Breast Cancer Smiles

On a cold day in February, 2018, Shazia goes from a tennis court in the morning to a hospital in the afternoon where she is diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. As her journey unfolds, humour becomes her crutch, writing becomes her tool and a powerful connection to her South Asian roots becomes her purpose.

This isn’t a tale of cancer and the devastation it undoubtedly brings. It’s the story of a life-altering journey enriched by time. Shazia tells a tale of re-birth swathed in love, humour and pain. She unveils the shame of breast cancer in her birth culture that is killing women before their time. In her birthplace, Pakistan, cancer is casually known as ‘the kiss of death’.

For Shazia, it is quite the opposite. This is life through a different lens and a questioning of the status quo. Her musings provoke debate and challenge existing beliefs, holding up a different mirror to society. These chronicles are written during 18 months of chemotherapy, sepsis, surgery and radiotherapy. They are written with hope and an intermittent smile.

Shazia Calvert-Davies was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1971. Her nomadic trail took her from a childhood in Kuwait to boarding school in England. Further education culminated in a bachelor of journalism from the US. Returning to London her advertising career spanned from Bartle Bogle Hegarty to Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO before joining Deutsch Inc., New York.

Many happily married years later, her role as a full-time wife and mother was brutally disturbed by breast cancer. Ironically, her journalism took a new turn. This time, documenting her journey back to life and raising funds for South Asian breast cancer, as an author.