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Journalism of Courage
Chhavi Mittal, who was diagnosed with breast cancer early last year and emerged victorious against the deadly disease, documented her recovery journey on social media and turned inspiration for many. She started by telling the story of Bumblebee. “According to aerodynamics, the Bumblebee’s body weight is not in proportion to the wing so it cannot fly. But the Bumblebee doesn’t know it, so it goes ahead and flies anyway,” Chhavi said.
The actor-producer admitted thinking something similar. “That’s what I thought. If I don’t know I have lumps, there aren’t any. When my radiologist told me the first time that I have three lumps in my breast and I should get it checked, I thought it was completely fine since I have been living with it anyway. I know it’s nothing,” she said, adding that she got a biopsy done after her doctor’s insistence and it came out positive. “I owe my life to her.”
Getting diagnosed with a disease as deadly as cancer is sure to arouse fear and panic. But, that was not something that Chhavi felt. “I feel really scared when my daughter calls me twice in a row. I feel something has gone wrong and something has happened. But when I got cancer, somehow fear is not what I felt. I realised I have cancer and that I have to fight it. Fear is a perception; it’s subjective. I may be scared of one thing, you may be scared of something else,”
During her journey, she learned that there are different types of cancer and breast cancer. “The ability to fight cancer is also different,” Chhavi said.
After getting diagnosed with cancer, the 42-year-old weighed her options. “I called all the doctors. I read all my options. I got all my facts in place. To a lot of people, breast cancer means mastectomy and an end of life. Even I had a lot of myths. I thought it’s best to talk to specialists who know what they are doing, and not Google it. Once I talked to my doctor, he told me it’s 100 per cent curable,” she said.
While her cancer was curable, Chhavi wanted to know how her life would change after the treatment. “I asked my doctor if I would be able to do things that I love, like working out. Once he told me that I will be able to do these things and that having cancer doesn’t mean the end of life, I was very confident I am going to fight it.”
She emphasised that having cancer is no reason to put a pause on your regular life. “I decided to continue doing everything that I usually do and try to feel as normal as I can. I started going to the gym on the 10th day of my surgery. Not that I could do much, but I just wanted to be in a place that makes me happy. I started going to the office and I started playing with my kids. Just because I continued to feel normal, I had an amazing recovery journey,” she said.
Concluding, Chhavi shared why she decided to detail her cancer journey on social media. “The reason why I chose to share this on social media is that I think as a social media figure, we share everything happy about our lives, so why should I not talk about the negative aspects? I thought that if I am going to continue to be on social media, I cannot be living a lie. Hence, I decided to share my journey. I started getting messages from a lot of cancer warriors and learned so many inspirational stories.”
For her, her recovery from cancer is like getting a second chance at life. “My pre-cancer life was different. The mistakes I made during my first birth, I don’t want to repeat now. The most important mistake I was doing earlier was that I wasn’t giving myself importance. God has given me another chance and I want to devote it to doing what I love the most,” she said.
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