‘Incredibly lucky’: Rajdeep Sardesai shares his prostate cancer journey 3 months after diagonosis
In his weekly Straight Bat vlog on YouTube, Sardesai said that he was filled with disbelief when his biopsy returned positive for prostate cancer in July.
Veteran journalist Rajdeep Sardesai recently announced that he was diagnosed of prostrate cancer and revealed that he feels "incredibly lucky” to be free of the disease, three months after diagnosis.
In his weekly Straight Bat vlog on YouTube, Sardesai said that he was filled with disbelief when his biopsy returned positive for prostate cancer in July.
“‘Sir, unfortunately the biopsy is positive for prostate cancer’. That was the terse, matter of fact message on my WhatsApp in the middle of July that threatened to upturn my life. I stared at the words unblinkingly more than a few times. Cancer? Me? How? Why? I had just celebrated turning 60 only weeks earlier, I had no major medical history nor any symptoms to suggest any looming health crisis," the veteran TV journalist said in a video posted on Youtube.
"A routine medical procedure that involved a series of tests culminated in a fusion biopsy to identify a suspected malignant cancerous tumor. A planned holiday to watch the exciting nailbiting India England test series was now turning out to be a rather unsettled summer of growing trepidation,” he said in the video.
The media veteran said that his cancer has been removed but he feels “lucky” because of early detection.
“Prostate cancer itself is increasingly common and is the second most diagnosed cancer among men in India, especially elderly men. Survival rate in India is around 64% higher for those who receive early treatment. My Gleason score, a grading system for prostate cancer, was on the higher side but the cancer itself had been detected relatively earlier. I was in that sense incredibly lucky," Sardesai said.
He said that that he underwent a successful robotic surgery in the middle of August to remove the prostrate.
"I feel even luckier. Last week, the scans I did revealed that there had been no spread of the disease and the cancerous tumor had been effectively removed," Sardesai added.
