Dear Me,
I thought it was about time I wrote to say thank you.
Not because everything has gone well. Not because you’ve handled everything perfectly. And certainly not because you’ve found some magical way to make living with cancer easy.
But because being a cancer patient is hard work, and you rarely give yourself enough credit for just how hard you work at it.
Thank you for showing up, even when you’re exhausted, frightened, frustrated or simply fed up with the whole business of being a patient.
Thank you for attending appointment after appointment, enduring treatment after treatment, undergoing investigations, procedures and operations, and somehow finding the energy to face yet another medical challenge.
Thank you for the hours spent in waiting rooms, hospital beds and treatment chairs. For the blood tests, scans, needles, medications, side effects and endless uncertainty. For the complicated routines that have become part of everyday life.
Thank you for all the invisible work.
The physical work of managing a body that doesn’t always cooperate.
The mental work of processing difficult information, making decisions and living with uncertainty.
The emotional work of holding yourself together when everything feels as though it’s falling apart.
And the exhausting administrative work of being a patient: chasing appointments, managing medication, arranging supplies, asking questions, following up results and trying to make sense of a medical world that never seems to stop demanding your attention.
Thank you for adapting to losses you never imagined having to face. For learning new ways of doing ordinary things. For accepting help when you need it, even when you’d much rather manage without it.
Thank you for the days when getting washed, dressed or out of the house feels like a major achievement.
Thank you for surviving another spell in intensive care, your second in less than a year. Thank you for not giving up.
Thank you for the effort involved in tube feeding, communicating, moving, resting and simply getting through the day when illness has made even the most basic activities complicated.
Thank you for persevering through pain, discomfort, fatigue and disappointment. For finding ways to carry on when your body and mind have very little left to give.
And thank you for knowing that sometimes carrying on means stopping, resting and allowing somebody else to take the strain.
Thank you for the courage you’ve shown, including the times when you haven’t felt courageous at all.
For the tears you’ve shed, the fears you’ve faced, the anger you’ve swallowed and the moments when you’ve wondered how much more you’re expected to endure.
You haven’t always been brave. You’ve been human. And that has always been enough.
Thank you for continuing to find humour in the most unlikely places. For laughing when you can, smiling when you feel like it and refusing to let cancer claim exclusive ownership of your personality.
Thank you for remaining curious about life, interested in other people and willing to notice the small pleasures that still exist alongside the difficulties.
Thank you for every walk, every conversation, every act of kindness and every ordinary moment you’ve managed to reclaim from an extraordinary set of circumstances.
Thank you for trying to remain an active participant in your own care, while recognising that the outcome of treatment is not something you can control through determination alone.
Thank you for advocating for yourself, asking difficult questions and speaking up when something doesn’t seem right.
Thank you for getting through the days when hope has felt distant, when optimism has required enormous effort and when simply reaching bedtime has been achievement enough.
I know you’ve had moments of despair. I know you’ve been angry, impatient, frightened and overwhelmed. I know you’ve sometimes felt defeated.
I’ve noticed.
But none of that diminishes what you’ve done.
You don’t have to turn every setback into a triumph or every painful experience into an inspirational story.
Some things are simply awful. Some losses cannot be dressed up as blessings. Some days deserve nothing more than an acknowledgement that they were incredibly difficult.
And yet, here you are.
Still learning. Still adapting. Still finding your way through a life that bears little resemblance to the one you once imagined.
I know cancer has taken things from you that cannot simply be replaced. I know you’ve had to make adjustments that other people may never fully understand.
But I also know that you are more than your diagnosis, more than your medical history and more than the collection of challenges your body has endured.
You are still you.
You are not just a patient. You are a person with interests, relationships, ideas, humour, opinions, hopes and a life that deserves to be lived as fully as circumstances allow.
And please remember this:
Your worth is not measured by how well you cope with cancer.
You don’t have to be an inspiration.
You don’t have to smile for other people’s reassurance.
You don’t have to be endlessly resilient, relentlessly optimistic or permanently grateful.
You are allowed to struggle. You are allowed to complain. You are allowed to have days when you’ve had enough.
None of that makes you any less deserving of love, respect, compassion or care.
So here’s something you don’t hear from me nearly often enough:
Thank you. You’re doing a remarkable job of navigating something extraordinarily difficult.
Not because you’re winning every battle.
Not because you’re stronger than everybody else.
Not because you’ve somehow mastered the art of living with cancer.
But because you keep doing the demanding, complicated and often invisible work of being a patient while trying to remain yourself.
And that deserves recognition.
Keep looking after yourself. Keep asking for help. Keep finding opportunities to enjoy life without feeling obliged to make every moment count.
Keep your sense of humour close and your expectations of yourself compassionate.
Celebrate the small achievements. Acknowledge the difficult days. Rest without guilt.
And please, above all, remember to give yourself some of the kindness, patience and understanding you so readily offer other people.
You’ve spent so much time being examined, assessed, monitored, scanned and reviewed by others.
Perhaps it’s time for a different kind of assessment.
One that recognises not just what’s wrong with you, but everything you’ve been doing to live with it.
With gratitude, admiration, appreciation and a thoroughly well-deserved pat on the back.
Thank you for not surrendering to the hardest days of your life.
Thank you for not giving up when the conversation had turned to goodbyes.
You haven’t kept going because it’s been easy. You’ve kept going despite how extraordinarily difficult it’s been.
Still here!
Love
Me xxx
P.S. You are not required to be a model patient, a medical miracle or an inspiration. Being yourself, doing what you can and getting through each day is more than enough.