For Cancer)
For Chua, it is about embracing new experiences. “I’ve been in a cocoon for two years. So Fashion For Cancer is like me going from a cocoon to a butterfly,” she said.
“My motto has always been, look for the rainbow when it rains and look for the stars when it’s dark. This is still the way I want to live my life.”
She added that because her leukaemia struggle had been so painful and personal, it was difficult for her to open up about her experience at first. But she has since overcome her reservations.
“After the cancer, I felt that I can let others see a weaker side of me, and that is not weakness. In fact, there is so much strength in that,” agreed Lim. “I’m walking at Fashion For Cancer for my story, for those going through this journey and going through a tough time. Stories really matter. They have the power to heal.”
Her message to other cancer warriors: “We don’t have to wait to be ready to live again. We can show up scared, we can show up uncertain, but we show up anyway. One small brave step is actually good enough.”
Fashion For Cancer 2025 ison Sep 13, 2025, at The Westin Singapore. Each ticket costs S$210.66 and includes high tea. Get tickets here.
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.
Continue reading...
There was 26-year-old Chong Hui Min, who lives with a 34cm metal implant in her left leg where much of her leg bone had been removed along with a fist-sized tumour 10 years ago. She had a rare bone cancer, osteosarcoma.
There was also 38-year-old mother-of-two Faith Lim, who lost her right breast to cancer, reconstructed it with tissue from her abdomen, and has three scars on her breast and abdomen
And there was 49-year-old mother-of-three Chua Gek San, who had leukaemia. Her weakened immune system left her vulnerable to a severe fungal infection that ate into the bone in her nose. Doctors had to remove her nose bone entirely.
These cancer warriors will be walking for the annual Fashion For Cancer charity event, on Sep 13, 2025, at The Westin Singapore. Proceeds for tickets will fund cancer research and patient support.
GIRL INTERRUPTED: CHONG HUI MIN, 26
Chong was only in secondary school in 2015 when her left knee started to swell and hurt. “I was part of The Girls’ Brigade, and thought it was the marching and drills,” she said.
The pain was crippling and Chong bounced from doctor to doctor seeking answers. Finally, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive bone cancer that affects only around 20 people in Singapore each year.
“I was your typical 16-year-old – self-conscious, vain,” said Chong. “Before cancer, my hair was really long, and I had side swept bangs, and I liked to roll up my skirts [at the waist]
Suddenly, the teenager was thrust into chemotherapy, and shaved her beautiful hair. Then, three days before she turned 16, she underwent limb-salvage surgery in her left leg to insert a mega prosthesis, a large artificial implant used to replace an entire segment of bone.
“They had to drill holes into my thigh bone to hollow it out, fix a rod inside, and stabilise it with bone cement,” she told CNA Women.
“I sometimes still get pain from my prosthesis and it can be hard to walk on some days, even 10 years after the surgery,” says bone cancer survivor Chong Hui Min. (Photo: Fashion For Cancer)
“The scar is really huge. Because I lost so much weight from the chemotherapy – I was 35kg – I didn’t have enough skin to patch the scar back. They had to do a skin grafting, taking skin from my inner thigh to patch it back,” she said.
Because of the surgery, she has two long deep scars – one running along the back of her calf and another extending from the top of her thigh to her calf – along with an oval skin graft.
MOTHERHOOD DERAILED: FAITH LIM, 38
Lim was at the beginning of a different journey – motherhood. Her eldest daughter was almost turning three when she discovered she was pregnant with her second child in 2021.
Still comfort-nursing her toddler, Lim began weaning her off when she noticed persistent lumps in her right breast. She was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.
Faith Lim (left) was diagnosed with breast cancer in the first trimester of her second pregnancy. (Photo: Faith Lim)
“My first thought was, ‘Can I keep my unborn child?’” she said.
Doctors suggested a mastectomy to remove her right breast. Fearing for her baby if she underwent general anaesthesia, she postponed the surgery.
Instead, Lim proceeded with AC
At 32 weeks of pregnancy, on her doctor’s advice, she had an induced labour to deliver her baby early and begin cancer treatment sooner. Her premature baby spent more than a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and another three weeks in a special care nursery.
Lim visiting her premature baby at the special care nursery after she was born – she had postponed her breast cancer treatment for many months for her child’s safety. (Photo: Faith Lim)
Wracked with worry, Lim spent her first month after delivery shuttling between the hospital and home before she began chemotherapy again and eventually proceeded with mastectomy and breast reconstruction.
“I felt I had failed as a mother. My unborn baby had to go through chemotherapy. I had to give birth to her prematurely. She had to be at NICU. And because I was doing chemo, I was unable to breastfeed her,” she confided.
LIFE UPENDED: CHUA GEK SAN, 49
She was the career mum who juggled everything adeptly – three kids, and a job as a branch manager at a financial advisory firm. But in 2023, a day after hosting dinner for friends, Chua had a sore throat. Her doctor prescribed antibiotics, which caused diarrhoea.
