So you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, and people are starting to hear about it. Your inbox is flooded with shocked reactions, words of sympathy, encouraging messages, and perhaps even suggested alternative treatments.
Phone calls have to go to voicebank, and text messages are incoming with offers of help, “if you need anything, let me know…”, “tell me if you need a meal”. Lasagnas and casseroles appear on your doorstep.
This parade of tangible, practical assistance continues for the first few weeks, maybe months… and as you start to adjust to treatment, your lifestyle changes, and maybe your appearance conforms to the expected look of a ‘cancer patient’, the sympathy continues. People are happy to drop anything and everything to help. Give it another month, the messages and phone calls start to wane, with occasional offers of help, and you still have your close friends and family checking in. A few more months, it’s mainly friends and family. But as treatment wraps up, it feels like many have moved on.
The end of the initial, ‘acute’ treatment for cancer is one of the most difficult phases to cope with. In one way, treatment being ‘over’ can mean you might start to feel more like yourself again. However, in another way, it can feel like you’re just waiting for ‘something’. It’s made more challenging because supports can dwindle during this time – whether the formal support resources and systems or personal and community support. Some people find that the decreased medical appointments and check-ups worrying like you’re on your own and the routine of treatment may have provided some strange sense of security and predictability.
Thanks to more sophisticated technologies and improved treatments, cancer survivorshipthe ongoing care and support people with cancer receive after cancer diagnosis and treatment is increasing. People who have had cancer are living longer. This is wonderful news but can bring with it new challenges in terms of life choices, quality of life, healthcare issues and support systems.
Once the shock of diagnosis and initial treatment – which rallied a community in sympathy – has passed, many feel a sense of abandonment. Whether it’s compassion fatigue or people have moved on with their own ups and downs of life, or simply that they’ve grown accustomed and somewhat desensitized to hearing about your cancer-shaped life, it’s common to feel support slipping away.
It is also common for family and friends to not fully realise just what the patient has experienced, nor realise that someone’s cancer experience doesn’t cease just because treatment has ended. After cancer treatment is complete, family and friends often expect them to rebound and be the same person they were before cancer. However, for many who have had cancer, their priorities and perspective have changed, leaving them unexpectedly feeling frustrated, disappointed, worried or confused.
This is normal. Though it’s not ideal, it is common.
We know how difficult these transitions can be; we know how lonely and isolating it can be; we know how let-down and unimportant these circumstances can make you feel. As disappointing as it feels to be going through this right now, especially during a pandemic, there are indeed social and psychological supports constructed to help people through their survivorship during and after cancer.
Please reach out for some help. Some people feel most comfortable chatting to their trusted GP about this; some need regular sessions with a psychologist or counsellor to feel heard and develop greater confidence after cancer; some would prefer participating in support groups. Sometimes, it’s hard to know what you need in the first place or know the direction to go to get help. If that’s you, we at Rare Cancers Australia understand.