I told myself back in December that I would complete writing 'Cancer Circus' as a personal review of what and how everything transpired in regards to my health as affected by cancer before my annual PET scan on January 10th. It's a morbidly liberating way to begin the year, whichever way you look at it.

Seasonal festivities got the better of me, and before I could finish that entry of a detailed account of my experience, I was once again sitting in the patient chair at my doctor's consultation room. The results were not positive. One and half years after my first surgery, and radiation, cancer cells have spread from the mediastinal thymic region (between upper lobes of the lungs) to my pancreas.

After specialist consultation, a CT scan, an endoscopic ultrasound biopsy, more specialist consultation, amidst an agonising week of contemplating mortality, life, life without a pancreas, life with diabetes, life with an external appendage of seeping fluid, and life as an average (heavens forbid!) 33 year-old woman, we have reached the conclusion that the new tumours found in my pancreas are metastases of the original cancer cells (muco-epidermoid) from the primary site. We estimate these are more or less slow growing, definitely malignant.

In the realm of good and bad news, the fact that it's not pancreatic cancer is relatively good news. (Adenocarcinoma in the pancreas has a grim prognosis of about 3.5 months survival rate without treatment.) What options are available to me apart from watching these masses take up real estate in my abdomen is somewhat up for grabs. Of the limited treatments and therapies offered by conventional, mainstream medicine, I have decided to experiment with a target therapy in the form of oral medication, which prohibits alcohol abuse - how will I cope?! - along with a monitoring regime of regular PET scans (my fast track to Chernobyl). At the same time, I will be researching into more holistic, natural approaches in dealing with cancer. Despite my growing belief that modern medicine is invasive, toxic and even damaging rather than healing, I still count my blessings in the efficacy of the network of expert professionals and technical resources that my father has laid accessible to me. Tumours are detected in cancer patients every day. How many have the luxury of accessing immediate specialist attention, and the second opinion, with just a phone call?

I have been asked by well-wishers, 'Are you OK?', 'Is everything alright?' countless times in the past week as well as the last 18 months. Like everything in life, my answer to that is also relative. I have cancer. If, in the grand scheme of things, that's an 'alright', and it very well can be, then yes, I'm actually feeling, and looking (thanks to one-on-one personalised yoga) pretty effing fabulous, since I am not YET symptomatic. Whether or when do I develop symptoms? I cannot answer that. 'Are you in remission yet?' That loose term applied to an arbitrary number of 5 years of absence of disease. No, I am not, not even close. Will I ever be? I cannot answer that.

I don't love the cancer cells inside my body, but these fuckers are never going to go away completely. I've accepted that it's about co-existing with them in a harmonious environment, containing and managing their growth as well as my own mental expectations and development. I am my own cure.

Apart from hanging out in hospitals, commenting on ward renovations with friendly nurses, it has also been a time of celebration for Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong. I was at dinner with a bunch of old friends from Sydney this week, and one couple announced they're expecting a child. It's fantastic news, and life is indeed worth celebrating. Life does go on, and there's not much room for anger, regret or self-pity because moments, good or bad, expire. It's about experiencing each and every one of them earnestly, truthfully, as cliched as it sounds, about being in the moment. Too much or too little speculation would just do my head in. One day at a time.

That's all the answers I have for now. Cancer isn't infectious, my laughter is.

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Highlights: Cancer Talk