Why is it you only hear inspirational stories from people who have had cancer? Why don’t you hear about the people who can’t run a marathon or raise thousands of pounds for charity? Or even worse, don’t want to?
I understand these stories are meant to inspire people who are currently going through treatment or have just been diagnosed, but it can also put a burden on some people that makes them feel guilty because they can’t or don’t want to go to those lengths when they have fought a personal physical and mental battle that they just want to move on from.
No one warns you about the mental impact of being told you have cancer and navigating all the issues surrounding that. The worry, the impact it will have on your work and career and family, it could mean you never feel or look the same way ever again. You may have side effects from surgery or chemotherapy for the rest of your life. It takes its toll on your physical health first and foremost, but then when you start to feel better and thinking of going back to work, that’s when the significance of what you have been through can hit you, and it can hit you hard.
People are well meaning but sometimes if your hear “you’re gonna beat this thing” one more time you swear you will scream! No one says those things if you have heart failure or have had a car accident. It feels like – if you succumb to the cancer then you have failed somehow. Like you didn’t try hard enough to get better. But also no one warns you about survivors guilt, that too can have a very negative impact on your mental health.
I greatly admire those people who have been diagnosed with stage 4 and survived and gone on to climb Mount Everest and raised millions of pounds for charity, but the rest of us – and that number is significant – are made to feel a bit selfish or a bit of a failure if we don’t “do our bit”.
This is a personal rant and one that some people may empathise with or will completely disagree with, but either way, cancer is a disease that a lot of people will be touched by, either for themselves or a loved one. We need to hear from the people who don’t have the inspirational stories but were affected by it just as much.
