His wife's tumour was size of small pomelo

It was the happiest day of his life when his wife gave birth to healthy twin girls. But when Madam Lily Tan, then 23, did not lose the weight she had put on during her pregnancy, Mr Toh Ah Kheng's friends began asking him about it. The 43-year-old said in Mandarin: "I told them she had already given birth, but why she still had a belly, no one knew. "It was only when she went for a scan that we found out that a tumour had been growing with our baby girls inside her." That was in 2002. Madam Tan was later diagnosed with advanced liposarcoma, an extremely rare type of cancer. Two months later, a 10kg tumour with a circumference of 48cm - about the size of a small pomelo - was removed from her abdomen. But it was just the beginning of the couple's nightmares. She continued developing tumours on her abdomen and back over the next nine years before finally succumbing to the disease on Boxing Day last week. She was 31. Mr Toh said he and his wife met in 2000. She and some friends had visited the leisure fishing farm he was working at and the two hit it off immediately. Speaking to The New Paper last Friday at his flat in Tampines Mr Toh recalled: "I loved her because she was very sweet and kind-hearted, and was always smiling. She was very pretty. "After dating for about one year, we decided to get married and we had our first daughter soon after."