Acceptance is a very important first step in managing cancer. Of course, consciously, people accept at a head level that they’ve got cancer. Of course they accept that it takes time to get treatment, it takes time to work out if the treatment has been effective. Yet, so often, unconsciously, they hate the cancer; they hate themselves for having it, they hate the powerful, negative effect it has had on them, making them weak and vulnerable and hate the dramatic impact it has had on the people they love. Cancer has come from your body and so by default, whether you realise it or not, if you hate it, then you are hating yourself. 

Joan felt so angry, ‘Why Me?’, ‘How come I’ve got this disease?’, ‘Why have we been cursed with this as a family?’ This is a thankless search with no satisfactory or useful answers. Cancer is a form of Russian roulette- the healthiest of people get it and the unhealthiest do not- it makes no sense whatsoever and if you continue to search for reasons, you will dig yourself a bottomless pit of negative emotions.

Joan felt so sad,’ My life, as I know it, is over’. A deep sense of loss was present, of being robbed of something that she took for granted- a long and healthy life. The ripple effect of the sadness was the loss of all the things she might miss, the things she had anticipated, those important events such as seeing her children grow old or having grandchildren.

Joan felt so guilty – ‘It’s my fault’. She was fearful of what other people will think of her. ‘Cancer does not happen to people like me’ is implicit in her conversations. Cancer makes her feel like a victim with no one to blame, so the finger of responsibility turned in on herself again.

Joan felt shame; ‘I do not want anyone to see me like this, so helpless, so hopeless’ so she stopped connecting with people. ‘Everyone keeps asking me how I am- is this all I am, this cancer?’. Even if she didn’t define herself by her cancer, others did. Everyone kept asking her how she was; she couldn’t bear it. She was too proud, and so she disconnected even more and just got lonelier. She was keeping things now from her husband, she was frightened he would leave her if she became too weak or feeble. He liked a strong woman, she believed.

Joan was so frightened beneath all the bluster and swearing. Fear was the stalker that lurked around every corner for her. Every hospital appointment, every scan was hugely stressful. Every twinge, every ache, every pain was the cancer spreading. Cancer ambushed her, day in, day out.

Once Joan began to accept where she was now, how she was, her strengths and her limitations, she was able channel all the energy tied up in her cancer battle differently so she could live her life with cancer. Joan’s journey was not an easy one with a life limiting cancer, but she made it much easier by living from where she was rather than where she would prefer to be.

Shona was in her forties and had recently had throat cancer. She had had several operations, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The trauma of surgery now meant she could not swallow and had to be fed through a pipe and a machine inserted directly into her stomach. She hated food. Her mum died on the day she was diagnosed, and Shona came to see me with a deep sense of hopelessness and helplessness. She had had a great life with her family and grown-up children and a career as a teacher. She was spending hours lying at home on the sofa, feeling weak, tired, lethargic, and depressed. She was beginning to wonder what was the point of living in this way. She was at an all time low.

When she first came to see me, she had her things in her special, homemade carrier bag, which her teenage daughter had made for her with positive affirmations and messages on it. She was ashamed – her daughter was not meant to be giving her advice, it should be the other way round. That was just another stick to beat herself up with. She knew her daughter meant well but this was not how it should be.’ I am the parent, she is the child; I support her, she is not meant to support me.’

We talked about acceptance a lot. Shona could not abide the word. ‘Why would I want to accept a disease that has ruined my life?’ She had tied herself in a knot and all she wanted was to get back to normal. 

Normal does not exist after cancer, because that usually means a desire to rewind time which is not possible. We have many gifts as human beings but time travel is not one of them. Trying to rewind to a time before cancer happened, just creates another loop of self bullying as the brain tries to achieve the impossible of the many ‘If only…’ conversations in the mind. ‘If only I’d eaten better, exercised more, was less stressed in my job, not smoked as a teenager…’. The list is endless, and the exercise is fruitless.

So, what do I mean by acceptance? The journey through cancer starts with accepting where you are on any given moment of any given day. Coming to terms with the tsunami of physical and emotional changes is not always easy, but it is always possible. There’s a saying -‘whatever we resist, persists’. This is so true when cancer blights your life. You cannot ignore it or avoid it. These feelings cannot be boxed off or buried, they are far too big for that. They take you hostage unexpectedly every time your survival brain is reminded that cancer can kill you. They stalk you and pounce when you least expect it and if you do not work with them, they can linger for years in ways that can truly limit your life.