Kate is right. You don't just ‘get back to normal' after cancer

Times

02-07-2025

Anyone who has been through cancer treatment knows exactly the experience that the Princess of Wales described this week when visiting a cancer wellbeing centre at Colchester Hospital.
'You put on a brave face, stoicism through treatment,' she said while chatting with patients and volunteers at the centre. 'But actually the phase afterwards is really difficult. You're not necessarily under the clinical team any longer but you're not able to function normally at home as you perhaps once used to.'
I could certainly relate, having been treated for breast cancer in 2021, with chemotherapy, mastectomy surgery and radiotherapy. Although it was hard, at least I knew what I had to do. The path was clear. I could get my head down and focus on getting through it.
However, when treatment ends it is common for patients to feel abandoned, right as they're dealing with the emotional fallout of a diagnosis that they couldn't fully comprehend when being thrust into the rollercoaster of treatment. On top of that, there's often a host of post-treatment issues (such as early menopause, in my case) and the looming fear that the cancer might come back.
• Rosamund Dean: The test that told me a gum infection caused my breast cancer
When my treatment ended three years ago, this fear of recurrence became all-consuming. As far as I was concerned, my body had betrayed me — what was to stop it happening again? My friends and family expected me to be getting 'back to normal' and, on the outside, it probably looked as though I was. I would smile as I told people that I was relieved to be done with chemo, all healed from surgery, and lucky to be alive.
But I would lie awake at 3am, tormenting myself with the details of how I'd explain a terminal diagnosis to my children, who were then seven and five. I'd have flashbacks to being in hospital after my mastectomy (a particularly dark time, since it was during Covid, so I wasn't allowed visitors) and started having panic attacks for the first time in my life. I was certainly not, as Kate described it, 'able to function normally at home'.
It was all the more scary because I hadn't expected it. Nobody had warned me that the period after treatment can be one of the hardest parts of the whole shebang. Despite having supportive friends and family, I felt so alone because I didn't want to burden them with my anxiety.
To my surprise, I found myself leaning into the type of things that might previously have made me roll my eyes. Having therapy, for instance, which was the best thing I could have done. I went from crying every day to learning how to manage panic attacks and intrusive thoughts. Having someone on whom I could offload all of my fears — without having to worry that I was upsetting them, as I would have done with someone close to me — was game-changing.
I also invested in things that made me feel good in my body, such as yoga, massage and reflexology. I'll be for ever grateful to the breast cancer charity Future Dreams, which provides these services and more on a tiered payment system.
• Read more expert advice on healthy living, fitness and wellbeing
Kate, who announced she was in remission from an undisclosed form of cancer in January, praised the Colchester centre, which provides therapy, community groups and holistic treatments. While chatting to one of the therapists, Kate said that she had not tried reflexology but had had acupuncture, which has been shown to have benefits in terms of managing emotional stress and coping with the side-effects of treatment.
'[For] a place like this to have the support network, through creativity and singing or gardening, whatever it might be, is so valuable,' she said while planting roses in the RHS's wellbeing garden. 'It would be great if more communities had this kind of support.'
Kate, 43, is back to work now, recently meeting with the philanthropist Melinda Gates at Windsor Castle. But she's also pulling back where necessary, cancelling a planned appearance at Royal Ascot. It appears that she is learning her boundaries and limitations as she goes — which is relatable for anyone who has been through treatment.
She said that centres such as the one in Colchester — and others, like Maggie's Centres up and down the UK — provide 'a sense of hope and positivity … in what is otherwise a very scary and daunting experience'. Cancer treatment, she insisted, is not only about our medical care.
'It's about the whole person — mind, body and spirit,' she said. 'We know now that all those three dimensions matter to the recovery journey.' I couldn't agree more.