It started with a sharp pain in my right chest that slowly spread like a spider’s web.
Sabrina Go was busy with work, but the pain was “a little alarming,” she recalled. She made an appointment to be tested in two weeks.
While waiting to be seen, she had no idea it was cancer. “Every cell in me declared this was not cancer,” she said.
The day came and Sabrina completed the scan. Within 15 minutes, she received a call from her doctor.
“She said, ‘This is really terrible.'”
“Is it a cyst?”
Sabrina, 40, an award-winning fashion designer with her eponymous brand SABRINAGOH, was aware of breast cancer from an early age as it runs in her family.
“Four out of six paternal aunts have breast cancer,” she told Salt & Light.
She had breast ultrasounds every two years. These usually didn’t cause any problems. At best, the scan showed a lump in her breast.
Sabrina, her husband Jason, and their son Joshua at church during the Christmas season.
This time, being told that there was a suspicious lump in April 2021 was difficult for Sabrina to accept. She was only 37 years old and the mother of a 2-year-old boy.
“Something was wrong, but I was still hopeful,” she said. “I asked the doctor, ‘Is this a cyst?’
“She said, ‘This can’t be a cyst.’ We have to do a biopsy.”
I received my biopsy results in early May 2021. There were three masses extending 16 cm in width and the cancer was HER2 negative.
“My heart sank,” she recalled. “My husband, Jason, let out a really long sigh. I felt like he was more stressed than I was.”
The cancer was too large for surgeons to operate on, so Sabrina had to undergo chemotherapy to shrink the tumor before surgery. She chose the earliest available slot.
The mass was so large that doctors feared the cancer had spread, so they sent her for a CT scan.
That was the first good news. Scans revealed that the cancer had not spread and was localized to the right breast.
“Looking back, it was nothing but God,” she said.
Sabrina looked for different ways to style herself so she could go out during chemotherapy.
This journey has had its challenges. Her first round of chemotherapy was not easy. “I had a fever, felt lightheaded, and was in bed for three days. I had no sense of taste.”
But miraculously, it turned out for the worst. “After that, I didn’t have any symptoms other than hair loss.”
After three months and six rounds of chemotherapy, she underwent surgery. It was a mastectomy of my right breast followed by reconstruction using latissimus dorsi (tissue from my back). This was followed by radiation.
Alone and in pain
For many cancer patients, chemotherapy is the worst part. For Sabrina, that meant undergoing surgery alone, staying in the hospital alone, and undergoing radiation therapy.
“It was during the COVID-19 pandemic and the hospital was not allowing visitors,” she recalled. “So I went to the hospital by myself to have the surgery.
“It was a strange feeling. So many things were going through my head.
“This was my first major surgery and I was alone so it was scary. I was worried about a lot of wuliao (stupid) things like, ‘What if the anesthesia doesn’t work and I feel pain?’ . Or what if your throat is blocked and they can’t put a breathing tube in? ” she said, laughing at the memory.
After the surgery, she had to endure pain and recover unaccompanied.
But Sabrina knew that although she was physically alone, she was not mentally alone.
lean on god
When Sabrina received the news of her diagnosis, “I didn’t feel angry at God. I didn’t feel it (cancer) came from God either,” she told Salt&Light. told.
Sabrina created a list of prayers for herself, including poems that friends had sent her, and said each one aloud each day. She meditated on 1 John 14:15.
God also sent an “angel” to her. “After the diagnosis, different people came to me to prepare for treatment,” she said.
Her mother brought in a breast cancer survivor to listen to her story. “She told me things like, ‘Cut your hair short before chemotherapy, so losing it won’t affect you as much.'”
People she had never met before came to encourage her.
“A group of her closest church associates rallied around her, forming her inner circle who prayed with me and believed with me,” she says, calling them her “community.” is.
Friends from her former cell group rallied around her, forming a community of prayer from which she drew comfort and support.
She also joined her church’s cancer patients and caregivers group, which met every two weeks to pray together.
One of Cynthia’s close friends from “Community” had a box of fresh fruit sent to her every month for six months.
This note was attached to one of the fruit gifts. “I keep all the prayers from different friends in a note on my phone and meditate on them and pray every day,” Sabrina said.
“In fact, I relied on God even more. Indeed, I drew closer to God. I had never prayed like that before.”
Sabrina was confident in her faith, especially during this time when she was battling cancer. However, when one of City Harvest Church’s pastors, Trung Zi-min, asked her if she felt God’s presence, Sabrina replied, “I don’t know.”
