Hong Kong television host Clark Chan Man-nam, known by the stage name Koba, has died at the age of 29 after a six-month battle with a rare form of spinal cancer.
Chan’s death was announced on his Instagram account late Saturday night in a post which had attracted more than 2,700 comments as of Sunday afternoon.
He had been a host on TVB’s Love Is…, a talk show about romance geared towards young people, before being diagnosed late last year with Ewing’s sarcoma, a type of cancerous tumour that forms in bones and primarily affects children and young adults.
The tumour was found between two segments of his spine.
The Instagram post carried his final words written on Wednesday last week, in which he expressed gratitude for the “constant support and care” from family, friends and the public.
“Having you all alongside me on this journey has made me feel incredibly fortunate and thankful,” he said. The date of his death was not immediately clear.
Chan detailed his final weeks in the social media post, including a complete loss of bladder control that required him to use diapers and catheters, and constant pain in areas where he still had sensation, such as his shoulder blades, neck and scalp.
He said he had been hospitalised since June 22 due to complete lower-body paralysis.
“I couldn’t move anything below my chest and had zero sensation … so I had to be rushed to hospital,” he wrote.
“The cancer has spread to many different areas, including my chest, lungs, multiple vertebrae and lymph nodes … I can even physically feel some of the lumps.”
Koba was having difficulty breathing, also suffering heart palpitations and feeling cold and sweaty.
Doctors told him that further rehabilitation therapy would be ineffective and instead the focus should be on palliative care.
The television star in December of last year gave the first clear indication that he had cancer when he posted a video of his shaved head after losing “a lot of hair” from chemotherapy.
He has since been open about his treatment, updating the public on his progress and answering questions about Ewing’s sarcoma, with followers leaving comments of encouragement and admiration over his optimistic attitude on his social media channels.
Koba said in one video that Ewing’s was most common in children and rarely affected adult men, so he thought of himself as a “one in a million, God’s chosen child”.
He added that his family had no history of cancer, and he only spoke to doctors after feeling discomfort around his hip area.
Doctors initially spent about two months treating him for spinal disc herniation, finding no improvement, before they ran more scans which revealed the tumour in his spine.
