Fighting cancer, cracking crime, and now an Ironman: Goa cop’s tryst with destiny | Goa News – Times of India

GOA: This time last year, Nidhin Valsan was unable to walk even for 15 minutes without “gasping for breath”. His heartbeat used to shoot to an abnormal 180 beats per minute (bpm) when for most men 60 to 100 is normal.
A year later, on Sunday, as the IPS officer—who fought the dreaded cancer and was cleared just nine months ago—finished the gruelling Ironman 70. 3 Goa race, he proved that if you have the will, determination and discipline, nothing is impossible. For almost a year, till the doctors gave an all-clear signal in February, Valsan fought non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, one of the most dangerous cancer types to attack the lymphatic system, damaging the immune system.
It was stage four.

Getting diagnosed with cancer is painful, and the treatment is also very difficult,” Valsan, who is the SP (Crime) in Goa and also handles the special investigation team (SIT) for land grabbing, told TOI. “I thought if I am able to do this, I will be able to show the world what one can achieve, and hopefully show to everyone that cancer is not an impossible disease to fight. It’s difficult, but you can fight, defeat it, and then do better and challenging things.”

The Ironman 70.3 race is among the tougher challenges. It includes 1.9km of swimming, 90km cycling and 21km running, back-to-back, to be completed within a stipulated time of eight and half hours. Valsan completed his 70.3 miles in eight hours, three minutes and 53 seconds (8:03:53 hrs), well before the cut-off time.
“It was actually tough to just think of participating in the Ironman race. I was not sure. My health was bad, and I had put on a lot of weight— 9 0kg—because of high steroids (which were used) during chemotherapy. I wanted to do something that would reduce my weight,” said the 37-year-old police officer.
Initially, Valsan thought of competing in a half marathon. It involves running for 21km, at whatever pace. When friends told him of Ironman 70.3 being held in Goa, his eyes lit up. His first day of training, in February this year, included one minute run, followed by two minutes of walk. He almost gave up after 15 minutes since his body wasn’t ready to take the load. But he soldiered on and completed the 40-minute task.
Slowly but surely, he was making progress. His body started responding to the challenge, and after a month, the training routine became part of his life.

“The idea was to just try. Once I started enjoying the process, it became part of my life. I tried to sleep on time and, due to my office work, trained early in the morning. When everyone was sleeping, I was training. When everyone was going out for dinner and partying, I was sleeping, giving my body time to recover,” said Valsan. It was not until October that the police officer was convinced that he could pass the Ironman 70.3 test, however, exacting it might be.
“Once you decide what you have to do and the brain is tuned, the body will follow. This is what happened to my life,” he said.
It has been quite a turnaround.
In November 2020, with Covid-19 at its peak, Valsan startedto experience chest pain, sore throat and sleeplessness. Then there waspain in the groin, and it “soon felt like the pa in was travelling all over the body”.
The unbearable pain didn’t allow Valsan to sleep and there were times when he “cried like a baby”.
Several tests were conducted—diabetes, spond ylitis, AIDS, neuro diseases, tuberculosis. When some doctors appeared certain that it could be arthritis, two parameters didn’t seem to match.

It helped that his childhood friend, Dr Ashish Bens, a famous gynaecologist and laparoscopic surgeon based in Kannur, ensured that all possible tests were done. MRIs suggested something was amiss and then a PET scan confirmed that Valsan’s body wa s “full of cancer”. “When I was diagnosed with cancer, the wife of a cancer patient, not-so-educated, told me something that stayed with me. She said, ‘son, the fight is here (in the mind). If you give up here, the fight is lost’. I made sure that I didn’t give up. For me, the cancer was detected only in February (2021), at a late stage, but because of my age, attitude, support from family and friends, I could fight it,” said Valsan.
Once detected, he started his cancer treatment at a government hospital in Kerala. He ha d to undergo six chemotherapy cycles, but despite the immense pain, he looked at others and saw that they were going through worse.
“There were about 30-40 patients in the general ward where I was also treated. During my first chemo, I saw the one next to me was a two-year-old boy who had blood cancer and he cried all through the process. I saw a young girl who had eye cancer, another one with kidney cancer.
“Cancer has shown me the most difficult times of my life but 2022 is now the best year of my life. Whatever I lost in 2021 when I was fighting cancer, I compensated for it in 2022. I wan t to tell everyone that cancer is never an end, take it as a beginning. You have a better life, just endure and remember about people who have fought and lived a better life post cancer,” said Valsan.