MY ADMIRATION for Dr William Tan has grown immensely since my meetings with him following his diagnosis of leukaemia.
He was already a pretty heroic figure — someone who had put Singapore on the map with his super-human feats — such as being the first to complete a marathon at the North Pole on a wheelchair.
He is also intelligent: a neuroscientist and medical doctor, a Fulbright scholar, among his academic successes.
But since The Straits Times broke the news of his illness, and his subsequent letter denying that he had acute myelogenous cancer (AML) — he doesn't, he has a different form of leukaemia called chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) — we have met a couple of times, and communitated by email much more frequently.
I now not only admire, but also like him very much.
You can admire a person for his successes and his feats. But such people are not necessarily likeable. Even charity work is sometimes done for the publicity it generates.
But after more than three hours last last week listening to William talk about his life since discovering he had cancer, his honesty, humanity and love of life came through with cutting clarity.
Yes, he does strive to set world records.
But the fact that he finished the Paris marathon, even though he was trailing so badly, tells a story — he wants to be first. But more than that, he wants to complete what he has started, even if it means he is the last past the finishing line.
With his nose bleeding like a leaky tap, no one would have faulted him for dropping out of the race. He sets such high standards for the rest of us to follow.
Is William, paralysed from the waist down since the age of two, disabled?
Not by a long shot.
Not when he has so much determination and tenacity.
His determination to be a model patient, compliant to all that his doctors want him to do, to give his fight against cancer his best shot, is a new height he hopes to scale.
People like Dr William Tan are perhaps put into this world to inspire the rest of mankind.
In the past, he has shown that a physical disability cannot stop a good man. He gives inspirational talks around the world. People sit up and listen to him, because of his achievements in spite of his paralysis.
He has already done much good. But perhaps the best is yet to come.
In how he fights his cancer, William could be a model for other cancer victims: don't take it lying down, fight it till the very end.
As he said, once he has decided on a course, there is no turning back, no matter how tough the going gets.
It was that single-minded determination that got him pushing a spiked wheelchair in the frozen waste of both the Arctic and Antarctica.
If he can inspire other patients, of cancer and other illnesses, to also do their best to beat their disease, then he would leave an even greater legacy.