A Sweet and Sour Cancer Journey, Hong Kong Style

A Sweet and Sour Cancer Journey, Hong Kong Style My Journey through stage 4 ovarian cancer.

08/05/2021

8th May today is Global Ovarian Cancer Awareness Day.
60% of women die globally from this tough disease, the silent killer. Many women are diagnosed too late due to the lack of symptoms and lack of testing methods.
Very few drugs apart from chemotherapy (which in many cases is ineffective) are approved and available.
WE MUST CHANGE THIS! There needs to be more funding for drug trials and quicker drug approvals.
Please join me in my advocacy to change this. The South China Morning Post will be kicking this off with an article soon to be published this month.
TEAL IS THE DEAL, please help me to raise awareness.

07/11/2020

Just set up a new Facebook group called Ovarian Clear Cell Carcinoma ~ The Science Bit for anyone interested in precision oncology as this is the way to go for sure!

The ebook is now uploaded on to the site in both Kindle and ePub.Available at: www.sweetandsourcancerjourney.com Price H...
03/11/2020

The ebook is now uploaded on to the site in both Kindle and ePub.
Available at: www.sweetandsourcancerjourney.com
Price HK$89.99 which equates to US$11.61 & £8.94.
This book is a story of hope and an example of never giving up whatever the dismal prognosis.
It would make a useful Christmas gift for cancer patients and their families.
PLEASE SHARE!

Great to see more approvals coming through for the Foundation Medicine Liquid Biopsy Test. The solid tumour test has bee...
06/09/2020

Great to see more approvals coming through for the Foundation Medicine Liquid Biopsy Test. The solid tumour test has been so useful in directing the drugs for my treatment.
Also very honoured to be their International patient representative and to be invited to speak with their team in the lab in Germany.
They are even paying me an Honorarium, no idea how much but great to add to my donation fund for Ovarian Cancer Research.

05/07/2020

A lot of my readers have been asking who my oncologist is! I wasn't going to use this page as a blog but think perhaps it's a good idea.
My oncologist is called Dr Hilda Hiu~Yan Wong and she is based at:
Chiron Clinic,
Room 2601 ~ 2604,
26th Floor,
9, Queens Road Central,
Central,
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2530 0006

After my latest PET/CT scan last week the results show I am still in COMPLETE METABOLIC REMISSION........

That means I have had no active cancer for almost a year and fully NED for 6 months.

Apologies but I still haven't managed to get the ebook formatted yet but will try to do this soon!

Still get a warm feeling when I see my book on the shelves of a bookstore. It's available in all Bookazine outlets in Ho...
15/06/2020

Still get a warm feeling when I see my book on the shelves of a bookstore. It's available in all Bookazine outlets in Hong Kong priced at HK$168.

So it's finally hot off the press! The Second Paperback Edition of the book. A few more updates, more research and my fi...
23/05/2020

So it's finally hot off the press! The Second Paperback Edition of the book. A few more updates, more research and my final scan from last December showing no evidence of disease.
A few typos have been corrected and pictures lightened, so I'm very happy with it now.

100% of profits go to charity.

Have raised HK$35,000 (£3,500) in sales and fundraising.
I want to hit the HK$40,000 (£4,000) total and then I will split the donations equally between Target Ovarian Cancer in the UK and the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance in USA. Both organizations do a huge amount of research into Ovarian Cancer.
Signed copies will be available soon on our website.

Apologies but we need to sell the book in Hong Kong dollars. For any US customers, the US$ is index linked to the Hong Kong $ so you will pretty much pay whatever the index is on the day of purchase. For other countries the exchange rate will vary daily but this book has already saved some lives so it's really worth purchasing.
The ebook is still not formatted correctly as I still haven't had time to get someone to do this so apologies!

09/05/2020

My Experience with Amazon as a seller:
I have been asked by quite a few people, especially not living in Hong Kong, why the book is not available on Amazon.
Well this is my experience which has not been good and it is just far too challenging to use this selling platform from Hong Kong for a self published book.

For paperback books in order to sell them globally they need to be registered with each selling entity I.e. Amazon UK, USA, EU etc for which a monthly fee needs to be paid. The books then need to be shipped by the author I.e. Myself, to each of their global distribution centres at my cost. The cost of shipping books in bulk is horrendously expensive.
So before we even start looking at payment for sales from Amazon plus tax issues, I gave up! As far too expensive and nothing from sales would go to charity as there would be nothing left.

