Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, in her memoir 'Belonging: A Journey of Love ', revealed shocking truths about her health conditions, which she had never spoken about before.
Her medical needs, which went beyond the occasional bouts of asthma, allergies, and stomach troubles, finally had an answer: she was diagnosed with cancer twice.
She even revealed that a year after surgery for breast cancer in 2010, another growth was detected in her pancreas during a follow-up test.
"Our second UPA term brought me some personal challenges. Apart from occasional bouts of asthma and allergies, I'd had no serious health troubles until then. As my doctors pointed out, stress is one of the main causes of stomach disorders, and, sure enough, these became frequent and worsened as I grew older and got drawn into politics myself," she writes in the memoir.
Based on the medical evaluations, in 2010, she says she was advised an operation for suspected breast cancer.
"He (the doctor) had removed two tumours, including a non-suspicious one to be on the safe side, and conducted an intra-operative radiation to spare me five weeks of radiotherapy," Gandhi writes. The pancreatic growth a year later shocked everyone.
"... We immediately thought it was a flare-up of the earlier problem. Following many consultations, my doctors felt that I needed immediate surgery. The tumour was initially suspected to be a neuroendocrine one: That would mean a long operation, and a prolonged hospital stay," she mentioned. However, this time, she went to Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, where pancreatic surgeon Dr Casper van Fijck treated her.
