SINGAPORE – It all started with a fall onstage while singer and content creator Hasyima Yusof was competing in The Final 1, a local reality singing competition, in 2014.
She was 20 then.
The pain worsened over time, affecting her sleep, ability to walk and quality of life, prompting her to see a doctor two years later.
Hasyima underwent several scans at a private hospital, which revealed a 10cm tumour growing in her spine. She underwent surgery to remove it, and a biopsy confirmed that it was benign.
What she had was a spinal ependymoma, a very rare tumour that develops from the cells lining the spinal cord. While classified as benign, it can still cause serious neurological issues by pressing on the spinal cord.
It affects about one in 350,000 people, and fewer than five new cases are diagnosed in Singapore each year.
Sharon Poh, a radiation oncologist at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), said that although ependymomas most commonly occur in childhood, these slow-growing tumours may remain undetected until adulthood.
“While lower-grade tumours can be slow-growing and demonstrate non-invasive behaviour, higher-grade tumours have the potential to behave like cancers and grow aggressively. If left untreated, they can continue to enlarge and compress the spinal cord, eventually leading to weakness, numbness, loss of sensation or paralysis,” she said.
Poh added that early diagnosis and timely treatment are important to help preserve neurological function, prevent damage and improve long-term outcomes.
In Hasyima’s case, a routine check-up in 2020 showed that the tumour had returned and was larger than before – this time measuring about 17cm.
She was operated on a second time to remove the tumour, but this time, Hasyima experienced side effects after surgery. There was numbness from her hips to her toes that affected her mobility.
The former finalist in The New Paper New Face 2017 contest, who turns 32 in August, said: “I was not only devastated, but also frustrated.”
Hasyima (left) was 23 when she was a finalist in The New Paper New Face 2017, a year after her first surgery to remove a tumour from her spine.
PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER
“It seemed like every four years, my life had to be put on hold because the doctors had to ‘fix’ me all over again. It took up a lot of the time. I could have spent it doing what other 20-something-year-old women were doing – living life. Instead, I spent it learning to get on my feet all over again,” she added.
But with the support of her family, friends and then boyfriend Jaime Cruz, Hasyima managed to stay positive.
Cruz, now 41, became her “main pillar of support”, helping to prepare her meals, running errands, accompanying her for medical appointments and giving emotional support when Hasyima was at her lowest during the loss of mobility.
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