I thought selling an eBook on Kindle might be easier. But no! Amazon do not recognize Hong Kong as a country so will only send cheques from sales no direct bank transfers. This means payments which are usually released after 3 months (that's Amazon's process), then take another month to reach Hong Kong so 4 months waiting for payment. The cheques will only be issued in US$, Can$, Euros or GBP. It then costs a minimum of HK$100 or £10 to bank a foreign cheque. If the cheque is over HK$100 then a 0.37% commission is taken.
For selling each item on Amazon there is a 30% withholding tax taken for the IRS plus a sales commission taken from Amazon. So it is just not worth selling on this platform if you are a self publisher.

So this is the reason we are selling from our own website.
Unlike Amazon we do not have the ability to sell in other currencies so we are selling in Hong Kong Dollars. The Hong Kong Dollar is index linked to the US Dollar so the exchange rate doesn't really vary, but for other currencies this will fluctuate slightly depending on what the exchange rate is on the day of purchase.

I have received some quite aggressive emails in the past criticising our website for only selling in Hong Kong Dollars and they have made me feel like a criminal running some kind of scam! I do not in any way profit from the sales of the paperback book and all the profits are donated to charity.
So far we have raised HK$30,000 (£3,000) in profits for Ovarian Cancer Research charities.

The book is written to try and help other people going through cancer and their families, I am still going through active cancer treatment myself although now currently have 'No Visible Evidence of Disease' so I find this kind of correspondence very upsetting.
Thanks for the understanding on this issue.....

Second Edition print copy for book ~ read, checked, signed off today and will be available to buy on our website in abou...
09/05/2020

Second Edition print copy for book ~ read, checked, signed off today and will be available to buy on our website in about 2 weeks time. For anyone who has already purchased the first edition of the book there are only a few extra pages with my heart information and additional research and scans, so it's not worth purchasing another paperback copy.
Still sorting out our eBook format so hoping this will also be available to buy in both Kindle and ePub version soon, this might be a useful format to buy to read any updates.

It's been 10 months now since I have had active cancer and almost 6 months since I have been fully 'No Visible Evidence of Disease'. Here's to continued success!

08/05/2020

Today 8th May is Global Ovarian Cancer Awareness Day.
6 years ago I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive type of Ovarian Cancer.
At the time I felt nothing. A bit of back pain and bloating and needing to urinate more often. For someone over 50 years and having had abdomen surgery previously I ignored these symptoms assuming they were nothing.
As you all know this was a big mistake and I have spent 6 years battling to reach remission.
Ovarian Cancer kills 60% of women globally each year.
Ladies please please if you get any of the above symptoms or have been diagnosed with endometriosis please get a scan done to check you are OK. The CA125 cancer marker is unreliable as some tumours express this protein and others don't.
Ovarian Cancer is often diagnosed too late due to misdiagnosis or symptoms being ignored.
Sometimes Ovarian Cancer is whispering, PLEASE LISTEN.

The second edition with updates, in ebook version, is now completed! Just trying to upload it on to the Amazon Kindle si...
05/04/2020

The second edition with updates, in ebook version, is now completed! Just trying to upload it on to the Amazon Kindle site, no easy feat and I'm not sure it is going to work!
But also have it in epub format so trying to find the best sites to upload it to.
Reprinted paperback to follow soon.
Will keep you all posted !

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A Sweet and Sour Cancer Journey, Hong Kong Style

In 2014 I was diagnosed with clear cell ovarian cancer, a rare cancer associated with a poor survival rate. Although I was diagnosed at stage 1, the cancer progressed to stage 4 and I'm now on palliative care. This book catalogues my journey from initial diagnosis through 4 lines of gruelling chemotherapy, 3 surgeries, radiotherapy, DVTs and pulmonary embolisms to targeted therapy including immunotherapy that has put me in remission.​

​Hilary is often asked to tell her positive story at press conferences or requested to offer an opinion to other cancer patients globally via social media. She has carried out a huge amount of research into her cancer and due to cutting-edge treatment in Hong Kong she has had access to advanced care. Here, she tells her story for all to read.

100% of the profits of this book will be donated to ovarian cancer charities.

​Photographs taken by Jonathan Wong, featured in SCMP article 7th September 2019.