Evolving With Cancer

A Harvard oncologist takes Minti Jain, a cancer survivor, down memory lane as she finds moments of overlap.

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CANCER IS “slowly becoming the thing that changed people’s lives, something they can speak of in past tense,” says David Scadden in Cancerland: A medical memoir. So true! My nasopharyngeal cancer, that struck nine years ago, surely changed my life. It took eight-nine months to be diagnosed, but once I had the MRI report confirming nasopharynx carcinoma in my hands, it was such a relief to finally know why I had excruciating pain on the right side of my face and head, that random nose bleed, that throwing up of blood, those sleepless nights. Earlier, I had no clue what the nasopharynx was. I had also never bothered to read about cancer.

Scadden, a Harvard oncologist, describes his knowledge of cancer as a child “equaling irredeemable loss, unspoken of, incomprehensible and deeply sad”. That was exactly the feeling in the living room as I showed the lab report to my large family. There was a deathly silence as I stood there, unperturbed. My uncle then whacked me hard and asked me to cry as he hugged me. I did cry.