Sangeeta Moorjani and the Stretch That Changed Everything: Her Journey With Cancer

BOSTON–It was a bad work call.

Sangeeta Moorjani was in Pune, India, working late into the night from thousands of miles away from her Boston-home. The meeting wasn’t going well. At some point, she decided she had had enough.

She needed to stretch.

It was an ordinary instinct in the middle of an ordinary workday. But as she stretched, Moorjani put her hand on her body and felt a lump in her breast.

“It’s a good thing I needed a stretch,” she says now.

Those few seconds would change everything.

To watch a full video interview, please click here, or on the image below.

At first, she didn’t think much of what she had felt. After all, she had recently had a mammogram — just six weeks earlier — and it had been fine.

Still, the next morning, she called her primary-care physician in Boston.

“I said, ‘Hey, listen, I felt something,’” Moorjani recalls.

Her physician told her to get it checked while she was still in India.

Moorjani was surprised.

“I said, ‘I had just had a mammogram six weeks ago and it was fine.’”

She went anyway.

A family connection helped her see a breast oncologist in Pune, who performed an ultrasound. He apparently knew almost immediately that something was wrong. Rather than tell Moorjani everything he suspected, he urged her to return to Boston.

“You live in the best place in the world from a medical perspective,” he told her.

She cut her vacation short.

Back in Boston, she went to Massachusetts General Hospital, where doctors performed a needle biopsy. Then came the words that would divide her life into a before and an after.

“I don’t know how else to tell you, but we’re pretty sure you have breast cancer,” the head of the practice told her.

Moorjani and her husband, Rajesh, looked at each other.

“We were dumbfounded.”

She was ultimately diagnosed with a five-centimeter, triple-negative breast cancer, between stage 3 and stage 4 because of the size of the tumor.

And yet, in those first moments, something else was present alongside the shock.

Moorjani is an optimist.

“I just wanted to know, like, if it’s truly there,” she says. “So, I was ready for more tests.”

That combination — optimism and pragmatism — would become a recurring theme in the months ahead.

The Lesson in the Diagnosis

One of the first lessons Moorjani took from the experience was the importance of advocating for yourself.

She had no family history of breast cancer. She knew little about the disease. And she had recently received a mammogram that had not raised an alarm.

Her doctors later determined that she had dense breast tissue, and an MRI revealed what the mammogram had not: a five-centimeter tumor that had been growing inside her for some time.

“What I have learned through this process is how important it is to self-advocate,” she says.

Her advice is straightforward: read up, ask questions and, when necessary, seek another opinion.

“If a report is not looking normal, probe,” she says. “Ask two other doctors. Ask for a second or a third opinion.”

But she also emphasizes balance.

“I have to trust physicians no more than I do the medical system,” she says. “But absolutely read up and advocate for yourself.”

Before Treatment, One More Family Trip

The diagnosis came just before Christmas.

Treatment would begin in January, but there was a small window before then. Moorjani, her husband and their children had already been planning a family vacation to Singapore. Her brother flew in from Singapore to be with them.

Instead of canceling everything, the family made a decision.

They went.

“We decided to take a vacation,” Moorjani says. “So we all booked new tickets, went to Singapore, spent 10 days as a family and had the best time.”

There was a difficult reality waiting for them when they returned. They knew life was about to change.

But for those 10 days, they chose to be together.

“I think that pause and we spent time as a family was really helpful,” she says.

They also tried to focus on what they did have.

“We tried our best to count our blessings,” Moorjani says. “We were in Boston. We had the best institutions. We had the best family support. We could talk to each other openly about it.”

Then came January.

Moorjani consulted doctors at both MGH and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and ultimately chose Dana-Farber for her treatment.

The uncertainty of diagnosis gave way to a treatment plan.

Chemotherapy. Surgery. Radiation.

“The hardest part of this was the chemo,” she says.

Finding a Different Kind of Quiet

Moorjani underwent eight rounds of chemotherapy between January and April, with treatments spaced two weeks apart.

For someone accustomed to being constantly engaged — at work, at home and in her life — chemotherapy was disorienting.

“I’m a very active person,” she says. “I’m either at work or at home, I’m engaged in things.”

Chemotherapy changed that.

She chose to receive her treatments on Fridays so she could use the weekend to recover. She continued working, with the support of her employer and colleagues.

Her hair began falling out around the 16th day.

But some of the most unexpected changes had little to do with the physical side effects.

Moorjani began noticing the quiet.

On Mondays, normally among her busiest days, she found herself moving more slowly. Her processing speed was diminished. She could listen and retain some information, but she didn’t always have the energy to react.

And in those quieter moments, something unexpected happened.

“I started to reflect about things and life and purpose and meaning and gratitude.”

One of those lessons came during a Patriots football game.

