For the first time, Sonia confirms battle with cancer in memoirs

NEW DELHI: Sonia Gandhi's memoirs, released on Tuesday, officially acknowledge what was long whispered within political circles but never publicly confirmed - her battle with cancer, which occurred during the second term of UPA govt. They also set the record straight on where her two surgeries took place - first at European Institute of Oncology, near Milan in Italy, and later at Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam - and not at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, as was widely speculated. According to Sonia, while she had suffered from occasional bouts of asthma and allergies, she had no serious health troubles until 2010, when she was advised to undergo surgery for suspected breast cancer. She chose not to get operated on in India as she wanted to avoid a media frenzy.

'I saw Rajiv reaching out to me, smiling at me' After much discussion with her doctors, Sonia Gandhi opted to get operated on by Dr Veronesi, a celebrated surgeon who was the founder and head of the European Institute. In her book, 'Belonging: A Journey of Love', Sonia writes, "On the day of the surgery, as I was wheeled into the operation theatre, Rahul and Priyanka held my hand and kissed me on the forehead, assuring me that all would be well. Afterwards, still groggy from the anaesthesia, I saw Dr Veronesi with them by my bedside. How relieved I felt to hear him announce, 'Non c'è niente da preoccuparsi, tutto è andato bene e non ci sono residui. (No need to worry, everything has gone well and there are no residues).' He had removed two tumours, including a non-suspicious one to be on the safe side, and conducted an intra-operative radiation to spare me five weeks of radiotherapy. " However, a year later, routine follow-up tests detected a growth in the pancreas. This time Sonia was sent to Erasmus, to be treated by a well-known pancreatic surgeon, Dr Casper van Eijck. Again, Rahul and Priyanka were by her side before the surgery. When she woke up, dazed and parched, she heard them calling out, "Ma, Mama, all is well — nothing bad!" The doctor later explained that fortunately, the tumour was found in a preliminary precancerous stage, having been detected early.

Sonia also mentions that in Aug 2016, she collapsed during a long roadshow in hot and humid weather in Varanasi and broke her shoulder in the fall, forcing her to undergo another operation. While being flown to Delhi and floating in and out of consciousness, she writes, "Then I saw him again — Rajiv, reaching out to me, smiling at me reassuringly as if to say, 'everything will be fine'; Sheila Dikshit , who was by my side throughout, told me later that she noticed me suddenly smile in the middle of the tension-racked flight — I'm sure it must have been that moment." Apart from these episodes, there have been no other major health scares — though, like most residents of Delhi, the toxic winter air does bother her.