this meeting is being recorded
hi vikas how are you thank you for
taking the time to talk to us today
how are things
things are great rupali thank you for
having me
How RCOZ overcame cancer
you know we connected a
few months ago about you being diagnosed
with cancer
and that was during the covert times
so
i know a lot of things have happened
since then uh do you want to just talk
about what happened and you know how did
you overcome
uh what was your process that you
followed
right
so during
march of 2021 i got diagnosed with
preparatory thyroid cancer and
as you can expect it it felt like oh my
god what happened
yeah but as i processed some of this
information it was the prognosis was
very good
uh this the setback was there
so one the process that i followed was
i really felt that i need to share this
with a lot of my family and friends
and create a community support that can
help me navigate through this tough
times yeah and so the process became
talking to a lot of people with multiple
purposes a
the energy that i was getting from
others really helped me sail through
this difficult time yeah second i was
looking for best of the medical experts
and some of these conversations
uh led me to that and third the fear of
unknown
there was this fear of unknown what will
happen what was the process
and by talking to a lot of people it
became clear it's not really a big deal
a lot of people get
Coping mechanisms
but i mean just hearing the word cancer
would scare somebody right instead of
like turning inward it almost seemed
that you turned out words right like you
were
i mean i would say that i would probably
like just not talk about it for a few
days but how you were saying that you
shared it with a lot of people
yeah i think everybody is different
right the coping mechanisms are
different and one of my coping
mechanisms was to talk to people yeah
and
and that's that
help i got from community about
different ideas and
uh was tremendous and as you mentioned
cancer world is big
yeah but there are different types of
cancer so thyroid cancer for example you
you use dr google yeah and you will
realize that the prognosis are pretty
good
Community support
yeah
yeah so so basically you're saying that
even though it was scary but your uh
you got the help from the community just
by talking about it more
absolutely committee my
family played a huge role in making sure
that i don't get a word uh over fearful
of the fact that this is going to happen
surgery is coming yeah so so the first
action was not to focus on the thing the
first action was
now what's the next step
yeah how will we deal with it and what's
the what's the plan being a
uh being a little bit of a program
management kind of a style i took it in
a program management style of how to
tackle it yeah
Mental health
so i mean
now you're smiling but i'm sure that
time your mental health was suffering a
lot right
yeah
it it did suffer and what happened
uh after surgery i lost my voice for a
couple of months so that time it was a
bigger issue
about uncertainty yeah my job really
involved talking to a lot of people and
what will happen yeah and mental health
suffered quite a bit
uh
my family my mom my wife supported
a lot during that time but
i really went for therapy at that time
i started to take three therapy or uh
not voice therapy mental health uh the
the voice therapy as well as mental
therapy so i started doing medic
meditation more
i
talked to
some doctors about it psychiatrist and
said what should i do in these
situations yeah
Losing his voice
so really like basically what you're
saying is even though it was a cancer of
the thyroid
but and that you found help because it
was all medically related but the thing
that happened after that the losing of
the voice and that mattered to your lord
because of your job and
just as a person who can't talk
that's effective more
it affected me more and
if you ask my friends i'm very
socially active i'm an extrovert i'll
pick up porn and talk to people yeah and
i felt that this would change all of my
life
yeah and that was a very dreadful thing
to think about
yeah
but by
all the help and everything the therapy
that happened i
one fine day suddenly the voice came
back
oh just like that
just like that and that was the best
blessing of all everything that happened
Getting his voice back
so after that how once you got your
voice back
uh
you know we talked a little bit about
like seeking mental health um
you know uh
through therapy so all that
was done then by then
of course no i
don't know i continued on my journey
with therapies right so voice was back
so voice therapy is done
but overall therapy and
let's
therapy is not a big thing therapy is
really about
having somebody who's analyzing
what are your trigger points
about stress what are your trigger
points about
anger
yeah i think therapy is a very very
powerful thing which can lead to very
good outcomes
yeah
so you wish you had done this therapy
before
i certainly think so i certainly think
that as we
as the corporate world is going fast
yeah you tend to think about
things that are not very meaningful
yeah
and
uh when you analyze these
emotions or thoughts during your therapy
sessions
you clearly see some of it is not
beneficial to you so it's almost like
your voice or your thoughts are equaling
back during therapy sessions so i highly
encourage everybody uh
in when they are in stressful situations
yeah to use this as a tool to cope up
with it
yeah
true true
Outro
now thank you so much vikas for sharing
your journey
um i know
uh we met her with herodectomy issues
also
and i i also told you that the voice my
ma i'd lost my voice also for a whole
year
and it was stressful because you know
nobody would understand what i'm talking
and it's you know people just say it's
just voice what's the big deal it could
be worse but when you're going through
that that that is the biggest thing for
you
correct
it is it feels like this is the most
important thing in the world
because this is the mechanism through
which you communicate your emotions
yeah your needs
right and when it is not there it
becomes the most
important stuff in your life
yeah great thank you so much for sharing
your journey today
thank you thank you
i really thank you for all the help
during my journey you are one of the
support mechanisms that i use to gather
information
yeah how this we will look like when
will my voice come back yeah you're
living a little bit together yeah i
think we all need to lean on each other
for those times
thanks because for your time today
thank you
