Kolkata: Samadrita Sarkar, now 16 and a resident of Golf Green, was diagnosed with blood cancer when she was two years old. She underwent treatment for about three years and gradually swung back to normal life in the next four years.
“It’s like a rebirth for me as everyone in my family lost hope when they heard that I was suffering from cancer. I was too young to make out anything but seven years later, when I turned nine, a new dawn ushered in my life as doctors told me that I was completely fit to lead a normal life like others,” said Sarkar, a Class IX student of Hirendra Leela Patranavis School.
She was among 300 childhood cancer survivors who came together at a meet hosted by the hematology department of NRS Medical College and Hospital on Monday.
Amina Khatun (25) from Magra in Hooghly got cancer at the age of 13 when she was in Class IX at Akna Union High School. She underwent neuroblastoma surgery and splenectomy during her two-year long treatment. Now she is cancer-free, pursuing studies from a local college and even got married in 2021. “As a cancer patient I have experienced excruciating pain and discomfit and as a cancer survivor. I have experienced the truth that this disease can be cured if detected at an early stage,” she said.
Blood cancer is on the rise among children aged between two and 15 years, according to Tuphan Kanti Dolai, head of the hematology department at NRS hospital.
Under an MoU signed with the West Bengal department of national health mission in 2020, Cankids, an NGO, launched “passport2life” service at NRS Hospital during the meet.