“Life after cancer is different for everyone” – The Irish Times

Earlier this week, Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, posted a video announcing that she had completed chemotherapy treatment for cancer. The video, which features Kate walking through a wheat field in slow motion and capturing intimate family moments with her husband, Prince William, and their three young children, has been widely shared.

Although widely received positively, the video has nonetheless attracted criticism, with some commentators arguing that it was not, and could not be, an accurate reflection of most people’s experience of cancer.

Middleton posted a very different video in March, in which, sitting alone on a bench, she revealed that she was undergoing cancer treatment and told others suffering from the disease “you are not alone.”

Edel Brannigan, a cancer nurse at the Irish Cancer Society, said of the latest video: “As Kate Middleton herself says in her video, ‘the cancer journey is complex and unpredictable for everyone’.” Brannigan believes Kate Middleton’s video has helped many people “by sharing her story and raising awareness about cancer.”

She says: “Life after cancer is different for everyone.”

We spoke to some people in Ireland who have been affected by cancer to find out what they think.

Deirdre Geoghegan (42) from Dublin was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 39. “I was very active, eating healthily and exercising. I lost a bit of weight and noticed a lump in my left breast,” she says. With no family history and in the best shape she had ever been, she was shocked by the cancer diagnosis that followed.

Geoghegan underwent intensive chemotherapy. Her children were six and three when she was diagnosed. “My son is autistic, so I was doubly worried about leaving,” she says. Her young son found his mother’s hair loss, following treatment, difficult, “because it was a change and Mum was different. The change is really hard for him.” She found wearing a wig on the way to school made things easier for her in this regard.

Geoghan has a “very good prognosis,” she says. But it hasn’t been easy to put the experience behind her. Cancer “takes away your (certainty) … you’re going to get to a very old age … There’s always that tinge of worry in most things you do.” She finds Middleton’s video helpful, saying: “It shows people what everyone goes through, whether you’re a regular citizen or a member of the royal family. It’s vulnerability and a new perspective.”

The aftereffects linger, she says. Not just the physical effects like the “medical menopause” that followed, but also the fear of colds or pain. “Unfortunately, I’ve met a few people who didn’t survive.”

Geoghegan found the video “cool” and said people who have undergone cancer treatment “might be a little more understanding” of Middleton than some of those who have criticised her, adding that “it’s not all sunshine and lollipops”.

Outward appearances can be deceiving, Geoghegan warns. “A lot of people didn’t know I had cancer and that I wore makeup. And I wore bright lipstick,” she says. “I guess as a mother, you’re trying to keep your children looking good. And in the royal family, she’s trying to keep her nation looking good, not worry people.”

Siobhán O’Connell lives in Newry, County Down. Her husband Eugene, 50, has oesophageal cancer. He had an operation eight weeks ago, but his recovery has been slower than expected. He is due to start chemotherapy again in two weeks, says Siobhán O’Connell. The couple had four children. One of them died of a heart defect.

It’s hard for O’Connell to watch her husband struggle, but he has a “bright attitude,” she says. “There’s a lot of food and eating. You don’t realize how much food plays a part in everything you do. We go out and buy food for birthdays, for holidays, for everything. Although he’s eating a little bit right now, he’s had most of his stomach removed.” It’s a challenge, she says.

Eugene is in a constant battle to keep his weight off. O’Connell keeps a close eye on the calorie content of her husband’s diet, and he gets a liquid nutritional supplement. “It’s like a threat hanging over you: ‘If you don’t keep your weight off, this tube is going to be in there longer.'” He’ll never get back to normal, she says.

O’Connell found Middleton’s video beautiful. “It was very poignant, I thought. It was very different from the first video. The first one was very raw and I felt this one was carefully created to try to get a message across.”

However, O’Connell acknowledges that the video does not reflect his own family’s experience. “I’m putting on Eugene’s socks, that’s what cancer is like. I’m standing in the supermarket looking for ingredients to see if I can get the highest calorie level and to see what he might be interested in when he’s not hungry… he would love a steak. He can’t eat steak.”

“We had two wonderful weeks in June, while he was coming off the effects of chemotherapy and before he had surgery. We also visited cafes and garden centres. But no, that’s not our image of cancer. It was much harder than that.”

But O’Connell says she understands why Middleton might choose not to share the bad days. “Why would she share the days she doesn’t get off the couch? She’s in a people-facing role. She doesn’t have the ability to hide, whereas we’ve been able to hunker down and try to get through this with the support of family but without the pressure of the outside world.”

“I wouldn’t wish on anyone to have to deal with a disease that’s in the spotlight.” The hope Middleton has offered will help, though, O’Connell said. “We have to keep hope.”

Lora Doyle, 26, from Arklow, Co Wicklow, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was 15.

Doyle discovered a lump on her collarbone, the size of a golf ball. “I would fall asleep in class and come home at 4 p.m., go straight upstairs and sleep for hours.” Her parents thought it was just part of being a teenager, but she began to feel intense pain where the lump was.

On Christmas Day, Doyle showed the lump to an aunt, a retired GP, who told her mother she needed to see a doctor immediately. She says the shock she felt when she found out she had cancer was unlike anything she had experienced before, and it took her a while to process the news.

Knowing she could die traumatized her. “It was like a truck had hit me.”

Doyle underwent two rounds of chemotherapy and felt very ill within days. “I lost all my hair. I couldn’t go to school and I failed the Junior Cert.” She also gained a lot of weight because of the medication. Even after she was given the all-clear, Doyle struggled. “I didn’t feel healthy for two or three years. My body was on the floor, I had no energy. I was incredibly weak all the time.”

Mentally, Doyle has found recovery more difficult. “It’s been 11 years now and I’m still going through it. I still go to counseling,” she says. “I’ve suffered from really bad PTSD because of it.”

“My hair was everything to me. It was my crown,” she says, describing some of the effects of the physical changes that cancer and its treatment can bring. She struggled with the loss of it and still does today because her hair didn’t grow back the same way. “I struggled with it for years because I would look in the mirror and just see a very thin head of hair and a bald spot. And it was a constant daily reminder of what had happened.”

Doyle believes the negativity toward Middleton’s video is unfair. “The public scrutiny she’s getting is not the same as other celebrities… we don’t know what treatment she had. We don’t know what drugs were in her chemotherapy. Not everyone loses their hair or takes steroids or gains weight or changes their weight. I think it’s unfair that people are shaming her because she doesn’t look like what they would perceive a cancer survivor to look like.”

Like Middleton, Doyle says his perspective has changed: “My motto is I just don’t believe in stress.”