Saba Pataudi , sister of actor Saif Ali Khan , opened up about being diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was 27 and going under the knife in 2006. It was in the latest episode of Soha Ali Khan’s All About Her podcast, where she invited her sister Saba Ali Khan and Dr Mazda Turel to talk about brain tumours and what constitutes a healthy brain. Saba opened up about the day she fainted and what happened next that led to her diagnosis.
It took me about 20 to 25 minutes to feel more conscious. Because i definitely wasn’t okay, i turned to my friend again and said that we had to head back. I didn’t have any pre-symptoms or any conditions that I think led up to it. One day, I went out and thought the problem was with my stomach, which has always been a sensitive point for me. I thought I had eaten or drunk something that hadn’t agreed with me. I suddenly fainted. Maybe we should head home. We were about to go out, but suddenly everything went blank. When I regained consciousness, I had already fallen on the road, just outside the building. Even then, I was still a little hazy, and my awareness hadn’t completely settled. Immediately, Saba went for an MRI, and the doctors found a shadow in the third ventricle of her brain. She was diagnosed with a colloid cyst, a rare but non-cancerous growth filled with gelatinous fluid. It was identified as a pilocytic astrocytoma, a type of brain tumour generally classified as low-grade.
Recalling the exact moment when she felt something was off, Saba said, “It happened very suddenly. I could feel myself becoming very uncomfortable, so I turned to a friend and said, ‘I don’t think I’m quite okay. Saba said that she underwent surgery around six months after the MRI.
