Vandana Mahajan, Palliative Care Counselor, Cancer Counselor, Patient Advocate, and Cancer Survivor, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Story from the book of my life: Of the many chapters there are, only one is called “When Cancer happened” !
29th June, 2009!
A date that split my life into before and after. A lump on the neck and what followed was a birth of a ‘New Me’.
It began with surgery for thyroid cancer. Then came the words I never expected to hear—my vocal cords had been damaged. Surgery number two followed.
This time, I lost not only my thyroid but my parathyroid glands too. Then my body began to shut down. Grade 4 tetany. Every muscle locked. Every cell screamed. I was trapped inside a body that had turned against me.
I flatlined.
I died… and then I didn’t.
The doctor in the ER later told me that if there had been a delay of even a fraction of a second, this story would never have been written. Another hospitalization. Radioactive iodine ablation. Isolation. Scan after scan. Year after year.
A body that no longer worked the way it once did.
A life dependent on a very heavy dose of calcium tablets and rocaltrol. Something most people would never think twice about now determines whether I live. Miss them, and within 24–48 hours, death isn’t an abstract idea. It’s a possibility I carry with me every single day.
There were days I mourned the person I used to be.
Days I wondered if I would ever feel whole again.
Days when surviving was the only thing I could manage.
But somewhere between the pain, the fear, the scars, the silence, and the countless hospital corridors… something else was born.
Purpose.
Today, I walk beside people facing cancer because I know what it feels like when the ground disappears beneath your feet. I know the fear, the uncertainty, the loneliness. And I know how much it matters to have someone who understands.
Cancer changed the course of my life.
But it never got to decide the meaning of my life.
As the 8th of July approaches, I don’t remember only the trauma.
I remember the miracle.
I remember that I am still here.
Still breathing.
Still loving.
Still serving.
Still choosing life.
So today, I whisper something I once thought I would never say:
July… you were brutal.
But you were also the month that refused to let me go. You didn’t just teach me how to survive.
You taught me why.
And for that, I will always be grateful.”
Other articles featuring Vandana Mahajan on OncoDaily.