Surviving cancer is anything but easy and defeating the disease may be the toughest thing you ever do. It takes a lot of patience and courage for a person to overcome a life-threatening illness. Zerodha Chief Nithin Kamath's wife Seema Patil was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2021 and was declared cancer-free a year later. Recently, she spoke about the disease and how she and her family fought with the challenges in Dilip Kumar's The Other Side podcast.
The Zerodha Director said that her famous blog titled, 'I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer! - Seema' was written by her husband. She added that she had to go for a PET scan to see where the cancer is and it cost around Rs 30,000. "My treatment had not even started. We went to a small, local clinic for the scan and we just wondered how normal people afford them. Throughout, we kept talking about costs, insurance and how normal people can afford it. Nithin and Kailash always believe everything should be open source and you should share the knowledge."
The 43-year-old said that the experience changed her. "I have been part of Zerodha for a long time, but then, I was kind of floating around, and this made me realise that life is so short. I have to do something I am passionate about. I have to find something that I really love, like really feel the passion for it," she said. Ms Patil said they stated that they also got closer as a family.
Ms Patil said that she initially wanted to "hide" the diagnosis from her son Kiaan because she did not want to upset him. "What I realised was that he was the most comfortable and happy when I explained things to him. He would come and ask me where the stitches were. He would want to know what is happening. If I was hiding something from him, he was not happy. Being straightforward with him was something he wanted."
Ms Patil said within a week of her mastectomy, she was on the treadmill. Discussing her chemotherapies, the Zerodha executive said, "Chemotherapies are really really bad. The first time I got the chemotherapy done, it hit me, and I did not know what was happening, better to die than go through this. But the second time around, I decided that instead of just lying on the sofa, let me walk a little; that might change something, and it did. I recovered faster."
"I just wanted to feel normal and I would not feel normal if I was not working out. I did not want to feel different. That was my way of dealing with change," Ms Patil said about her fitness during her battle with cancer.
Ms Patil also shared that Nithin Kamath was supportive and made her laugh during the tough time. "He joked for me, I laughed for him. Work for him is a good distraction. He was always there, but I don't think he was stressed out. He never thought in a negative way. He knew that this is something that we have to deal with and I would be fine."