Four days later, not only did her diarrhoea not stop, her blood pressure dropped drastically and she could not breathe. Chua ended up in the resuscitation room, and was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML), an aggressive blood cancer that left her unable to produce enough healthy blood cells or fight off infections.
Chua with a doctor friend who came to take care of her on her day off. (Photo: Chua Gek San)
Shortly after, she had a fungal infection that affected the bone of her nose. She had to have an emergency operation to remove it, to prevent the infection from spreading to the brain.
Her nose collapsed, changing her facial profile and affecting her breathing – she now feels like she has a perpetual blocked nose.
Chua needed a bone marrow transplant, donated by her daughter, to make healthy blood again. She underwent chemotherapy to prep her body for it.
The treatment caused her to lose her hair, and her skin became dark and discoloured. She also broke out in rashes, her face swelled, and she could not really open her eyes.
Chua (second from left) at a Hair for Hope event with her family. (Photo: Chua Gek San)
“I avoided going out for months because of this, and also because I was worried about infections. I felt this was not me. I was worried if I’d ever be normal again,” she said.
EMBRACING THEIR SCARS
After a hard-fought recovery, all three women are now in remission.
Chong completed her degree, tied the knot last year, and started work as a research assistant five months ago. Lim is juggling her role as a financial advisor and raising her two daughters. Chua is back at work, and volunteering with different organisations to help elderly, low-income families and those in need.
But the healing journey continues after remission, said Lim.
“Before that, it’s rush, rush, rush… surgery, treatment, take care of children. It is only when the whole thing has settled down, then you realise that you forgot about yourself. You forgot to heal. You forgot to grieve over the loss of the precious part of your body,” she reflected.
“I realised my body looks so different now. I am not really someone who focuses so much on physical appearance, but it definitely affected me in ways that I didn’t know it could,” Lim added.
What Lim would tell her daughters about beauty: “You don’t have to conform to norms. You can be who you want to be.” (Photo: Faith Lim)
Chong also remembers when it used to really bother her that people stared at the scars on her left leg.
However, today, she sees her journey cancer, and the scars, as part of her life story – even a work of art.
Since the next chapter after cancer is something she can shape, she has “decorated” her right leg with tattoos to tell that story – a skipping cloud drawn by one of her dedicated caregivers, a lighthouse from her first family trip after her cancer. She now has five tattoos on that leg.
ONE SMALL BRAVE STEP FOR CANCER
That’s how the three women ended up as unlikely runway models, though none of them know how to catwalk. They are part of the seven men and 18 women walking for Fashion For Cancer, representing cancers such as breast, nose, lung, pancreas, prostate, blood (leukaemia), bone (osteosarcoma) and the lymphatic system (lymphoma).
Chong is the patient lead for the Adolescents and Young Adults Oncology support group at National Cancer Centre Singapore and says she is walking at Fashion For Cancer for these cancer patients. (Photo: Fashion For Cancer)
Chong said that cancer has given her a whole new perspective. “Everyone is so scared of relapse. Because I’m cancer-free now doesn’t mean I won’t get it next time. I’ve just come to accept the fact that I’ll die one day, and I don’t know at what age. For now, it’s not just about living, but the quality of it,” she said.
Lim added: “What is more important is the internal work to be confident on stage no matter how I look after cancer or the scars I have.
“I’m not runway material, I’m on the heavier side, my double chin is always showing, but I have to remind myself to be comfortable in my own skin. I have already overcome such a big hurdle – cancer. I don’t have to look conventionally beautiful. I am beautiful in my own way,” she said.
“I didn’t want to be seen as weak and vulnerable at first. So the biggest challenge for me was to open up about my experience,” says leukaemia survivor Chua. (Photo: Fashion For Cancer)
For Chua, it is about embracing new experiences. “I’ve been in a cocoon for two years. So Fashion For Cancer is like me going from a cocoon to a butterfly,” she said.
“My motto has always been, look for the rainbow when it rains and look for the stars when it’s dark. This is still the way I want to live my life.”
She added that because her leukaemia struggle had been so painful and personal, it was difficult for her to open up about her experience at first. But she has since overcome her reservations.
“After the cancer, I felt that I can let others see a weaker side of me, and that is not weakness. In fact, there is so much strength in that,” agreed Lim. “I’m walking at Fashion For Cancer for my story, for those going through this journey and going through a tough time. Stories really matter. They have the power to heal.”
Her message to other cancer warriors: “We don’t have to wait to be ready to live again. We can show up scared, we can show up uncertain, but we show up anyway. One small brave step is actually good enough.”
Fashion For Cancer 2025 ison Sep 13, 2025, at The Westin Singapore. Each ticket costs S$210.66 and includes high tea. Get tickets here.
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.
Continue reading...