Journey of Preeti through her eyes

Your story isn’t over yet;

For our first story, we’ll be talking about a very energetic and charismatic young breast cancer survivor, Preeti (name changed to protect her identity). Preeti was the ‘happy-go-lucky’ kind, her life was going exactly the way she had planned it. She was watching the sunset every day from her house that had a sea-facing view. The shiny car that she had once seen in a fancy showroom was now parked in her garage. Her MBA certificate sat proudly in her glass showcase for all to see. Every dream that she had ever seen, all the dreams that she had put on paper were finally coming to life. But sometimes, all your dreams can fall apart in just a single blink of an eye. For Preeti, the same piece of paper on which she had written her dreams, appeared what seemed like a full stop.

And that full stop was ‘cancer’.

At times like these, just like any other person, Preeti wanted to crumble up the paper, rip it to pieces, burn it to the ground, if only doing all that could erase the word ‘cancer’ from her life. She kept contemplating life, thinking to herself over and over again ‘how could this happen to me? So quickly, so suddenly?’. It all felt like a bad dream to her, hence she pinched herself hard, so hard that it left a bruise on her arm. She roamed from one hospital to another in hopes that at least one of them would tell her that she’s perfectly fine. She kept expecting someone to jump out with a camera and yell “it’s a prank!”. But obviously, none of that happened. Reality slowly started kicking in. She could no longer see her MBA certificate, or her shiny car or the sunset from her fancy house; the only thing she could see was darkness and uncertainty.

But the darkness was quickly taken over by the white-washed hospital walls, the doctor’s white coats and white bed sheets with faint stains over it. She stared at the ceiling fan for hours on end, as her concerned family members and friends sat next to her bawling their eyes out. Preeti reveals that at that moment the only thought that danced around in her head was, “Are they wondering as well, how much longer I am gonna live?”. Subsequently, after several visits to the hospital, Preeti finally mustered the strength to see herself eye to eye in the mirror.

Preeti couldn’t recognize the girl who was now standing in front of her in the mirror; looking all pale standing in a hospital gown, with thin and fallen hair. Seeing herself in such a state, doubt started kicking in again. Preeti wondered and wondered if these treatments were the only option she had? Her mental and physical state were deteriorating; she wanted to give up but then she saw the faces of her family members, who waited in the hospital for her day and night with next to no sleep, yet they always smiled whenever they made eye contact with her. When she saw hope in their tired, swollen eyes, they made her start hoping too. Hoping that maybe the treatment would work after all. Amidst her dwindling mindset where she questioned everything around her, Preeti had faith in her Oncologist; that he would help her get well and get back to her normal life. But the thing is that even after you defeat cancer, you cannot go back to your normal old life, because people don’t let you – She thought. And people did the same to her as well. Even after she defeated cancer, she saw the same sympathy and pity in their eyes which she had seen while she was suffering from cancer.

This made her realise that no matter how hard she tries, the world will always look at her differently from now onwards. But this did not stop Preeti; even she started looking differently at the world. She now tries to see magic and fantasy in the same things that she once thought were just regular or boring even. The traffic on Western express highway, which once used to annoy her, now makes her feel alive. Previously she used to avoid seeing or meeting her friends, constantly giving them excuses about work, but now she constantly searches for some or the other excuse to go see the same friends! The childhood dreams and passions which she had once sacrificed due to work and responsibilities, now she tries to embrace those passions and dreams and tries her best to live life with them. Truly, cancer is a weird thing, it makes you see eye to eye with both death and life. Maybe that means that ‘cancer’ isn’t a full stop but rather a semicolon, meaning that your story isn’t over yet;

When you cry in tears, you can’t see things properly. To have a clear “sight” you need to drop the tear and you have to keep doing that.

Now’s time for a short message from Preeti: “I’m grateful to the entire team of Sunrise Oncology Centre who not only managed my disease well, but they coached and guided my family as well. Thank you Dr. Ashay Karpe and team for the hand holding several like me.

With love,
From Preeti, a young Breast Cancer survivor.”