Grow, learn, heal: how this filmmaker is living with cancer, and using every moment as a gift
- Australian-born Joshua Wong has a rare form of cancer, but he and his wife ‘chose to continue to chase what we’re passionate about’ in spite of the diagnosis
- The idea for a film, The Calm Beyond, came to him during an MRI scan. It’s about surviving a storm and ‘how you live after’, and has just had its premiere
Fear and uncertainty are constants for many of us, and Australian-born Chinese filmmaker Joshua Wong is acutely familiar with these feelings. Wong is battling advanced adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), a rare form of cancer that begins in the glandular tissues. It has spread through his body to his lungs, brain, spine and skull.
“I can’t tell you how long the road is ahead of me … we never know how long the road ahead is,” says the 42-year-old Hongkonger. Wong, who has lost sight in one eye, has learned to live life to the full. He told the Post what he has discovered on his journey – things which influenced his first feature film, The Calm Beyond.
ACC typically occurs in the salivary glands in the head and neck. Research on its prevalence in Asia is limited, and doctors don’t know what causes it. It affects 1,200 people in the United States annually, according to the country’s National Organisation for Rare Disorders.
After years of doctor visits to establish the cause of his pain, imaging scans and a biopsy in 2018 led to a diagnosis of ACC and, with surgery and radiation, Wong was able to win the first round of his fight with the disease.
In February, Wong began to feel unwell again. “I was working out and doing normal stuff when I felt shortness of breath,” he recalls.
Scans showed the cancer had returned, and there were multiple growths in his body. An oncologist told him his prospects were bleak, that metastatic (or spreading) ACC can “shorten one’s life to a matter of months”, and that chemotherapy wasn’t effective for his cancer.
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From quite early on, Wong and his wife decided to spend their time focused on living, rather than just “not dying”. “We chose to continue to chase what we’re passionate about while still remaining wise in our choices, like not neglecting rest and doing positive things,” he explains.
The festival’s website provides this tantalising summary: “Melting polar ice-caps spawn floods and tidal waves, reducing Hong Kong’s cityscape to a smattering of buildings left protruding from the elevated waterline. The CGI effects alone are worth the price of admission.”
The idea for the film came about while Wong was having an MRI scan in 2018. “As I was fleshing out the story … I realised the film is about living with trauma and not just surviving a storm, but how you live after the storm,” he says.
If you’re eating a nice chicken on a bed of salad but that chicken was fed hormones and genetically modified, then so are you
So how does he live and cope amid his own proverbial storm?
Wong says a balanced perspective is important. Don’t subscribe to the idea that you have to be optimistic all the time, he says. Life is filled with great days, but there are painful ones, too, and it is OK to acknowledge the existence of both.
“It’s okay to sit in the s***, just don’t lie down in it,” he says. Eventually, you have to lift yourself up and press onwards in a positive way. It’s the only way forward, to deal with adversity, trauma or pain.
“Dwelling on bitterness, anger, the ‘Why me?’ thing doesn’t help me … or help me get more out of life, and it doesn’t help people around me who have to deal and live with me,” says Wong – you have to break out of that mentality.
Focusing on the blessings in life helps, too. For Wong, that includes caring for his baby daughter. “I thank God I’ve been able to almost lose everything, to realise and value what I have,” he says.
Reaching out for support is important too, though it requires one to be humble and to let people in and say “I need help”. In 2018, his church community prayed for him and brought him food while he was in hospital. Such love lifted his mood and helped bolster his fighting spirit.
His father stepped up, too. “He had to leave at a young age and didn’t get to be a dad to me,” says Wong, who bears emotional scars from being a child of divorce. “Through this, I needed my dad. He became that. That was so healing, so redeeming.”
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Another grounding force for Wong is Leora Caylor, an integrative oncology coach who “filled my head with positive options, not just painful statistics from doctors,” Wong says.
“She’s helped me understand that optimal health starts with having the right foundations in place, and … I’ve done specialised testing beyond what is typical in traditional oncology.
“Leora has been an unbiased guide and crucial intermediary between myself and my doctors, helping me ask the right questions to get the best results, and opening my eyes to the many scientifically supported options out there.”
He is effusive in his praise for Chelsea, his “hero” wife of seven years. “She’s by my side in the trenches, letting me sleep or knowing when I need more rest, all while caring for our infant.”
The body needs more than just rest – it needs you to care for it. Wong, a lover of salads and an avid cook, thought he was eating healthily before he got sick. Now, though, he pays more attention to where his produce comes from to make sure it has no chemicals that might affect his health.
“If you’re eating a nice chicken on a bed of salad but that chicken was fed hormones and genetically modified, then so are you,” he explains.
He has also cut out most sugars and has drastically cut down on simple carbohydrates. “Those two simple changes aren’t easy to make, but they make a huge difference in my body and lifestyle. It’s not necessarily the easiest nor the cheapest solution to [having] good health, but my philosophy is, you spend three main things in life: time, money and health. We often want to save money and time, but at the cost of our health. That’s completely wrong – I’ve chosen to spend more time and money now, to save on health.
“Besides, spending on health eventually costs more time and money in the long run, so it’s the wisest way forward all round.”
The combination of chemotherapy and integrative therapies, thankfully, is working. A tumour in his brain has shrunk to half its original size, and the growths in his lungs have diminished significantly. However, there are still malignant masses, and Wong is researching clinics around the world for his next treatment options.
“I don’t like cancer or sickness, but pain is an opportunity or warning sign to pay attention to,” Wong says. “It’s become an opportunity to grow, learn and heal.”
