Healing From Within – The Power of Reading

Hearing someone you love telling you that they have incurable cancer...

When my sister Seetal was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, I went through a crazy mix of emotions including shock, sadness and even denial (surely, they got the results wrong). She told me over the phone and I started shaking, followed by crying, lot's of crying. I really struggled to come to terms with the fact that my sister, a young and healthy woman (she was 36 when she was diagnosed) was about to undergo treatment for stage 4 cancer.

Soon enough, Google became my trusted advisor and I’d spend most of my sleepless nights trying to understand more about stage 4 metastatic cancer and is there a specific cause? How can this just happen and how does cancer form? At the time, I recall reading, the five-year survival rate for secondary breast cancer is 22%, I asked my sister if this was true, and she said the doctors told her that she could live up to two years. What?!? This meant, she wouldn’t live to see her 40^th birthday, see her son start school, see her eldest son finish his higher education. This wasn’t right, we had plans, we were supposed to grow old together, watch our children grow up together, I needed to find a miracle, because at this stage that’s the only thing that could make the cancer go away.

The first two years and beyond

The more I read, the more I found out and the more I spoke to people about this, the more I realised how common metastatic cancer is. At this point, I really wanted to give my sister something and say to her “you’re going to be ok”, but I couldn’t promise her that. Instead, my first gift to her was a book by Louise Hay – You Can Heal your Life. This book was recommended to me by my physiotherapist, at the time she had recently undergone treatment for stage 3 bowel cancer and she found this book really insightful. She wasn’t wrong, both my sister and I were completely blown away by the approach described by Louise and how past trauma can impact your wellbeing. I remember waking up one morning with a sore throat, when I mentioned this to Seetal, she reached for the book and read out the affirmation and cause for a sore throat. 

As Seetal progressed along her cancer journey, she paid more attention to her diet and one of her favourite cookery books was Deliciously Ella. Although more research is needed to understand the relationship between sugar and cancer, she believed that reducing sugar was her first step to healing within. Meanwhile, I was convinced that juicing was the way forward and encouraged Seetal to use Jason Vale’s recipe book, I still remember she became very fond of green smoothies and she’d always add some spirulina, which is known for it’s immune boosting properties.

Two years had passed and she was still alive, so we’d always be researching and looking at different ways of keeping her alive including immunotherapy, consuming broccoli powder, using healing crystals and writing. Seetal always wanted to write about her journey, she always believed that she was here for a higher purpose, so in Christmas 2017, I bought her a book by Barbara Abercrombie- Writing Out the Storm: Reading and Writing Your Way Through Serious Illness or Injury. I was drawn in by Barbara’s own experience with breast cancer and I loved this as a gift for my sister because it meant she could use it as her handbook to start writing her story.

It was during the lockdown in 2020 that Seetal found some time to start writing, a lot of her words were expressed through her Instagram page @flourish_through_life and during this time she really did seem to be flourishing and everything was stable for the time being.

All good things come to an end...

Six years after her diagnosis the time came to say goodbye. After she left us, I sat on her sofa and looked through her book collection and in that moment, I felt her sitting with me, it was just like it was before, both of us just sitting there talking. Quite a few of the books were related to Krishna Consciousness which can be purchased from Bhaktivedanta Manor but a new one had appeared; I didn’t even know she had this one “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty. I wish I could ask her if she’d read it or even started it?

As I started to write this blog, I came across a lady named Anita Moorjani, @flourish_through_life was already following her, Seetal must have mentioned her name to me. Anita is the author of bestselling book “Dying to Be Me”, in this book she talks about her journey from when she was diagnosed with cancer and her own near-death experience. In 2006, she was in a coma, all her organs were failing, but she described a moment during her transition where she was given the choice to return to her physical form or to continue into the new realm. She chose the former, and when she regained consciousness, her cancer began to heal. This is the miracle that we needed on 23^rd October 2020 but then I realised, it wasn’t my choice to make, it was Seetal’s. I can only imagine that at the point where Seetal was asked to make a choice, she chose the new realm, the spiritual realm where she can fulfil her higher purpose. I’m yet to read Anita’s book but I’ve added it to my list.

On a final note, I like to thank my closest friends and family for supporting me through my grief and the final book that I’d recommend for anyone in a similar situation to myself is It's Ok That You're Not Ok by Megan Devine. A few days after I shared the news of Seetal, two of my closest friends turned up with this book and a bottle of wine (they know me too well). Although, I wasn’t in the mood to drink I found myself in the mood to read, somehow reading about other people’s grief journey made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my thoughts. I’d spend a lot of time trying to justify my loss – “she’s gone to a better place, she’s not in pain anymore, my pain is insignificant, my parents have lost their daughter, her boys are without a mum, my brother in law has lost the love of his life, my brother lost his sister too, it’s not just me” all these thoughts constantly whirling through my head, I read this book and it made me appreciate that grief really does suck and it’s ok to have those moments and scream out “this is not ok”!

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the selection of books on my website.

Sheenal

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