Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
A LOT of unfortunate things have happened to seven-year-old Ieuan Magat and his family, and yet, he and the Magats have persisted on feeling fortunate for the unforeseen blessings that continued to fall their way; not least of which has been full charity support from Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital and its radiation oncologist, Dr. Lee Kuo Ann, in the city-state of Singapore.
The series of unfortunate events began when he was between four to five years old: Ieuan lost the use of his right eye due to complications from a tumor in the head, specifically adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma.
Again unfortunately, Ieuan’s tests and treatments got derailed for around two years after his mother, Roda Shayne Magat, became pregnant.
Ieuan developed hypopituitarism, necessitating thyroid medication, and his body stopped producing stress hormones, necessitating taking steroids. Still, despite the ensuing drowsiness, contorted mouth and numbness on his left side, he continued to attend his classes with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
Fortunately, Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital was the only medical center to respond in May 2024 to the frantic emails of Roda Magat to all the institutions with proton beam therapy capacity for the second protocol of treatment for her son.
In July 2024, Dr. Lee Kuo Ann himself examined Ieuan’s MRI scans when the radiation oncologist, again fortunately, had a talk scheduled in Manila. The doctor personally advised Roda that Ieuan could begin proton beam therapy in Singapore as soon as the fluid in the brain was drained first in the Philippines.
What followed were 10 protracted months of consultations with an endocrinologist, neurosurgeon, neuro-oncologist, ophthalmologist and hematologist-oncologist at the designated government hospital for cancer-related treatments before the cystic fluid could be surgically removed as part of the first protocol. In no small part due to the perpetually long queues for scheduling at the public hospital, Ieuan unwittingly experienced more misfortune.
“Mama, could you turn on the lights? Is there a blackout,” he asked his mother earnestly in Filipino when he woke up during the day at the government hospital after finally undergoing the preliminary protocol of his treatment.
When Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital found out that Roda had to give up her job as a government employee at the national health insurance agency and rely on the provincial security guard earnings of her husband due to the necessities of looking after her completely blind son and two smaller children, the hospital took mercy on the situation of the Magat family and facilitated the shouldering of the costs of proton beam therapy, round-trip flights from Manila to Singapore, and transportation, food and accommodation while staying in the city-state. This, of course, was achieved with the help of organizations such as Philippine Airlines and other Philippine health care agencies.
No one felt more fortunate than Ieuan himself, who — immediately after his latest bout of proton beam therapy at the massive and stately tech facility of the hospital — hammed it up for the press cameras with his signature good-looking-boy hand sign and pose and even broke into song that was more typical of a Filipino karaoke birthday party than a cancer treatment session. But such was the story of Ieuan and the Magat family, and that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Despite his blindness, Ieuan saw a bright future for himself, and when he was well enough and when his family could move to Manila from the province, he hoped to enroll at the Philippine National School for the Blind, and he dreamed of being a sculptor one day.
A child with high dreams, a hospital with high quality service
While Ieuan Magat was a hopeful young patient at seven years old, he was certainly not the youngest to undergo proton beam therapy at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital. The youngest patient to be treated was 1.5 years old while the oldest patient was 87 years old. Of the kinds of tumors treated at the Proton Therapy Centre, the top three were brain tumors, such as that of Ieuan’s; head and neck tumors; and prostate tumors.
Since the Proton Therapy Centre opened in May 2023, patients from over 29 countries have been provided with this specialized health care service of Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital. The Proton Therapy Centre was the first of its kind to be offered in a hospital in Singapore, and the city-state itself was only the second country in the entire Southeast Asia to offer the technology.
While Dr. Lee Kuo Ann most frequently treated head cancers with proton beam treatment due to the proximity of tumors to the brain and many critical structures such as the optical nerve, he said radiation oncologists also often provided treatment for the breasts, lungs, esophagus, liver, and even the cervix and endometrium as well.
He said although radiation therapy could take some months or even years to reduce the sizes of tumors, as opposed to the immediate removal of malignant cells via surgery, the noninvasiveness of the proton beam treatment for sensitive tissues was what made up for the timeline difference between the two medical protocols.
“Most of the time, we will see — after radiation — the tumor will shrink. It may not completely disappear [but] as long as it doesn’t grow, then we’ve actually achieved success,” he said.
He explained that with benign tumors such as that of Ieuan’s, these did not spread but only caused complications due to their size. So, the protocol involved removing the tumor completely or making it small enough to warrant successful treatment.
“That’s what we set out to achieve in radiation. So, [it’s] about 85 percent chance, likely, that we will succeed in this regard,” the Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital radiation oncologist concluded.
Those were hopeful odds, indeed, that provided hopeful patients such as Ieuan Magat the precious time necessary to achieve their dreams.