After 13 years of flying as a Singapore Airlines leading steward, Adrian Tong felt the time was right for change.The former cabin crew had his eyes set on pursuing a career as a full-time self-employed real estate agent. But as fate would have it, this career switch was not as smooth sailing as he expected."Since I'm going to quit my job, perhaps I should go do a full body check-up," he thought.
Adrian recently sat down with AsiaOne to have an open conversation about his life journey thus far, from soaring heights with SIA to learning about his health condition and raising awareness on lung cancer online.After his studies, Adrian worked in both the banking and advertising line. That was back in 2010 when Adrian was 29 and he recalled how mentally draining the full-day interview process was.Adrian told AsiaOne how these interviews would include a catwalk as well as checks on an applicant's height, weight and skin condition.
"There's just too many things to do," he added, in reference to the food, culture and shopping available in the above-mentioned cities.Every chapter eventually comes to an end and having provided 13 years of his life to SIA, it was time to move on. A lung specialist was called in to conduct a biopsy and a couple of weeks after the initial health check-up, Adrian's cancer diagnosisHowever, he admitted that he had little time to process the news back then.
Making sense of a son's cancer diagnosis couldn't have been easy and Adrian mentioned how grateful he is to have his motherAt the time of writing, Adrian has completed five chemotherapy sessions and his cancerous area has shrunk by roughly 60 to 70 per cent.. This wasn't based on any medical advice or instruction by any means.So nowadays, Adrian consciously makes an effort to avoid refined sugar, shellfish and fried food.