Vu Thi Canh

Today, we interviewed Vu Thi Canh. She wore in simple clothes, but we could see that she is a traditional Vietnamese woman. Although she is 78 years old, she looks young and healthy.

She is an ovary cancer patient, and lives in Czech Republic with her six children and 14 grandchildren. In the early 2016, she went back to Vietnam alone for family visit. After she visited the Buddhist temple with her friend, she felt severe abdominal distension. So she asked her nephew to take her for physical examination. A week later, the result came out but didn’t show any abnormality.

Vu Thi Canh and her daughter

However, her abdomen became bigger and bigger. Later, her son also came back to Vietnam and took her to another hospital for check-up again. Vietnamese doctor found out she got a large amount of ascites which was drawn up to 3 litre. Vu Thi Canh has 4 sisters, and 3 of them got cancer. Her elder sister also suffered from the same symptom and passed away after 3 months. The check-up result didn’t come out, but her children were so worried about it and didn’t want to wait anymore. So they decided to take Vu Thi Canh to Singapore for better examination. It turned out that she got ovary cancer. Vu Thi Canh stayed in Singapore for chemotherapy first and then took surgery in Vietnam. But these treatments didn’t work. Cancer recurred with metastasis to her most of abdominal cavity. Vietnamese doctors could not help anymore. All her family members were so worried, and her sons didn’t give up hope. They believed that there must be other treatments for their mom. Via Internet, they knew about St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou (MCHG) and visited the office in Vietnam for consultation. Vu Thi Canh’s children decided to take her to China for treatments. At that time, it was the seventh day after she took surgery. Nobody dare to tell her the truth of her condition. They just told her she could get treatment to improve immunity in China.

On March 2016, Vu Thi Canh arrived at St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou. So far, she has received 8 times of interventional therapy and twice of natural therapy. Her cancer cells in abdominal cavity have disappeared. After the third interventional therapy, symptoms including feet numbness and abdominal distension have been gone. She has gotten improvement without any side effect except for mild insomnia. She said that she lost all her hair while taking treatment in Singapore, but here she didn’t feel any discomforts.

When asking the comment towards the hospital, Vu Chi Canh’s daughter said, “St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital has advanced technologies which Vietnamese hospitals don’t have. All the doctors and nurses are so enthusiastic and concerned so much about the patients.” She knew all the Vietnamese patients who took treatment here and they helped each other friendly during the hospital life.

Joint photo with doctors

It was the fourth time for Vu Thi Canh to take treatment at St. Stamford MCHG. Every time she came here, her children always accompanied with her. During the interview, Vu Thi Canh seldom talked because her daughter didn’t want her to get tired and answered for her. Form that, it was known that Vu Thi Canh got very close to her children.

It is so hard to go through the cancer treatment process, Vu Thi Canh’s children who fly from Czech Republic take turns to accompany and take care of her. They all never give up and manage to help her to defeat cancer.

At present, Vu Thi Canh is in good condition. She can go shopping and go around. After several days, she will discharge from the hospital and go home to meet her children and grandchildren.

*Surgery, in addition to the appropriate chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are effective in treating early cancer, but certain patients in late stage of cancer may not be tolerate surgery well as they can be relatively weak. A combination of carefully planned minimally invasive therapy, chemotherapy or radiotherapy can effectively reduce the side effects and discomfort of treatment and may help patient get better efficacy.