Shampa Lahiri, an AFC Ignite Experience alumni, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019. During her treatment she lost her beloved father. She recalls how she dealt with her diagnosis with tears, turkeys and tiaras. Sometimes humour really is the best medicine. Shampa has now been appointed an Advocacy Champion by the Irish Cancer Society. Read her story below.

Cancer is quite simply chaotic, an avalanche of information and experiences at a time when you are least able to manage it. I was home in Australia caring for my father when I received the news that I had breast cancer. I was so busy looking after him that I actually forgot doctor’s appointments. I was an hour late to the one where my doctor delivered my diagnosis which I then put aside to go home and look after my father.

I never told my father that I had cancer. He died never knowing. Back in Ireland and sick with chemo, I missed my father’s funeral because I was too weak to fly. Long after I forget about cancer, I will remember this. I will always be that girl who missed her father’s funeral and more than anything else I hate this disease for making me that girl.

Telling anyone you have cancer is exhausting and the words “I have cancer” always stuck in my throat. Have you ever noticed what a conversation killer cancer is? Once the “c” word drops you are trapped in a conversation of ever diminishing returns where, by contrast, any other topic is utterly trivial. The needle is stuck in the groove going around and around on the same depressing song. Often, people imagine how they would react if they were in your situation. They project onto you their own imagined fears.

You become a cipher for someone else’s assumptions of how they would be, how they would react. I constantly found myself re-assuring other people that I was fine, that I would be fine, not because I actually was, but because I couldn’t bear their outpouring of concern! And easily the single worst thing that people ever said to me when my diagnosis became public knowledge was how great I looked!

Telling a cancer patient how wonderful they look, no matter how well intentioned, is a slap in the face. It diminished everything I was going through, everything I had been through, reducing my suffering to cropped hair and tattooed eyebrows. Today I might not look like death, but there are still days when I certainly feel like it. But after seeing what my father went through, I figured that this whole chronic illness malarkey would be a walk in the park and while treatment wasn’t quite the walk I envisaged, I got through it.

I won’t dispense glib advice to anyone going through trauma, nor am I naïve enough to assume that my experiences can be generalised for all.

But if I were to offer any advice to those staring down the barrel of a cancer diagnosis it is this – I urge you to try and find a shred of gallows humour in your situation. There is very little, if any, laughter in cancer, I encourage you to unapologetically seek it out wherever and howsoever you can. In my case, I shaved my hair off into a mo-hawk with my family, a bottle of champagne and very loud music. I dressed as a giant turkey for my December oncology appointment. I rejoiced with my husband on the day I managed to vomit into the bucket (and not all around it).  And on my last day of treatment I wore my wedding dress, a tiara and a super-hero cape to wander around hospital curing people with chocolate muffins, a fairy wand and my sheer force of will.

These past years, so much control of my life, my dignity and my self-respect has been ceded to others making decisions on my behalf. Writing these words is where I wrest back control, of becoming a fully formed living, breathing human being and not merely a set of blood results and CT scans, of bad news and unbounded fears, of damage and disappointment. With crystal clear precision, I finally see what is important. I have come to realise that my suffering is no different to anyone else’s. Yes, cancer patients have much higher hurdles to get over, but everyone is dealt a bad hand at some point in life. We are ultimately bound together in our individual struggles by an inner core of steel and by the visceral survival instinct present in us all. The knowledge and resilience that we gain from going through cancer makes us rich beyond compare. In my view, how we choose to use this knowledge is the measure of our worth.

I want so much more from this life than just to survive this disease. I want to make my father proud. I am looking for a higher purpose. I hope that one day I find it.  I hope that you do too.

If you have been impacted by cancer and you want to connect with others who can relate to what you’ve been through while gaining the tools, support, and community to face whatever comes next, explore A Fresh Chapter’s programs. To receive updates about our programs and events, sign up for our newsletter today.