World Cancer Day 2024: Tahira Kashyap Khurrana's empowering journey of battling breast cancer and spreading awareness

Tahira Kashyap Khurana

Filmmaker and author Tahira Kashyap Khurrana, who is also the wife of National Award-winning actor Ayushmann Khurrana has always been vocal about her battle with breast cancer and has been doing everything in her capacity to spread awareness about the same. On World Cancer Day 2024, we look back at Tahira's journey with breast cancer and how she has spread awareness for the same.

It was in 2018 that Tahira was diagnosed with breast cancer. Speaking about the same in an Instagram post, she said, "I was detected with DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) in my right breast with high-grade malignant cells. Simply put stage 0 cancer/ pre-cancerous stage, with cancer cells multiplying in a contained area."

"This mastectomy has left me with even more self-love! Mine has made me a 2.0 version of myself! This post is dedicated to awareness, self-love and resilience of a warrior that I know each one of us possesses," she added.

She later shared pictures of her bald look after undergoing chemotherapy sessions and battling the deadly C-word disease like a warrior. Sharing a picture of her flaunting a bald look, Tahira struck confident poses and wrote, "Hello world! That's a new me with the old self! Was getting tired of the extensions, so this is how it is and it's so liberating in every sense of the word, so much so that I don't have to duck the shower while bathing or while picking up the soap! I never thought I would go bald, was stretching my time with the good ol' cap for too long. But this feels so good".

In another post, Tahira shared a couple of pictures showing the effect of chemotherapy on her and how she embraced it.

In 2022, during Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, Tahira took to Instagram to pen a post about the importance of taking self-examinations to detect if one is affected by cancer. "Protect yourself. Value yourself. Nurture yourself," she wrote. Have gone through this route hence can suggest please do regular self-examinations. Younger age at times also doesn't help. Do not become an ostrich if you feel something is wrong. The wrong only gets detected timely if you take action towards it. Action means letting the doctors examine you and to go through their protocol. You are very significant, worthy of adding a lot of value! Never forget this please," read an excerpt of Tahira's caption.

Previously, she had also penned a poem that reflected her inner battle with the disease and the scar she endured. Sharing the poem, Tahira wrote, "A small something I have written on National Cancer Survivors Day."

"Some scars are deep, some within. Some are seen while some are hidden. The thing about scars is, they remind you of the past. The moments of suffering that you thought would forever last. But there's more to these Goddamn scars. They are secrets hidden far away, just like the stars. It's the truth which you don't see with the naked eye, oblivious to the functioning of the world, a blatant lie. But hear me, there's more to this scar, it talks also about the fight, the resilience and your invincible power," read an excerpt from the poem.

Tahira has authored multiple books like 'Cracking The Code: My Journey in Bollywood', 'Souled Out' and 'The 12 Commandments of Being a Woman'.