Sangita Patel 'knew in her heart' lump on her neck was cancerous: 'I was ignoring it'
The 45-year-old Canadian television personality is in remission from Hürthle cell carcinoma, an aggressive form of thyroid cancer.
Sangita Patel's announcement that she was cancer-free reached viral status. The Aug. 28 Instagram post earned more than 1.4 million views and countless well wishes for the Canadian television personality and producer who had been diagnosed with encapsulated Hürthle cell carcinoma, a rare type of thyroid cancer.
“That video kind of went viral because I think it spoke to a lot of people,” the 45-year-old mother of two tells Yahoo Canada from her home in Toronto. “It showed there’s hope.”
Even though she's in remission, she can’t help but be worried about a possible recurrence.
“I have to have a scan every three months—the first of which is coming up in about a month,” she explains. “I’ve been reading a lot about scan anxiety, and I don’t know how I’m going to feel about this first scan. I’m a little stressed about it, but at the same time know that I’ll go into this calm space and be okay.”
First fear, then denial
In March 2023, Patel was still serving as co-host of Entertainment Tonight Canada alongside Cheryl Hickey when a lump developed on her throat.
“Cheryl used to stand next to me and she’d say: ‘The lump is getting bigger. You should probably get it checked out," she says.
Months later, Patel visited her doctor, who ordered a biopsy; the results were benign.
“So I thought: ‘I’m in the clear. I’m doing great; it’s going to be fine. Maybe it’s an infection and it’ll just go away," she recalls. Instead, the lump kept getting bigger and grew as large as four centimetres in size. “It was fairly big to the point where I thought, ‘How did I not notice this?’"
Patel admits she was in denial of how much the lump was affecting her. “I also noticed my breathing wasn’t great: I was taking deeper breaths and I had a hard time swallowing,” she says. “There were things this lump was causing and I was ignoring it. I think I knew in my heart that even though the biopsy said it was benign, that it was cancerous.”
People began noticing that the lump was taking over the right side of her neck during interviews at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It compelled her to talk to her husband, a radiologist, who connected her with a new doctor.
The doctor spent two hours with Patel and was adamant that the lump needed to be removed as soon as possible. Patel admits to having a bit of a “freak-out moment” because of how vital her vocal chords are to her career.
“I even called [the surgeon] the week before, saying, ‘Hey, let’s cancel. I’m feeling so much better. I’m sure it’s getting smaller,’” she says, but the doctor didn’t fall for it.
The surgery took a toll and she lost a lot of blood; the pathology report didn’t come for weeks. Even though the diagnosis was frightening, Patel says she was feeling positive. “Yeah, I had cancer, but they got the lump out and I thought, ‘I’m good, I’m clean.’”
However, the cancer had spread into her blood vessels, and Patel had to have a second preventative surgery just two days after her initial procedure. If the cancer was in her blood, it could potentially cause her to develop bone cancer within a few years. She also had to get Radioactive Iodine Therapy (RAI), a common procedure for thyroid cancer patients.
“They blast you with it, so I had to isolate myself for a week in the basement because I was radioactive,” she says.
'I'd never even taken a Tylenol before'
Patel feels like her face hasn’t been the same since the second surgery. “I still can’t feel my lip, neck, or my chin, so there’s a lot of build-up of scar tissue inside. You can’t see it externally, but I still have a hard time moving the left side of my mouth.”
The first time Patel had surgery, she temporarily lost her voice. There have been other changes: she feels like her body has been depleted somewhat and she doesn’t feel as strong as she did before.
“But that’s ok," she says. "I weight train almost every day and I think being fit and going into surgery helped me to recover faster. I know I’ll get back to where I was.” Patel also has to get used to the fact that she’ll be on medication for the rest of her life. “I’d never even taken a Tylenol before. I’m not good with medication. So that’s another adjustment.”
'You have to be an advocate for your own health'
Patel believes that part of her cancer journey involves raising awareness so that others can be proactive about their health.
“When I went through all of this, it was recommended that I get a mammogram,” she says. “They had to check my breasts to make sure the cancer didn’t spread to my breasts as well.”
Patel is teaming up with Cashmere Collection and Front Row for the Cause, a live-streamed fashion event on Oct. 30 to help spotlight both breast cancer and thyroid cancer. Patel will join 20 other cancer survivors in the front row as Canadian designers create designs from bathroom tissue.
“Cashmere Collection has been doing this for 20 years, raising over $5 million for breast cancer research, working with the Canada Cancer Society and the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation as well. I think it’s such a great initiative, so I’m glad I’m able to share my story," she says.
Patel says that breast cancer is something we talk a lot about, but it’s not the same with thyroid cancer, which women are three times more likely to develop than men. She wants to emphasize that although there are different types of cancer that can potentially come through a thyroid, it is a curable cancer.
“I’m an example of something that can potentially happen, so I want women to go check it out even if it seems like it’s just a little infection like I thought it was,” she stresses. “I should have been the one to say, ‘This is getting really big and I need to get it checked out.’ You have to be an advocate for your own health.”
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