In 1981, at the height of his career with the Ministry of Defence, 41-year-old Captain Lim Swee Cheong was diagnosed with nose cancer.
Three days after his diagnosis he started a course of radiotherapy.
But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else he should try.
While continuing with radiation, he thought about what he describes as the 'most manageable areas of healing' - fasting, herbal and natural treatments and self-hypnosis.
Doctors had initially given him 10 weeks to live. But that just served to ignite the soldier's fighting instincts.
Combining the advice of a Tibetan monk, a naturopath and a marathon jogger, he created a plan that he says worked for him.
It included prayer, meditation, fasting, specific herbs and a diet of raw, organic, vegetarian food with lots of juices.
Several people found his meat-less diet to be 'nothing short of madness', especially as the once hefty 102kg captain had shrunk to a mere 63kg.
In 1991, he wrote a book, titled When Dawn Breaks Upon The Darkest Hour, about his journey with cancer. In it, he describes how he stood on a cushion of grass in his garden one morning in his bare feet. He said that he felt that it gave him a new source of strength.
'It convinced me, as never before, of the awesome power of nature,' he says in his book.
Then, one day, he woke up with a dawning realisation that his sleep had been free of coughs and pain.
He knew then, even before being tested, that he had been 'healed'.
This had happened within a year of his initial diagnosis.
