The difference between cancer life as a royal and as a "lesser mortal"

[sixtyandsomething]

not to derail other threads..

I have nothing against the Princess of Wales, I am sure she is a lovely person and I wish her well. however, let's not pretend she is facing the same struggles as the rest of us.

I bet you £10 she hasn't had to deal with any of these! (feel free to add your own)

-40+ calls to DWP, often being left on hold for 2 hours or more
-many months delay in benefits being processed, leaving you without any income at all
-DWP advising you to "find a food bank"
-struggle up the hill on crutches to get a bus to chemo
-appointments delayed and cancelled, blood tests lost and repeated, regular system "crashes" leaving medical staff with no access to your notes.
-never seeing the same medical professionals twice.
-consultant appointments cancelled when you have already travelled several hours to the hospital
-telephone appointments you have to sit and wait by the phone for, for the whole day
-worry on crammed full bus when you are CEV
-getting off bus because it is too full
-getting of bus because you are vomiting
-sitting on the pavement for 3-4 hours after chemo in the dark and rain, because you are CEV and don't want to get back on a crammed bus in the rush hour
-commuters swearing at you because you move too slowly
-commuter kicking you out of the way because you move to slowly, and doing it with an air of indignation, like they feel seriously injured by having to touch something so disgusting with their foot
-minimum 18 hour wait in A and E before being admitted with infection - once it was 28 hours
-further many hour wait in ER before being admitted to wards.
-spending night on chair in corridor, after being admitted to a ward
-being asked to vacate chair in corridor so doctor can perform ECG on patient who is currently standing up with nowhere to sit
-being warned by hospital staff to sleep in your glasses so they are not stolen
-having to buy a constant stream of new clothes, and having to go to charity shops - on steroids? go up two sizes, no chemo? go down 3- surgery? get front opening everything, in a range of sizes.
-not being able have a clean the house, wash up, open the window even, without calling a friend to come and help.
-council refusing to empty your bins because you are not capable of moving them to the right place at the right time
-giving away your pets because you can't take care of them, or afford them
-being told the waiting list to see a physiotherapist is around a year

I could go on

I am so grateful for the treatment I have had, and I hope the Princess of Wales does well and recovers, but the two situations are not the same, even slightly, even if the disease is.

YANBU, your experiences show how unbelievably difficult falling seriously ill is for the average person. The added stress of trying to keep afloat financially and family life running can’t help recovery. The NHS needs to be completely overhauled. It’s not just a matter of throwing more money at it either. The whole system needs to be looked at. It runs incredibly inefficiently.

Allison Pearson was the reason I stopped buying the DM years ago. The foolish woman, was always writing a load of tosh, afaiac. Looking back, she did me a favour. Seems like nothing much has changed.

I was thinking this yesterday when reading comments about how she’s able to take limitless time off because she’s royal and privileged. I thought no matter who she married (or never married) she would always be able to have as much time off as she wanted and top notch health care because her upbringing was very wealthy and her circle equally so. She would probably have married an aristocrat or a very rich financier. She was never going to be on an NHS waiting list regardless of the RF.

Will ppl keep voting for them though or reform 😣 although the only realistic alternative doesn’t seem great either

I've had my own cancer journey and I can honestly say I experienced nothing you listed. Does that mean I had an easy journey? Absolutely not. Just because Catherine hasn't experienced anything you've listed, does that mean she's having an easier journey? No.

No one even knows what type of cancer she has. We don't know what surgery she had. We don't know how it has affected her, or how it might continue to affect her every day.

Yes, you've had a terrible time, but so has Catherine and every other person who has received a cancer diagnosis. Has your journey been worse than Catherine's? Who knows. You're really not in an position to know what any other person with cancer goes through. It's quite possible that Catherine has experienced a lot of terrible things that you didn't.

100%. How would anyone want someone’s situation to be worse just so it’s ‘fair’? It’s bloody unfair she has cancer at all - many many of us at her age don’t.
It’s not a race to the bottom. We should all wish she receives the very best of care just in the same way we would want this for our own loved ones.

I understand the RFs stoicism when it comes to these matters but for those going through cancer treatment right now is it not placing an unreasonable expectation to spring back to normality, because Kate did?

So are you saying she shouldn't have gone back to work incase it upsets other people?

OP, I wish you the very best in your treatment journey. Take care

A poster talked about her experience under the French healthcare system which you have to pay insurance for.

How many people in this country are fighting against something like that being introduced here. The NHS is not fit for purpose, something has to be done and not just throw money at it without looking at how we need to move forward and gave a proper system in place. If we had something like the French system then inequalities would not be so marked. But people have to accept that the NHS needs a radical reform

This thread is because of media coverage. It is offensive to claim anyone wants Catherine's life to be harder. We just want the press to stop pretending Catherine is having a harder time than ordinary people who get cancer.
The coverage of Charles is fine.

The fear and worry must be the same regardless of your life situation but I agree. The PoW experience of cancer will be so different to that of the rest of us.

We also want people to stop pretending that access to lots of money does not have an impact on outcomes from cancer. Of course it does. Many of us have lost people who might have lived if they had been given the best treatment that money can buy.

@crumblingschools The NHS in 2010 was judged to be the most efficient healthcare system in the world. As soon as you introduce insurance, the costs increase by an average of 10%. You need people to sell insurance, to process insurance claims or turn them down, to detect fraud, and to collect co pays or pursue people through the courts for debts.

I just feel the optics of the balcony scene insinuates that all is well and it’s business as usual when it most likely isn’t and may not be for some time.

It was just a few hours.

She has hardly "gone back to work" in any sense of the word has she?

I don't think that the optics showed anything other than her wanting to be there for her FIL.

It’s not a race to the bottom - there’s no good way to have cancer. She doesn’t have to do that, but you aren’t having to go through it with millions of people scrutinising your every move and tearing apart everything you say, do or wear. Your experiences are different but if I had to choose between 40 calls to the DWP and having the entirety of the world’s press trying to photograph me on the school run when I’m in the middle of chemo, I know which I’d pick…..

I’m sorry things are so hard for both of you tbh.

This thread is in incredibly poor taste and makes you sound small and bitter. None of the list of complaints you've posted matters the tiniest bit compared to the fear of dying while your children are very young.

@MyQuaintDog I think a lot has happened since 2010

That’s definitely what the OP was acknowledging, it’s awful for the PoW too… it’s just the journo who referred to ‘lesser mortals’ who don’t deal with cancer as well as Kate has… they’re the ones who have so many other knock on effects of cancer and the cancer treatment.

Take a look at the Dutch system. I believe the costs (to the system) are extremely high per capita, but it is certainly more equitable than the NHS.

Yep Sure you would!

https://inews.co.uk/news/terminally-ill-cancer-patient-universal-credit-dwp-benefits-died-penniless-244565

You are really out of order telling someone their pets don’t matter. And I doubt you have cancer. You don’t know what it’s like.

@MyQuaintDog and if our system is so great why has the OP suffered so much