The Week India – July 21, 2019

8 THE WEEK • JULY 21, 2019

PLUS

On Your Mark. Get Set.

Pause.

Sidharth Ghosh has been running all his life: on the

cricket ground and football field in school, and as a

marathon runner for over a decade. But when life

threw him a seemingly insurmountable challenge, he

hit the pause button to turn around and fight.

In January 2014, Sidharth, then 34, was diagnosed

with renal cell carcinoma, commonly known as kidney

cancer. “It did come as a shock. I had just run the

marathon, and even played a corporate cricket match

the day before. I went in for some tests and noticed

blood in my urine. That was when the doctors

discovered a growth on my right kidney that was

bigger than a golf ball. In fact, the growth practically

covered the whole kidney!”

When Time is of the

Essence.

Although he did initially feel sorry for himself,

agonising over what he had done to deserve this,

there was no time to dwell on self-pity. Doctors

advised immediate surgery and removed his right

kidney.

Recounting his post-operative recovery, Sidharth

says, “When you are diagnosed with cancer, there are

different aspects you must deal with. There is the

emotional aspect, the physical aspect, and then there

is the financial aspect. Obviously, I could see physical

changes in my body. The doctors had to remove one

kidney, a ureter, three arteries, four veins, one lymph

node and some peripheral tissue. I could barely stand

for 10 minutes or climb four steps even 10 days after

surgery.”

Sidharth Ghosh

“My advice is never show sympathy to

someone who is undergoing all this. I did

throw out a few people from my life who

were always negative.”