Sonia Gandhi reveals her courageous battle against cancer twice in memoir

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has shared several deeply personal, confidential, and emotional experiences of her life in her highly anticipated autobiography titled 'Belonging: A Journey of Love'. In this comprehensive book, she has openly disclosed the most difficult and challenging moments of her life when she faced severe health challenges due to cancer scares on two separate occasions. She has detailed in the book how she underwent surgery in the year 2010 due to a breast cancer scare, and approximately one year later, another suspicious lump was detected in her pancreas, which required her to undergo yet another major surgery. Sonia Gandhi has also acknowledged in the book that on both occasions, she was terribly frightened by the potentially severe and grim outcomes of the illness and was plagued by various apprehensions and negative thoughts in her mind.

Sonia Gandhi has written in her autobiography that in the year 2010, she was medically advised to undergo an immediate operation due to the suspicion of breast cancer. Although she had complete faith in the expertise and competence of the doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, she was still deeply shaken and extremely anxious upon hearing this major news. She has also mentioned in her book that she and her family, including her children, were clearly informed by the doctors that there was no scope to waste even a single moment, which triggered various thoughts and anxieties in her mind regarding the potential devastating outcome of the disease.

Apprehensive about media intrusion into her personal privacy, Sonia Gandhi decided against getting treated in India. She completely dropped the option of receiving treatment at the renowned Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai and instead made the firm and significant decision to undergo surgery at the prestigious 'European Institute of Oncology' located just outside Milan in Italy. Regarding this, she has written in her autobiography that she had always tried her best to keep her personal life confidential and away from the public eye, and the mere thought of her illness being discussed publicly in the media wasn't only painful to her but also made her quite angry, while she has raised a pertinent question in her book, stating that while it's true she had become a public figure, did that mean she shouldn't even be entitled to the basic right of a little privacy in her personal life?

Published by the prominent publishing house HarperCollins India, this significant autobiography spans 526 pages. Sonia Gandhi has mentioned in the book that while she was being wheeled into the operation theatre, apart from a senior official, her son Rahul Gandhi, her daughter Priyanka Gandhi, her son-in-law Robert Vadra, and her own sisters Nadia and Anushka were also present there. She underwent this complex surgery under the expert and able supervision of the world-renowned surgeon Dr. Umberto Veronesi. Recalling that emotional moment, Sonia Gandhi wrote that as she was being taken towards the operation theatre, both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi firmly held her hand and kissed her forehead to reassure her that everything would be completely fine. She further wrote that the concerned doctor successfully removed two tumors from her body during the operation. Among them was a tumor that carried no suspicion of cancer, but as a precautionary measure to prevent any kind of risk, the doctors decided to remove that too. She also shared that the doctors completed the radiation treatment process right during the surgery itself, which completely spared her from the long and grueling five-week process of undergoing separate radiotherapy later.

Sonia Gandhi, who rarely speaks publicly about her health issues and physical pains, also revealed in her autobiography that after the first operation, it took about a full year to completely recover. During this period, while undergoing her regular medical check-ups, another new lump was detected in her pancreas. Writing about this unexpected revelation, she stated that this incident was nothing short of a massive shock for her and her children, while she and her family immediately thought whether her old illness had returned once again. She consulted multiple doctors for treatment, after which the medical team concluded that she urgently needed an operation. Initially, severe apprehensions were raised that this new tumor might be neuroendocrine in nature, which directly meant that the surgery would be quite extensive and she would have to spend a considerable amount of time in the hospital.

During this second major health challenge, she was sent to the prestigious Erasmus University Medical Center located in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where Dr. Caspar van Eijck, a renowned specialist in pancreatic surgery, successfully treated her. Sharing this experience, Sonia Gandhi wrote that despite all the assurances given by doctors and loved ones, she was extremely restless and deeply anxious regarding this second operation because the actual and exact condition of her illness could only be determined after the surgery, while her mind kept forcing her to think about the worst possible outcome. Questions arose in her mind: what would happen if this tumor turned out to be a spread-out form of cancer? Would she ever be able to fully recover from this severe illness? She had departed for this operation with complete secrecy without informing anyone, and at that time, only the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a few close senior colleagues were aware of it. After the operation, Dr. Van Eijck informed her at the hospital that she was genuinely very fortunate that her tumor was in the early pre-cancerous stage and was detected just in time.

A few years later, in August 2016, during a massive election rally held in the historic city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming assembly elections, she had to face yet another serious health complication. Recalling this incident in her autobiography, she wrote that an enthusiastic crowd had gathered in huge numbers on both sides of the road, continuously raising loud slogans in support of the Congress party. However, her election convoy kept moving continuously for five long hours without a break, due to which the continuously mounting physical fatigue slowly overpowered her entirely, and she suddenly collapsed and fell unconscious, following which she was immediately flown back to Delhi in an aircraft. During that strange gap between regaining consciousness and fainting again, she saw Rajiv, who was extending his hands towards her and looking at her with a reassuring smile, as if telling her that everything would be alright.

Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi vividly remembered that Sheila Dikshit remained by her side throughout that entire ordeal. Sheila Dikshit later told her that during the long flight, a sudden gentle smile had appeared on her face, and she's certain that must have been the exact moment when she felt her husband close to her. However, due to this severe fall, she sustained a serious injury to her shoulder, which once again necessitated a surgical operation, while published by the renowned publishing house HarperCollins India, this significant book beautifully and authentically describes the various ups and downs and major milestones of Sonia Gandhi's life. The entire book chronicles her childhood in post-war Italy, her marriage into the prestigious Nehru-Gandhi family, the tragic and gruesome assassination of her husband Rajiv Gandhi, and ultimately her unexpected entry into Indian politics with great ease and depth.