I wasn't prepared for what happened when I started sharing.
I'd expected kind messages. I'd expected people to say they were thinking of me, that they were sorry, that they hoped I'd be okay. That's what people say, and they mean it, and it matters.
What I hadn't expected was the stories.
Within hours of my first Facebook post, messages started arriving that stopped me in my tracks. People sharing their own cancer journeys — or their parents', their partners', their siblings'. People I'd lost touch with years ago, people I barely knew, people I'd never have expected to reach out. All of them with something to say that went beyond sympathy.
The ones that affected me most were the survivors. People who had been given a timeline — weeks, months, a specific number that had been spoken into a room — and were still here years later. Decades later in some cases. Still here, still living, still sending messages to people they once knew who needed to hear exactly what they had to say.
I had no idea how many people carry this. You move through life and cancer is something that happens to other people, somewhere else, until suddenly it isn't. And then you find out that actually it touches almost everyone, in some way, at some point. It's just that people don't always talk about it.
They're talking now.
I've heard from school friends I haven't spoken to in thirty years. Thirty years. People I sat next to in classrooms, kicked a ball around with, lost touch with in the way you lose touch with everyone when life moves on. Hearing from them — hearing that they're well, that they're rooting for me, that they wanted me to know — has been one of the most unexpected gifts of this whole experience.
Some have offered places to stay. Some have offered to help with the kids, to cook meals, to drive us places, to do whatever is needed. People in the village — not just close friends but neighbours, acquaintances, people we wave to but don't know well — have reached out to say they're there. Book recommendations. TV recommendations. Offers of company. Offers of practical help. A quiet, steady web of kindness that I genuinely hadn't anticipated and don't quite know how to adequately thank.
And then there's family. Who you take for granted, in the way you always do, until a moment like this strips everything back and you see them clearly for what they are. The people who were just there. No drama, no fanfare. Just there.
I think what's moved me most is realising what sharing does. Not performing positivity. Not pretending everything is fine. Just being honest — about the fear, the grief, the dark moments alongside the hopeful ones — and watching what comes back when you do that.
People want to connect. They want to help. They want to tell you their stories and hear yours. They've just been waiting for the door to open.
I opened it. And I am so glad I did.