Moorjani is a devoted fan. Normally, a Patriots game was an event in her household — she would yell at the television, coach the team from the living room and, as she puts it, make her children embarrassed to have her around their friends.

But one Sunday, the Patriots lost.

And instead of becoming upset, Moorjani simply sat back.

“For the first time, I was like, ‘Okay, there’s next season.’”

It sounds like a small moment.

For her, it wasn’t.

“It put things in perspective,” she says. “This was not the only game. This was not the only thing that mattered.”

Cancer hadn’t changed her optimism.

It had expanded it.

“I think what it gave me perspective is that optimism is not just having optimism in the moment. It has to continue.”

The People Who Show Up

Moorjani had support everywhere she turned — from her family, friends and colleagues.

Her husband was beside her. Her mother came to live with her. Friends offered walks, companionship and practical help. At work, her leader asked two simple questions: What help do you need? And do you want to work or take a break?

Moorjani chose to work.

“I had the best possible support at work, at home, through friends,” she says. “I am extremely blessed.”

But she also learned something important about accepting support.

“Make sure that you set yourself up for that support,” she says. “You are going to need all the support in life that you can get.”

And sometimes, the most meaningful support is the smallest.

One friend would occasionally come to Moorjani’s home and leave a note in her mailbox. Once, she left a scarf she had made.

The friend didn’t come inside because she didn’t want to be a burden.

Moorjani remembers the gesture vividly.

“That scarf, that note made me feel so many people cared.”

It is one of the stories that best captures what Moorjani learned about being there for someone who is sick.

“It doesn’t have to be grand,” she says. “It has to be from the heart.”

Caring for the Caregivers

Her experience also changed her understanding of who needs support during a cancer journey.

It isn’t only the patient.

When Moorjani decided to shave her head after her hair began falling out, she approached it practically. She didn’t want to watch her hair disappear strand by strand.

“I’m very black and white when it comes to dealing with things,” she says. “I have a plan. We will go with the plan.”

Her hairdresser came to the house. Moorjani told her mother and husband they could be there if they wanted.

For Moorjani, shaving her head was a practical decision.

For the people who loved her, it was something else.

“Seeing a wife or a daughter just suddenly getting their hair shaved was just quite traumatic for them.”

That realization stayed with her.

“For anyone who’s trying to help someone who is battling cancer, don’t just think about the person who’s battling cancer,” she says. “The caretakers need as much or actually more care.”

She remembers people taking her husband out for a round of golf, inviting him for tea and sitting with her mother to ask how she was coping.

“The caretakers are a really important piece of this.”

Knowing How to Show Up

Perhaps one of Moorjani’s most valuable insights is also one of the simplest: there is no perfect way to respond when someone you love is diagnosed with cancer.

Some people came to her door full of questions. Others cried. Others immediately wanted to know how they could help.

All of them meant well.

But there were moments when Moorjani simply didn’t have the emotional energy to comfort someone else.

Her advice is to pay attention to the person in front of you.

“Make sure when you’re probing or asking questions that they’re ready to answer,” she says.

“Be curious, but know when to stop.”

Sometimes, support can mean a conversation. Sometimes it can mean a walk. Sometimes it can be a text, a note, a scarf — or a WhatsApp group that someone can quietly turn to at two in the morning when pain makes sleep impossible.

“There are so many ways you can show up,” Moorjani says.

The key is to show up thoughtfully.

Life Beyond the Diagnosis

Moorjani’s cancer journey eventually became about more than treatment and recovery.

It became a lesson in perspective.

A lesson in accepting help.

A lesson in advocating for herself.

A lesson in understanding that a cancer diagnosis touches an entire community of people.

And a lesson in what it means to live differently afterward.

Today, Moorjani describes herself as a global citizen. Born in India, she spent years in Dubai, returned to India for college, moved to Toronto and eventually settled in the Boston area. She and Rajesh have called Andover and Boston home for decades, where they raised their two children and now share life with their beloved puppy, Yogi.

Her career in financial services has spanned more than 25 years, beginning with Citibank and continuing with Fidelity Investments, where she has held a variety of leadership positions and today leads the business serving not-for-profit institutions.

Her professional life is centered on helping people make better decisions.

Her experience with cancer has given that philosophy another dimension.

Moorjani now understands, in a deeply personal way, that well-being is not simply about what happens in a doctor’s office. It is about the decisions we make, the questions we ask, the people we allow into our lives and the people who stand beside us when we need them.

It is also about what happens when the treatment ends.

There is life after cancer.

And for Moorjani, there is a word for what comes next.

A thriver.

Not someone who forgets what happened.

Someone who carries the experience forward — with gratitude, perspective, curiosity and an appreciation for the people who helped her through it.

Her story began with a frustrating work call in India.

It changed when she decided to stop and stretch.

Sometimes, the moments that alter a life arrive without warning.

The important thing, Moorjani reminds us, is to listen when they do and also listen to your body.