Image instagrammed by Sonali Bendre. (courtesy: SonaliBendre)
Sonali Bendre, who was diagnosed with stage four metastatic cancer in 2018, recently opened up about her journey of fighting the disease on a podcast show for Humans of Bombay. Sonali was asked about her initial reactions when she was first diagnosed with the disease. Sonali told Humans Of Bombay, "When I received my cancer diagnosis, my first thought was, 'Why me?' I'd wake up thinking it was all a nightmare; I couldn't believe that this could happen to me. That's when I started to change the way I thought. Instead of 'why me?' I started asking, 'Why not me?'" Sonali added, "I started to feel grateful this wasn't happening to my sister or my son. I realized I had the strength to deal with this, I had the resources to go to the best hospitals, and the support system to help me through this. Starting to ask 'why not me?' helped me start the healing process."
A couple of years back, Sonali revisited the hospital in New York where she underwent treatment for cancer. Sonali documented her experience of revisiting the hospital in these words, "This chair, this view, this exact same spot... 4 years later. From sheer terror to continued hope, so much has changed yet so much remains the same. It was unreal to sit there and see patients going in and I could see that I had been through a similar journey... Saw the chemotherapy suite, the same waiting room, faces were different."
The actress added in her post, "I felt like telling the patients that there's HOPE, and I am there on the other side and look at me today I have come in for a visit on the other side of the spectrum... It was, as you can guess, a very bittersweet, emotional day. I stepped out, looked my son in the eye, with the sunshine on my face and thanked the universe for everything." Take a look:
Sonali Bendre is known for her work in hit movies like Sarfarosh and Hum Saath Saath Hain, to name a few. She was also seen as a judge on reality shows like India's Best Draamebaaz and Dance India Dance Little Masters.
The actress made her OTT debut the web-series The Broken News, a Hindi adaptation of the popular 2018 British series Press. Sonali Bendre co-starred with Shriya Pilgaonkar and Jaideep Ahlawat.