“Nikhil, the good news is, you’re 17 and you have leukaemia. But the bad news is… you’re 17… and you have leukaemia.”
Odd way to be told you have cancer, right? I certainly thought so. But I was shocked. So I asked that question every cancer patient asks next. “What are my chances?”
“10 – 20% that you’ll survive the next five years.”
I cried. For ages.
Nikhil and his family pictured before his diagnosis. Photo: Supplied Source: Supplied
How did they know what I was going through?
Everyone around me was telling me “Nikhil, don’t worry.” “You’re strong!” “You can do it!”
I mean, how was any of this fair? I hadn’t done anything to hurt anyone. Hell, I was working hard, putting in hundreds of hours to study medicine and do the very opposite in life.
For God’s sake... I was only 17! Wasn’t cancer supposed to be for old people? Or those who smoked, or something?
I laid there, in that state of utter despair, for days.
But after a while I got sick of it. The tears. The fear. The crying. I wanted out... But with only pain and probable death in my future… there wasn’t really much to look forward to.
Until one day, I decided to do something that would change my life.
I took a step back, and looked at what had happened to me as if it had happened to someone else. From that objective perspective, those negative emotions dropped away and I was able to question what I was going through.
And when I did, my response to all this didn’t make sense. I mean, yeah, I had the cancer now, but what was the fear, anger, and depression doing? Nothing, other than making things worse, right? Why was I doing that to myself? In the end, that was all coming from me… My mind, my brain.
Source: Insight
It didn’t make sense
Why not instead focus on the things I could control, the things on my side?
I still had chemo, radiation, and probably bone marrow transplant coming. There wasn’t really much to look forward to.
But that same process, of taking a step back and questioning my doubts and fears, would lead me to see a way around these too.
Chemo was coming, soon. In a few days soon. But why was I, indeed, why does everyone only view it as something that brings pain and misery, when wasn’t it also a medicine? The very thing that could get me out of this?
So my chances weren’t flash. But wasn’t it just that? A chance? They wouldn’t be doing this to me if they didn’t think it could work, right?
So I got cancer young. But why was I looking at it as a curse, when, wasn’t it also a blessing? I could get the hardest treatments, and bounce back up. I had a family behind me, rather than one to look after. I could get back to a normal life after all this.
Maybe the bad news was, I was 17 and I had leukaemia. But the good news was… I was 17 when I had leukaemia!
Nikhil has gone on to study medicine. Photo: Supplied Source: Supplied
It's the only logical option
That mindset helped me through hell and back. And it’s helped me accomplish so much more too. From making med school, to research, to speaking and writing for hundreds of thousands and now, funding my own life-saving social-enterprise through my poker career.
This doesn’t require bravery, or willpower, however. When I take that step back, and question everything until I see the best path going forwards, taking steps that leave me happiest and healthiest, becomes the only logical option.
If you get your mind on your side in any battle in life, you give yourself the best chance of winning. And, no matter how dire things seem, you’ll ALWAYS have something on your side.
But some things are hard to just think your way around.
And when life really knocks you around, when things keep hammering you down, sometimes you can’t just do it yourself.
That’s something I realised when I faced depression.
Contary to popular belief, cancer doesn’t just end when you ring that bell for your last chemo. For many, side effects last years. Life and limb feel lost to this beast. And memories of past horrors, or the fear of this happening all-over again, leave many traumatised too. We see our friends worrying about exams, boyfriends or girlfriends or whether their gym-routines are optimal, and wish we only had those kinds of things to worry about.
And this, combined with the unwritten expectation (by both society, and ourselves) to feel, and act the part of a brave, forever-happy, grateful, stereotype of a survivor, is probably why we have triple the incidence of mental illness compared to our peers. We face the grief of losing friends to this, and feel guilty for surviving ourselves. We lost yet another amazing, young soul to this just last week. Little talked about, but also horrifyingly true, is the fact that over half of our carers have contemplated suicide in the past year.
Cancer sucks. Period. But young cancer patients face their own personal brand of hell. As a medical student and researcher, I know just how much research goes into the tiniest details of dosing to guide doctors’ judgements. Despite 1000 Australians between 15-25 being diagnosed every year (higher than the number of paediatric patients), we receive the lowest funding by far. We get either too-little or too-much chemo, and our slow-growing survival rates reflect that.
Arguably the most important part of our financial, social and emotional lives are snatched away from us, and we need support for that too.
Though great organisations like CanTeen, and RedKite do try and breach that gap, more attention is definitely required and deserved. I hope you too are convinced of this.
Nikhil Autar is an ex-AML patient, and now a medical student and researcher. You can read his blog at www.nikhilautar.com and support his charity, focused on creating a life-saving hospital bed at www.gettosleepeasy.org
