In her newly released memoir, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi pulls back the curtain on her personal medical struggles, recounting two cancer diagnoses and secret surgeries that she navigated while managing political turmoil. The first diagnosis came in 2010 with a breast cancer scare, followed by the discovery of a pancreatic growth a year later. Gandhi, who rarely discusses her health, reveals her concerns about media attention and the loss of privacy during her treatments. She underwent surgery at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan after avoiding Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital due to fear of public scrutiny. In 2011, a follow-up examination revealed another growth in her pancreas, causing initial fears of a cancer recurrence. The surgeon Dr Casper van Fijck at Erasmus University Medical Centre performed the subsequent surgery and confirmed that the tumor was in a preliminary precancerous stage. Gandhi also recalls a serious health scare during a 2016 Varanasi rally, but details about this incident remain unclear.