Surviving against Cancer is not different than battling at war. Keeping yourself strong, you can easily go through it and extend your beautiful life.

Many might think that survival from cancer is followed by good fortune and an optimistic outlook on life. Cancer treatment can be both exciting and challenging at the same time. Despite going through the treatment, your body is bruised with permanent scars giving you a reminder of those arduous moments of suffering along with a fear if its return. There aren't any specific causes of cancer (smoking cigarettes and exposure to radiations being the obvious ones) and hence the causes of cancer branch out from the hereditary traits of your family to the common life choices that you make on an everyday basis. Many medics would suggest that being active in terms of your fitness and maintaining a healthy diet would reduce the risk of cancer. However, in case of Dr. Reena Shrestha Baidya's account, none of the recommendations mentioned above seem to have had a positive impact on her battle against cancer. From a report in the late '80s, Ken Cooper, M.D., who is said to have introduced the concept of aerobics, stated that logging more than 15 to 20 miles a week could potentially increase the risk of cancer. He along with other medics believed that vigorous exercise like long distance jogging produced free radicals in plenitude that were linked to degenerative diseases. In this article, Dr. Reena shares her story about battling cancer. Although, the battle lasted for a short stint the effects were traumatizing. At present she is a pathologist, in charge of the path lab, and the HR manager at the B&B Hospital in Gwarko. She is also involved in the teaching profession as an Assistant Professor at the Kantipur Dental College. She resides at the Valley Homes colony which is located at Sunakothi, which is about 5 km away from her workplace, the B&B hospital.

Minimizing alcohol intake can reduce its risk. A glass of wine, beer, or hard drinks per day is the maximum recommended dosage.

It's been about 2 years since I found out about the cancer. The date was 31st March 2014, the day I got rid of it. Being a doctor myself, I used to palpate myself on a routine basis. I had attended seminars related to breast self examinations, and I was completely aware about its concepts and consequences. I even used to examine patients and detect cancer cells in their body myself; I even diagnosed them. Despite all these, I never felt the uneasiness of the lump developing within my body. It was on the 24th of March 2014, I came home after a MRI scan on my leg; I was changing my clothes and that was when I detected the lump at about 8:30 pm.

I was a victim of breast cancer, and the news came as a bit of a shock to me. I had a really hard time diagnosing myself and I couldn't actually believe that I had cancer. I had doubts about whether my slides were mistaken for another person's slide and I wasn't convinced enough to believe that I had breast cancer. You see, I was very conscious about my fitness and I loved to exercise from a very young age. Whether it be aerobics, yoga or kickboxing; I wouldn't mind getting involved into any such activities. Maybe because of the excessive exercising, I started sensing pain in my legs. That is the reason why I performed a MRI scan on my leg. So, as I came back home from the scan; I detected the lump while changing my clothes. The usual symptoms that you hear about breast cancer are: lumps developing around breasts or armpits, rashes around the nipples, change in size or shape of the breast, peeling or flaking of breast and nipple skin, and in some cases the nipples may discharge blood as well. I consider myself very lucky to have detected the lump at an early stage. However, despite detecting the lump in the early phases, I have to say the cancer lump was pretty big in size. It wasn't that noticeable as the lump was located very deep inside my body and it wasn't quite superficial. The lump was about 3x2.5cm in size, which is generally considered to be big. What I had was a high grade cancer. Basically such kind of cancer is considered to be very aggressive in nature.

After the detection of the cancer lump, we (including my husband, Dr. Niraj Baidya) decided to fly to Delhi for the operation.  Since we had our own hospital to get admitted into, we didn't stay there for more than two days; our friends and family were here as well, so I came back to Kathmandu on a wheelchair. We came to the hospital itself, directly from the airport. After that I took a month's rest followed by a radiation therapy that was due after a month and a half gap since the operation. So, we went back to Delhi for the radiation therapy and we stayed there for a few months and then we came back to Nepal again. I went through some dark days after my time in Delhi. After going through the operation, I suffered from depression for a while. I didn't want to talk to anyone, so I used to switch off my phone. I didn't want to contact anyone, inform them about my illness. Only a few of my close family members knew about my condition. It was only after I came back from Delhi, after the therapy, that I had a positive outlook on life and everything started to seem okay.

General health checkups are very important for all of us. We don't usually have medical insurance coverage in our country, so it is a must to go for a general health checkup on a timely basis. Early detection of cancer is curable, and such checkups will be quite resourceful in terms of detecting cancer at an early stage. People should change their notion about cancer that it is incurable. If detected at late stages, it can be an arduous task to recover from it; but if it is detected at an early stage, it is curable. The fear of its recurrence keeps lingering, even after the recovery. Even a slight illness made me nervous about the cancer. So, it's important to have a positive attitude and carry on with your life in an optimistic way. Currently, I'm quite positive about my life. I only realize I had cancer while sharing the experience of going through it with others. There are certain medications that I have been prescribed to take for about five years and I follow up on the therapies as well, but life's good. Maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise is very important in terms of sustaining your life. So, there's nothing to fear about cancer as long as we work smartly. Constant health checkups are really important as life is full of surprises and we must be prepared for it.

Here are a few facts about breast cancer that can be helpful:

  • Most breast cancer cases occur in women with no family history of breast cancer.
  • Men can also suffer from breast cancer. About 1 in every 1000 men are diagnosed with breast cancer on an annual basis.
  • Gaining excess weight after menopause increases the risk of breast cancer by 1.5, in comparison to the lean ones.
  • Minimizing alcohol intake can reduce its risk. A glass of wine, beer, or hard drinks per day is the maximum recommended dosage.
  • Younger women who smoke have a higher risk of breast cancer in comparison to the ones who don't.