The Princess of Wales has spoken of the “life changing” long term effects of her cancer treatment describing it as “really difficult to function”.
The future Queen, 43, made the incredibly candid remarks to cancer patients and staff at the Colchester Hospital in Essex, during a visit to the Royal Horticultural Society Wellbing garden to celebrate “the incredible healing power of nature”.
The Princess spoke of the need for potential counselling for patients following their treatment to better understand the journey to getting back to full fitness after personally suffering “hard times”. The Princess was diagnosed with cancer last year following a two week long hospital stay for an abdominal operation in January.
She underwent a six month course of preventative chemotherapy finishing last August, before announcing she had been given the all clear in January this year.
She said: “You put on a sort of brave face, stoicism through treatment, treatments done, then it’s like ’I can crack on, get back to normal’ but actually the phase afterwards is really, is really you know difficult you’re not necessarily under the clinical team any longer but you’re not able to function normally at home as you perhaps once used to. And actually someone to help talk you through that, show you and guide you through that sort of phase that comes after treatment I think is really valuable.”
Describing her feelings in greater detail, Kate said she had struggled with living with what she derived as a “new normal” post treatment.
She added: “But it’s life changing for anyone, through first diagnosis or post treatment and things like that, it is life changing experience both for the patient but also for the families as well. And actually it sometimes goes unrecognised, you don’t necessarily, particularly when it’s the first time, appreciate how much impact it is going to have. You have to find your new normal and that takes time…and it’s a roller coaster it’s not one smooth plain, which you expect it to be. But the reality is it’s not, you go through hard times.
“And to have a place like this to have the support network, through creativity and singing or gardening whatever it might be is so valuable and it’s great this community has it, it would be great if lots of communities had this kind of support”.
English