The Book Golden Nugget
Cancer is not a death sentence. There is life after Cancer.
From the Author’s experience – support from close family and friends plays a vital role while fighting Cancer.
So do your research and focus on reading positive success stories of people who overcame Cancer.
Make peace with Cancer. When your life on earth is up, accept it gracefully. First, do your research, ask questions and give your best to your successful recovery.
About The Author
Manisha Koirala is a Nepali actress known for her hit Bollywood movies like Bombay & 1942 Love Story and her performance in films like Khamoshi and Dil Se.
She is recognized for her acting ability to play various roles, innocent look, the most beautiful face in Bollywood in the ’90s, and popularised no make-up look, particularly in movies like Dil Se and Bombay.
She contributes to Tamil, Telugu, Nepali, Malayalam, and Bengali cinema. However, most of her immense success came through Bollywood, and she was the highest-paid Bollywood actress in the ’90s.
Life can throw tremendous blows at you, and in December 2012, Manisha discovered she had very late 4th stage Ovarian Cancer.
She was moved by kindness from the least expected people and strangers during her cancer journey.
On what was supposed to be her death bed, she had time to reflect on her own life, and she promised herself that if she survived Cancer – how differently she would live her life…
..And she got a sense of gratitude towards things life has given her that she took for granted.
Moving forward in time, she now dedicates her life to giving talks and raising awareness about Cancer.
And giving people hope for people who have Cancer, prevention and cure of this deadly disease all over South Asia & also overseas. All the profits from the book healed to go to the cancer charity.
Manisha feels passionate about preventing violence against women; she talks against child marriages and human trafficking, which, sadly, even in this modern age, is taking part in, especially in developing countries.
She is UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador and dedicates her time to social work such as cleaning the Bhagmatti river and Relief work after the Nepal earthquake in 2015.
Against the human trafficking of girls for prostitution and child marriage, among many charity works.
Manisha Koirala has continued to work on her passion & love for cinema since she was a little girl.
She craves working on a role that challenges her while being part of a cinema with a beautiful message that entertains people and positively impacts people’s lives.
Follow me on:
Twitter: @mkoirala
Instagram: @m_koirala
Web: manishakoirala.me
Healed Summary
- Support from close family and friends plays a vital role while fighting Cancer.
- Cancer is not a death sentence.
- Do your research and focus on reading positive success stories of people who overcame Cancer.
- Make peace with Cancer. We don’t always get to choose how our lives play out.
- Focus on having a deep, meaningful relationship and having a strong social circle in your life. (You could look into Dunbar’s number).
- After you have been diagnosed with Cancer, do your research. Ask for help! Don’t be helpless.
- A healthy lifestyle can keep many diseases away!
- Everything born must die – Accept death as a natural process of life. Once one accepts the inevitability of death, we get closer to reality.
- “I was certain of the worst. Mentally, I thought of the ‘ideal place to leave the world. My dream place would have trees, birds and open spaces bathed in the sunlight. I would take my last breath as the fragrant breeze stroked me goodbye. But I tried to gather myself. In a moment of clarity. I reached a decision. I would preserve myself. My mantra now would be self-care, self-mastery, and self-discipline. I would not let any negative thoughts come near me.” – pg 151
- After the Author’s romantic relationship ended, she understood her self-worth and stuck to her principles at every step. “Herman Hesse, the German-born poet, novelist, and painter, was so right when he said. ‘Some of us think holding on makes us strong: but sometimes it is letting go.”
- Many people were advising Manisha during her cancer journey, mostly out of kindness, which did not know what they were talking about, so be mindful of the people you listen to.
- Author shares about faith and human effort to cure disease and be healed and accept what mother nature has planned for you and accept dignified death, not fearful death.
- Chapter 18 lists a few Q&A with her two life saviors, Dr. Chi and Dr. Makker, which helped her with her treatment.
- The book also touches on her personal choices that could have led to chances, such as wrong lifestyle, hormone treatment, lack of gratitude, emotional turmoil, and wrong choices in relationships.
- “I survived because of all the support, medical expertise, and willpower to do well. Let this be a learning moment for us all. Cancer can be overcome by making different choices with the right knowledge and a solid support system.
- Healed is a book of hope and a triumphant story of a cancer crusader (MK likes to use the word cancer crusader than cancer survivor) to inspire people and gain insights into every step of the journey, which was a roller coaster ride with many ups and downs ( with good news & bad news and change in mindset & emotions)
Additional Notes:
Manisha says during her interview that she got an excellent framework from her friend, which helped her with her chemotherapy.
“Manisha, when chemo comes to your body, don’t reject it mentally. Accept it and say it is Vitamin Shots.”
Skip to 20min: (audio is not significant)
These practical tips and frameworks could be powerful to make a significant impact on your recovery.
The Author has written the book in detail about her cancer journey from early diagnosis to Chemotherapy and Recovery and how her thought process was at each point of her treatment.
After reading this book, it hopes to give you courage if you are going through a challenging period of medical treatment or understand what cancer patients go through so you can provide the best care and support for your loved ones.
Manisha states in her interviews that writing this book was a great experience at the same time, a very challenging and painful experience to write everything in detail, which would mean she had to relive the pain and make herself vulnerable to the whole world.
And many times, she considered stopping completing this book.
But, still, she found herself back working on this project because the main message she wants to give people is hope, especially to people going through Cancer or their close family friends who are not sure how they can be of best help to their loved ones.
Going through her cancer journey, Manisha craved reading and finding success and positive stories on the internet despite the doctors telling her not to because there were very few success stories online.
In addition, they didn’t want her to get discouraged as she was going through chemotherapy.
She could find any success stories she used as inspiration – that she too can be challenging and beat Cancer.
And through writing her cancer journey in full detail, she aims to give people hope (the movie she did after her Cancer, Dear Maya, has a beautiful message on the film of hope) that there is life after Cancer, and she wants to spread the word that Cancer is not a death sentence.
The favorite story in this book is when a doctor who is not related or a close friend of Manisha comes and visits her in the hospital and sits next to her every Sunday.
One day, out of curiosity, Manisha asks Dr. Narulla, “she is neither her friend from the past nor her fan. Why she was paying her a visit and spending time with her in a hospital on her day off.” Dr. Nuralla replied, “Manisha Ji, with the hope that you will do this to somebody else. “
After successful chemotherapy, Manisha did the movie Dear Maya in Hindi. Manisha portrays Maya Devi’s character in this movie, a lonely middle-aged woman who locks herself away from the outside world and society for 20 years.
Suddenly she starts getting love letters from Dev, an imaginary character created by school girls who play pranks.
To search for Dev, whom she thinks is real, she explores the world after 20 years of locking herself in a house – In the process, she slowly gets outside of her comfort zone, and she discovers the world is not as scary and there were lots of good people in the world.
She realizes she can work towards building a good life for herself, and there is a beautiful climax to the movie. As Confucious said, the best time to plant the tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time is Now.
This all happened because she got hope, which the book Healed hopes to bring to people through sharing her cancer journey.