Govind Sandhu said he felt “great” when he developed flu-like symptoms, including fever, night sweats and body aches, in mid-May.
When he started feeling sick, Sandhu, 38, said he had just finished a Half marathon In his hometown of Sydney, Australia, he was training for an upcoming marathon and had just taken a vacation to Bali focused solely on health and fitness.
“I’m a CrossFit athlete who runs marathons and ultramarathons. Everything from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed is optimized for peak performance,” said Sandhu, TikTok’s head of global music partnerships.Good morning America“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke.”
Sandhu said he initially thought his symptoms were a result of his intense training or the change in seasons in Australia from summer to autumn.
Govind Sandhu, 38, is pictured completing a half marathon in Sydney, just before his cancer diagnosis.
@govindsandhu/Instagram
Instead, five weeks after he first experienced symptoms, Sandhu said he was diagnosed with stage 4. non-Hodgkin’s lymphomaa type of cancer that forms in the lymphatic system, part of the immune system that helps protect the body from disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.
“I look back now, I ran a half marathon while the cancer was spreading through my body – and stage 4 at that,” Sandhu said, adding: “I literally thought I had done everything in my power to make myself invulnerable to something like that… you realise it could happen to anyone.”
In stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the cancer has spread beyond the lymphatic system to one or more tissues or organs, according to the NCI.
The symptoms of the disease are very similar to those Sandhu said he experienced, including fever, night sweats, weight loss and fatigue, as well as swollen lymph nodes.
As an otherwise healthy 38-year-old man, Sandhu had only one of the three most common risk factors for non-Hodgkin lymphoma: older age, being male and having a weakened immune system, according to the NCI.
Govind Sandhu, 38, is pictured on Instagram sharing his diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
@govindsandhu/Instagram
“I wasn’t educated enough at that time. [thinking] “I don’t know if it could be cancer or what the symptoms are,” Sandhu said. “I’m struggling with the fact that I’m 38 and I have cancer, which is still a weird thing to say out loud.”
After her diagnosis, Sandhu said she began treatment, which so far includes six rounds of chemotherapy.
As he undergoes chemotherapy, Sandhu shares his journey on social networks to help raise awareness of cancer, especially among young people.
“It’s the last thing I would have imagined happening to someone like me, and if it can happen to someone like me, it can happen to anyone,” he said. “The reality is that anything to do with cancer, the big ‘C,’ the general population doesn’t know anything about it, and I didn’t know anything about it because anything to do with mortality or disease isn’t really talked about and shared widely … and I think there’s a lot of power in talking about it.”
Govind Sandhu, 38, was a marathon runner when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2024.
@govindsandhu/Instagram
Sandhu said he also hopes his story will help patients speak up if they’re not feeling well and help doctors listen to patients and explore all possible causes of their symptoms.
He also said he hoped that by sharing his experience of going through chemotherapy and battling a serious cancer diagnosis, he could help reduce the stigma of cancer and encourage others going through a similar battle to not feel so alone.
“I don’t want people to feel like they’re alone in this journey because, again, if it happened to someone like me, it can happen to anyone,” Sandhu said. “I want people to know that what they’re going through, I’m going through it too.”
He added: “If this can help someone who is about to go through this, who has gone through this or who is supporting someone who is going through this, that’s an absolute win for me. I want to shout about it because I think it’s a really important topic.”