Saranya Venkatesh, On Being A Mother While Battling Cancer

Super mum Saranya Venkatesh is suffering from stage 4 ovarian cancer. She shares her tale of an ongoing battle with the dreaded C, and tells us how 23-month-old Avyaan is her main source of joy, laughter and inspiration

- Kriselle Fonseca

THIS IS US

Back then, life looked perfect. I had the most loving husband, Nairit, an adorable son Avyaan, a wonderful, supportive family and friends anyone could ever wish for, and a great job as a senior business analyst. I had everything that I ever wanted in my tiny world, my happy place.

It was Avyaan’s first birthday last year on August 6th 2018, that I remember when we all last laughed our heads off and had so much fun. Soon after that, the chaos began, and problems started piling up one after another. From being an absolutely healthy person to dealing with borderline typhoid, joint inflammations, and a frozen back that led to me taking pain killers and sleeping tables on a day-to-day basis—my instinct told me that something wasn’t right. I decided to take a master health check up, multiple other specific blood tests, followed by PET scan, FNAC, and it was the biopsy that finally confirmed the news that it’s Stage 4 ovarian cancer. The doctors kept saying it is extremely rare and surprising, but the hard truth is it’s a life threatening condition, with little hope, and almost no assurance of a cure. I had to take a chance with general and palliative chemotherapy treatment, as it is in a terminal stage.

From then until now, what we’ve gone through as a family is something I can never explain in words. Every day has been filled with enormous amount of uncertainty, anxiety, pain, stress and what not. But one thing that made us all power through was Avyaan. Every tough day we would just tell ourselves that this will pass and we’ll see a better tomorrow, soon, real soon. Just a few minutes with li’l A, and we are giggling and joking around like nothing ever happened.

THE BREAST START