‘Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long, and I must continue to take each day as it comes.’
Those words, spoken by the Princess of Wales in an emotional video message released today, resonate so very strongly with me.
I may be four years further on in my own cancer journey, but the fear and unpredictability she speaks of hasn’t gone away.
I finished my own chemotherapy in August 2020, and can remember that moment as though it were yesterday.
I recall standing in the sunlight outside – and taking a moment to feel extremely grateful for being alive – before hailing a cab to a restaurant in the middle of Soho.
I remember stripping off the ‘chemo clothes’, which I’d worn at the hospital so I could put on a new navy dress that I’d bought, along with a wig with a matching navy headband – as I’d lost all my hair just a few weeks into treatment. By that stage in chemotherapy, I’d lost all my fingernails, too.
And I remember thinking that as much as I wanted to see my friends – and to and share in their smiles and raised glasses – the reality was, the journey was far from over for me.
I got diagnosed with grade-three triple negative breast cancer back in April 2020, aged 41, when my daughter had just turned five, and my son was just 11 months. This was also just a matter of weeks after the first Covid lockdown had begun.
What followed was a gruelling chemotherapy regime – consisting of paclitaxel and carboplatin (and in the midst of a pandemic, which brought a whole host of extra complications).
It began on 1 May, 2020 and finished around four months later, after what was undoubtedly the toughest summer of my life.
Having read Kate’s words in her statement – and having watched her video – I totally feel her relief, and am just so so happy for her. Moments like this are utterly and totally for savouring. But I know all too well, just as she acknowledges, that there is still a long way to go.
For me, there was the knowledge that I had surgery planned for mid-September. And the fact that, just a few weeks later, in October, I would have to undergo an intense two-week course of daily radiotherapy.
People talk about the ‘rollercoaster’ of being on a cancer journey. But somehow even those words don’t even begin to describe it.
When it comes to cancer, there is no such thing as an ‘all-clear’ once the treatment is over. And there is no such thing as ‘putting it all behind you.’
Kate very deliberately didn’t use those words, and for me, this is a really important acknowledgement that her journey is far from over. This is something everyone who reads and hears her words should remember, especially when it comes to their loved ones who have had cancer.
While Kate may return to certain public duties, she must not expect that she’ll be able to ‘bounce back’ to doing the things she used to do – or be the person she once was.
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I, too, want everyone who is going through cancer to recognise this and be kinder to themselves; to rid themselves of the pressure to automatically be the person they were before.
Friends and family may see me laughing and joking around these days – back to being a mum to two little live-wires, a full-time job in journalism, lifting lots of weights at the gym, and playing lots of netball – and tell themselves ‘Esther is back to her old self.’
The reality is, for months – and years – post chemo, I experienced tiredness beyond anything I’ve even known. At times, that tiredness still cripples me. And four years on, while the fear may have dialled down a little, the reality is, it never truly leaves you.
I can’t escape the fact I will never have the energy I once had – and will never be the carefree person I once was.
Kate speaks of ‘coming face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before.’ For me, it really helps to hear a high-profile figure voicing those fears that I feel so very deeply.
I am grateful to Kate for being so publicly vulnerable and sharing such an important message. Cancer is far more than a rollercoaster and there is no definitive end. All that can be done is to treat the people who have emerged from treatment with kindness, compassion and patience – whether that be a loved one, or yourself.
In my own humble words, I can add that it is only when you’ve found yourself staring your own mortality square in the face can you begin to realise just how fragile – and how precious – life is.
The only way forward, as Kate so aptly puts it, is to put one foot in front of the other, and to take each day as it comes.
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