Sonali Bendre talks about her fight against cancer and highlights the importance of early detection and awareness

Last year, Bollywood actress Sonali Bendre shocked everyone by announcing on social media that she had been diagnosed with "high-grade cancer". On Saturday, Sonali spoke about her fight against cancer, the treatment and the reaction of her husband, Goldie Behl. The actor called this a "different phase of his life".

Sonali said, "It was a different phase of my life. My husband and I are talking about British Columbia and California before and after cancer. It's like a different life. I did not watch what happened to me. I did not ask too many questions. Probably as women, we are taught the "sehen-shakti acchhi baat hoti hai" (it is good to have a will and tolerate the pain). We must be hard and bear the pain. We are told that we must carry a child, so we must bear the pain. We are all told this and we internalize it in some way. You tell yourself that we can bear the pain and continue.

Sonali Bendre was speaking at the CAHOCON 2019 organized by the Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations (CAHO) in Mumbai.

The actress also revealed how she had continued reporting that her body was giving her. She said, "I did not stop telling myself that I was putting on a day of eighteen hours, so obviously, that's fine. And now that I look back, I wonder: how did I do that? So the question is, why did I endure this pain? What was I waiting for? For me to collapse and understand what my body was trying to tell me? It comes back to the fact that my body gave me signals, but that I did not look at it as I should have.

Sonali Bendre then explained the treatment she had undergone to fight the disease. She said: "When I started listening to the signals, I entered a TCRE procedure. These are some of the medical terms I know now. Then, suddenly, we discovered that there was something in there that was causing all this all the time. Then we went out there and discovered that it was not only there, but that it spread too much and very quickly. It was the fourth step, so I do not know how I managed until then, but it was a shock.

She also explained why she chose to go for treatment in the United States. The actor said: "I was in New York for treatment because my husband was very clear about the fact that he did not want to take any chances. I was literally fighting with him so that my child would be young and my house would be here. It is literally only two days after the diagnosis that we packed our bags and left. I did not know when I came back and what was happening, or where I wanted to go. It was just the two of us and we did not really have time to chat with too many people. He had the appointment and we left. I kept fighting with him so I could leave like this. But when we got there, and when I learned the extent of that, somewhere I really felt that "Thank God I'm here." "

" He (Behl) explained to me that he knew I would do it. have received care here (in India) too. The fact remains that we went there because it was the only illness they (the hospital) had treated. His logic was that if for so many years they only treated cancer, there would be more data collected, more intuition would be there. He said we were at a stage where he did not want to take chances. His idea was that he was able to realize one day that he had thought too much and reacted too much to our situation rather than thinking later that "I should have done it". He did not want to take that risk, "added the 43-year-old actor.

Sonali Bendre emphasized the importance of early detection and awareness-raising in cancer treatment. says: "This is a scary disease, there is no doubt.This is not a disease that can be diagnosed easily.Early detection is the most important thing when this disease is concerned. I think the disease is less scary than the treatment, I sometimes feel it, and if I detected it early, it would have been more likely, it would cost me less and I would have less painful treatments. I would have had more treatment options as well.I did not know that this disease could have been preempted because no one talks about it.When that happened, I realized how many people in my family had it and had not talked about it.I was like i was I would never have thought that it would ever happen to me. "

Sonali has openly shared his fight against cancer on social media. She said: "I posted a message on social networks (announcing her diagnosis) because I was working and I did not want gossip about it. Children are much more tech savvy today, so I did not want my son to hear and read something wrong. So, I wanted to tell my story myself. When I published it, I was shocked by the response I received. People from all walks of life wrote and talked to me about it. So, I thought that if it was so widespread, why did not I hear about it? I did not know that it was so frantic. I realized how much people hang on to their stories and never shared them. So when I shared my story and people shared their story, I realized that I was not alone. That illness was not so unique and that I was not so special that I had cancer. No matter who could get it. The next post I published was to thank people because their support made me less lonely. I have come to know more people who have it but do not share their stories. I had to thank the people who shared their stories with me. That made me feel that I was part of a community. Then I started to publish more stories. I did not know that so many people were interested in me and it was the best thing that came out of my trip. It was a good thing to realize that even though I was dead, I would have died knowing that many people loved me. Fortunately, I'm not (dead) but yes. "

" When I returned (to Mumbai), I realized that we had to make it an open thing. This is not something that needs to hide and keep it only limited to the family. Our mental state was deteriorating because I was living with this pain and caregivers had to let off steam too. Hiding these things hurts your mental health, and it's hard to recover. It becomes a vicious circle. So, if I talk about it, it encourages people to share their stories, so I'm happy to do that. "Sonali Bendre concluded