Actor Rajshri Deshpande recently left her fans shocked as she announced on social media: she is battling Infiltrating ductal carcinoma, a grade 1 breast cancer.
Talking to us, she says it was caught in time due to a routine check, “I went and the doctors found the lesion. I moved from Aurangabad to Mumbai, met the doctors and got a sonography done again to confirm what it is. After sonography, I did my biopsy and then got the news.”
When she informed her friends, she was not prepared for what she learnt, “It’s unfortunate, I called so many friends of mine, nobody had got their breast check up done, which is necessary for every woman after the age of 35. Then the next thought was ‘let me check the facilities in the villages’ The women there are doing a lot of daily chores, they won’t come and spend so much time to get mammography done. I was thinking about my own health, yes, but I was also thinking all the rest.”
She believes the taboo around the ‘C-word’ needs to go away, “Let’s just normalise this! It’s such a taboo that people send condolence-type messages like ‘Oh my God, so sorry’ But nowadays, with the medical facilities, atleast cancer gives you time to take some action.”
It’s been a month for Rajshri battling cancer, but she is already thinking about creating more awareness around the disease, “The next few weeks there will be breast cancer awareness workshops. As an actor, I use my pain for my art. Absolutely the same way I will use this pain to make people aware.”
As Women’s Day is just around the corner, Rajshri has a message for people: “Gift your women a sonography, pap smear test and mammogram this Women’s Day. I have told my house help and assistant already that this will be my gift to them.”