Nafisa Ali: I have to get well by June in time for my third grandchild

Nafisa Ali revealed to the world through a Facebook post that she had been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. “Life is so full of surprises and presently I am not in control. So, make a wish for me to get well in a few months. I have miles to go. I thank my family and friends for giving me the strength to enter a zone I know nothing of,” she wrote on her cyber wall.

Four days later, talking to Mirror from Delhi, the actress who was last seen in the third instalment of the Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster franchise, admitted that she was overwhelmed by all the affection, advice and applause that had poured in from all over the world, some of it coming from perfect strangers.“I didn’t know people cared for me so much. And I am glad I put out the news as it may help others to know more about the illness,” says an emotional Nafisa who arrives in Mumbai on Saturday and will go the Tata Memorial Hospital on Monday for consultation.
She informs that two months ago, in mid-August, she had visited the doctor in Delhi complaining of “cramps in the tummy”. The ultrasound reports and CT scan were clear, and she was subsequently put on a five-day antibiotics course to weed out the infection, following which she took off to Goa. But the pain persisted, and on her return to the capital, she consulted an old friend, radiologist Dr RK Mathur who detected some fatty tissues in her colon and abdomen and referred her to another doctor. “By then I was running a fever and since the pain was centered around my appendix, I told the doctors that they had got it all wrong, I had appendicitis,” she laughs.