Chinese singer Qu Wanting reveals she had full mastectomy after breast cancer diagnosis, Entertainment News

Chinese singer-songwriter Qu Wanting recently revealed she underwent a full mastectomy after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The 42-year-old, who is best known for her track You Exist in My Song (2012) and based in Canada, recounted in a YouTube interview with Canadian-Chinese culture platform Fete Chinoise released on July 11 that she discovered a lump in her left breast after a mammogram in April 2020.

After undergoing multiple medical tests, her doctor informed her that the tumour was cancerous.

“By the end of the phone call, I was just in so much shock, because I was so young. At the time, I was still like 35 or 36. I was just like, ‘How could this happen to a young person? I don’t understand it. I’ve never heard of that. And, why me?'” Wanting said.

At that point, she was solely focused on going through the process to seek medical treatment for survival.

Wanting also wrote in an Instagram post today (July 17): “For a brief moment, I felt angry at the world and sorry for myself. But that quickly turned into action. I focused on what I could do to heal — the exercises, the food and every step forward.

“I didn’t have time to dwell on the past or fear the future. Only now mattered. I was going to live like there was no tomorrow.”

She said in the interview that she underwent a lumpectomy to remove the tumour, but while it was successful, her doctor found later that the tissues around the tumour were also cancerous.

Wanting was scheduled for another surgery shortly and she only had two friends who accompanied her.

“That was the moment I’m like, ‘I need my family, I miss my family’,” she said.

Wanting’s mum, formerly a planning official in Harbin, was arrested in 2014 for corruption, abuse of power and embezzlement of 350 million yuan (S$66.7 million). In 2021, she was sentenced to life imprisonment after she was found guilty of bribery and abuse of power by the Chinese court.

In the interview, Wanting shared that after surgery, her doctor found that 70 per cent of her left breast was cancerous. After undergoing more tests, the doctor concluded that cancerous cells were only found on her left breast.

She was told to decide on either a lumpectomy, which could result in deformity, or a mastectomy, which is to remove the entire breast tissue.

Wanting was also told that if she had the latter, she could do reconstructive surgery later.

She decided that a single mastectomy was required but was in a dilemma about the reconstructive surgery: “Do I want to put another plastic bag in my body which can potentially cause other types of cancers, and also, it’s a foreign object in my body and it’s going to reject it for the rest of my life.

“And if not the rest of my life, every 10 to 15 years I have to reopen the wound, take the old bag out and put a new one in. It’s just a non-stop potential ticking bomb and has more health-damaging stuff in my body. Why would I want that?”

After much consideration, she decided she would not have the reconstructive surgery, opting for a flat closure: “I really value my health. I didn’t want to take something toxic away from my body, losing my breast and put another toxic thing in.”

Wanting also added in her Instagram post that it was the “hardest decision” of her life as she was choosing between keeping the appearance of her left breast or protecting her future health, and she ultimately decided on “health over aesthetics”.

It was also during this time that she wrote the song Nine More Days, which is a countdown to the day of her surgery, as well as what she had experienced. The song was renamed One More Day in her latest album Love Letter, which was released on July 3.

Wanting also shared that at the time; she was worried whether someone would still love her because of her imperfections.

“I told myself, if someone doesn’t love me, just because I am missing a boob, then that’s not someone I want to be with, because I don’t associate my femininity with having two boobs. I can still present myself and be myself, have that feminine side without missing one boob,” she explained, adding that she encouraged herself that she is going to live and enjoy life and that’s the most important thing.

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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com

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