At just 21, Di­nesh Gadraj had his whole life mapped out. A proud grad­u­ate of Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, he had aced his ex­ams and was set to be­gin train­ing at the Ken­son School of Pro­duc­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, study­ing to be­come a drilling rig tech­ni­cian—a dream born from his fas­ci­na­tion with the oil and gas off­shore in­dus­try.

Then, on Au­gust 5 last year, his world stopped. What he thought was “just a fever” turned in­to a di­ag­no­sis that would up­end his fu­ture—B-Cell Lym­phoblas­tic Leukemia, a rare and ag­gres­sive blood can­cer.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at his Chester Trace, Debe home, Gadraj re­called the mo­ment he got the news.