The pastor suggested, “Why don’t you feel the Lord and ask, “Lord, where are you?” You can commune with God. ”
Once during chemotherapy, she said, “I tried to feel what God was trying to say to me.” “I couldn’t hear anything, but old nursery rhymes kept playing in my head.”
She cried as she remembered that moment.
“It’s a very simple song. Jesus loves me because the Bible tells me so.” I was told that it was. God loves me. ”
the most difficult part
In July 2022, Sabrina received her final treatment. A year later, her doctors officially declared her cancer-free. She did not require any treatment for 12 months.
“On the last day of treatment, the nurse clapped my hand and said, ‘Congratulations!'” she recalled. “I felt like cancer was really behind me.”
Looking back, she said losing her hair to chemotherapy was emotionally difficult.
Sabrina prepares for her final chemotherapy session. Aside from side effects during the first session, she experienced great blessings during the course of treatment.
“I was very conscious of how I looked without hair, so before my treatment started I watched a lot of videos made by other patients about how to wear a wig. I bought a wig – You can’t take the wig off!”
But the most difficult part of cancer treatment wasn’t chemotherapy. “It was the pain after surgery and radiation therapy,” Sabrina said.
“The wound was slow to heal and took a long time to heal. I had to get stitches re-stitched several times.
“I also had fluid buildup in my latissimus dorsi (back) and had to undergo treatment to drain it. It took several months to heal.”
She underwent radiation therapy after surgery and was instructed to apply a cream after each treatment.
“Maybe I didn’t take it that seriously,” she thought. “When you’re exposed to radiation, it burns the inside of your skin. Eventually, the skin tore and peeled off, and the skin all over my chest came off.”
Her condition was so bad that she couldn’t go out. If I wore clothes, I risked further damaging my skin. She had to wait three weeks for her skin to heal and the inflammation to subside.
A year and a half after his last treatment, we celebrated Joshua’s 4th birthday. Sabrina and Jason are currently discussing their second child.
But Sabrina kept fighting, trusting God to be best and taking things at her own pace. She and her husband are currently considering having a second child.
“My doctor said I couldn’t have a baby for the first five years, but he said I could start thinking about it,” she said, smiling, adding that Joshua has recently started saying he needs four people in the house so he doesn’t get lonely. He added that he declared.
life review
When she was diagnosed with cancer, Sabrina seemed to switch off from work mode. “Basically, I put everything aside and it became clear to me that I had to get treatment.
“I never really thought much about the business side because my husband was still running it, and the retail team was just running the day-to-day operations.
“So my biggest responsibility was to get treatment right away. No one else can do that for me.”
That episode brought about a big change in her. “Through this episode, I learned that you shouldn’t try too hard. Before I got cancer, I was working late, was too stressed, and took my job too seriously.”
During treatment (Sabrina is wearing a wig in this photo), close friends came over and celebrated Christmas with the couple.
During her treatment, she stopped designing full time. “I gradually started delegating things to the team,” she said.
Succession planning was not considered until after her diagnosis. Jason was responsible for closing Sabrina Gor and successfully steered the business through the years of COVID-19.
Now, they are preparing to continue operating the business even if Sabrina retires.
“My life reflection after this is that we want to do our best, but we don’t want to sacrifice our health,” she added.
She sees her medical oncologist, breast surgeon, and radiologist every six months, and returns once a year for a scan.
She also made changes in her lifestyle. “I’ve consciously started going to bed earlier. I’m in bed by 10 p.m. Last time I was fine with going to bed around 2 a.m. But now it’s different. I’m so much more conscious.”
The couple has no plans for the evening. After dinner, they spend time with Joshua before going to bed. Even their cell group meetings are now held during the day.
Her eating habits have also improved. “I tell Joshua I only eat McDonald’s once a week.”
Eating well is part of Sabrina’s new regime, along with going to bed early.
What has grown is the intimacy she now feels with God. “(Through this experience) I learned that I could really rely on God. During COVID, no one was allowed in the room with me. I was alone in the operating room. I entered the room and prayed with my eyes closed.
“It was just God and me. He’s close to me.”
Sabrina is featured in Tatler Magazine for Breast Cancer Awareness Month to raise awareness about breast cancer.
For anyone reading this who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, she recommended:
“Surround yourself with people you trust who will support you. Community is so important. Don’t leave yourself alone. Join groups like the Breast Cancer Foundation and ask for help.”
Sabrina trusts God with her life. “I pray for a cancer-free future and that I can continue to do what God wants me to do.”
