Kiwi and his father, Indravadan, talk in their mother tongue, Gujarati, about Kiwi's chronic myeloid leukaemia diagnosis, how the family responded, and some of the stigmas still prominent in their community.
This video is part of Macmillan’s mother tongue project. (4 minutes and 9 seconds). We hope to feature different lived experiences here on the Online Community to represent different ethnic cultures and communities so that nobody feels they are facing cancer alone.
Please see an English transcript written below. There are also English subtitles available when watching the video. For additional support information in other languages, scroll to the end of this blog page.
Kiwi: Within our Community, depression and mental health are not spoken about, leading to a lack of understanding.
Kiwi: Hello, how are you? My name is Kiwi, and I have cancer, leukaemia cancer, and chronic Myeloid Leukaemia. My diagnosis was made in 2012 and this is my father, Indravadan.
With my depression, when I spoke to my parents, they didn’t really understand it, not really. I think, their understanding was limited.
We told my family that I was worried about dying and not depression. You know… about dying. Their answer was to say, ‘Don’t think that- stay positive’ and ‘Pray to God and it will be fine’.
My response was, you know, well God it the one that gave this to me. I’m not going to pray to God when he’s the one that’s given this to me. I think all of that mixed in can be difficult.
It’s not spoke about within the community. You should stay quiet and not tell anyone because people will talk.
What does it matter?
There’s cancer, there’s depression, it’s there so what?
Indravadan: When Kiwi had cancer, he would come home and be really angry and we didn’t have the knowledge to understand why his personality had changed. Then as I mentioned, I went online, and I did some reading and learnt. And we read that when someone gets cancer, they get angry, and they feel cold.
He puts the heating on when it’s hot. I tell him it’s so hot that my plants will die, and he would tell me he feels cold. He understands it because he’s gone through it. If he’s going through it then you cannot get angry at him.
I need to try to understand him and why he’s doing this and why his feeling what he is feeling.
Let’s start with cancer, within our community, there’s a misconception that when you get cancer, you are facing a massive problem that you can’t recover from.
This causes more panic.
For that reason, parents must support their children through this, it’s very important. Physically, mentally, any support is vital to help heal.
Kiwi: You spoke about the hospital earlier, how was it to find leaflets in Gujarati?
Indravadan: It was good they had them in many languages to help many communities. The first time I went I saw a list of different cancers I didn’t know. They showed me a list with seven different types of leukaemia.
Then I read the leaflets and got some knowledge. Now I have this knowledge I can share it with others.
Additional support information
If you’d like to be a guest blogger for the Online Community and share your personal experiences in Macmillan’s Community news blog, please email Community@macmillan.org.uk or comment in the box below.
