Shrenik Shah, Patient Ambassador and Moderator of Fridays with Shrenik Live webinar at the Indian Cancer Society, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“28 years ago, I stepped into a hospital room thinking it was a routine check.
Instead, I walked out with a diagnosis that shattered everything I knew.
Stage IV vocal cord cancer.
Aggressive. Critical.
And the only way to save my life was to remove the very thing my life depended on, my natural voice.
Here’s the timeline that shaped the journey people now call Life 2.0:
1. 1996: My voice turns hoarse. Weight drops. Doctors misdiagnose it twice.
2. August 1997: Internal bleeding starts. Another scope. This time—the truth.
3. September 05, 1997: A 7-hour surgery. Emergency tracheotomy. Total laryngectomy.
I survived… but woke up unable to speak.
What followed wasn’t recovery.
It was reinvention.
Learning to communicate from scratch. 36 rounds of radiation. Months of fatigue, sleepless nights, and a bionic voice prosthesis that felt alien at first.
But somewhere in that silence, a different kind of voice started forming.
A voice built on conviction.
A voice that refused to give up.
Fast-forward to today:
- 7 TEDx talks
- 9,000+ hours speaking globally
- Times Square feature
- Patient Leader Hero Award (USA)
- Short film showcased at the World Cancer Congress, Geneva
- Cover story of The Ambassador Magazine (2025)
- Message carried by Josh Talks to 11M+ people
and so much more….
I still don’t have natural vocal cords. But I have something far more powerful: A story that refused to stay quiet.
If you’re reading this, remember, life doesn’t end at the breaking point.
Sometimes, that’s exactly where the new chapter begins.”
More posts featuring Shrenik Shah on OncoDaily.
