PANAJI
Koirala said the seemingly endless battles can only be won through being grateful.
“I’m not sure it’s a total victory yet because when you get cancer like I did, which was aggressive, you’re not in the clear until you’ve been healthy for 10 years. Now I cherish everything instead of having fear. The way I see it is that I’m healthy now, and try not to worry about the rest,” Koirala said.
“I’ve seen some beautiful, amazing, strong souls. In hindsight, I would say cancer has gifted me my life back. I don’t know how long I’ll live but I know that every day that I live I’ll be more grateful and mindful.
“It’s been a roller-coaster journey. There have been times that I’ve been in unbearable pain and fear. Times when I thought what did I do wrong to deserve this. But one rises from that, and we move ahead. It’s been extremely painful and fearful. When I asked my doctors if I’ll live or not and didn’t get a solid answer, it made me feel like I wasn’t going to live. But here I am and I’m healthy,” she added.
She said she was working towards improving cancer care in India and despite having a long way to go, care in India was improving.
“There, in the US, there are specialists on every body part who practice only that body part for years and years. That is happening in India now as well. Most of the best medical experts in the world are Indian or Chinese. The fact that there are more patients in India is a huge plus point. We are trying to see how we can help poor people. I was privileged to go abroad but what about poor patients,” Koirala who received her treatment in the US said.
“We need more doctors because the scale of problems is huge. When you go to Tata Memorial, you see so many patients. Then we also need to improve our standards,” she added
