The first time Stefanie Loh composed a piano score, she was in the general ward of KK Women's and Children’s hospital, recovering from surgery for post nasal cancer.
The surgery left her speech temporarily slurred, frustrating the usually-chatty Stefanie. Schoolmates who visited her joked, “Oh, for once Stef is quiet!”
But Stefanie found her voice in music. At night, after the hospital visiting hours, she wrote down the tunes in her head.
“Music was a way for me to express how I felt,” says the 24-year-old, who plays the piano, violin, trumpet and guitar. Later, her band mates brought a trumpet for her to play, which lifted her spirits even further. “I became the noisiest patient in the ward,” she says, laughing.
While studying music at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Stefanie applied for the CCF opportunity fund, and received her own trumpet.
The fund, administered under the CCF Survivorship Programme, helps childhood cancer survivors achieve their personal goals and aspirations.
And Stefanie has found a way to give back. She regularly performs at CCF events. At CCF’s Family Day in 2015, she performed a piano composition she wrote in hospital titled Love, Faith and Hope.
“I want to show people that cancer is not a death sentence, and that kids who have cancer shouldn’t be shunned or pitied,” says Stefanie, who is a now a music teacher.
She adds, “Even with cancer, you can continue leading the life that you want, and doing the things that you want to do.”