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.

Don't be silly. Of course it does. I'm not going to pretend my nannies, cleaners, chef, etc don't make life easier for me as a mother. That's literally why I hired them — to make my life easier. I'm not hiring them for charity, and I'm not going to pretend my life is as hard as an impoverished single mother or something.

The same goes for all the help Kate is given, loads more than most young mothers can fathom. It's literally there to make her life easier, preferably as easy as possible. I'm sure she holds herself to higher standards but as a mother she wouldn't have to lift a single finger if she didn't want to. I'm sure many days, she does just that (i.e. nothing at all), like any human would.

@Themaghag yes I'd absolutely hate to be in the Royal Family and subject to all that intrusion tbh. I doubt anyone in the Royal family will ever say stuff this and take all my privilege away from me. We allow it. But I don't know how one changes that situation anytime soon.

I would add - if you have kids or family near you. You usually can't afford private counselling for them, especially for kids. NHS referalls take ages.
You are left to cope with terrible cancer + see your suffering kids and family.
I'm still traumatised after my MIL cancer.
The only help I got was leaflets and waiting list for counseling. It was 2019. I am still waiting!

What a uniformed, nasty and utterly vile comment.

Hate to break it to you, but that's the whole point of being rich – to make your life easier... Otherwise why on earth would people even bother earning money? To watch a useless imaginary number go up?

Also, I'm sorry you suffered, but your cancer journey would've been a lot worse if you'd had to add on things like waiting hours for buses in the cold, going hungry, etc.

I’m going to stick my head above the parapet here, so have my tin hat on.

My hospital (not the NHS in case you missed my previous post) provides me with direct access to the following services:

My surgeon, her PA and secretary
My radiation oncologist, his PA and his secretary
My oncologist, his PA and his secretary
My nutritionist
My therapist
My dedicated patient care coordinator who knows me by name/voice/sight who gatekeeps access to services like: yoga, reiki, acupuncture, skin care & beauty services, hair care, transport, home help, financial aid services (eg. Help navigating the endless form filling to get benefits). She could even recommended a dog sitter, even though I don’t need one.

If my hospital has to cancel an appointment, I get a phone call, a text message, an email and an app notification. Not a sodding letter.

I think if I missed an appointment, they’d be all over me like a rash!

I'm low on family support (my DH and I are an army of 2) and the medical team are extremely conscientious about checking in with him too when he accompanies me to appointments. If he doesn’t, they ask where he is.

So, in my opinion, the NHS could be doing a lot more if it was adequately staffed and funded. The OP is not just her illness. She’s a package deal with her circumstances.

OP, please. I’m not saying this to rub your nose in it. You really should be better supported by your care team.

I am not on benefits, I am a professional, but it doesn't matter when you have cancer, you lose your pay check and get through the savings pretty quickly. No one on my medication is allowed to drive. And yes, I have support from friends and family, luckily, as I relied on them totally for food and bills for months. Without them I would have starved, never mind the cancer!

I'm sorry you've had such a kicking on here. Your OP isn't whiny in the least. I agree with you. Hope you recover. Cancer is utterly shit.

I dunno. Knowing if the worse comes to the worst your young family will be ok financially has got to be of some comfort I wish both Kate and the OP well.

Let’s hope she just gets over her cancer and uses her popularity and influence to help those less fortunate with cancer who deal with the awful situations you describe. I had to take my mum for chemo, sit in a crowded waiting room at the hospital, wheel her around in a wheelchair as she lost the use of her legs and all the other nasty and sometimes undignified things she had to endure . Sadly we lost her a few years ago but I well remember the difficulties we had.
The Princess could be a sounding board for the less fortunate , maybe campaign for better conditions, who knows. As I’m older I remember Diana doing the very same thing . Maybe Kate could take a leaf out of her book!

I do think the press have overdone it with how brave Kate has been, I'm sure she has but no more than anyone else who has cancer or any other life altering condition for that matter. Money absolutely takes a large amount of 'normal' worries away and can open the door to treatment not available on the NHS .
I went to the funeral of a friend recently, her husband gave up work to care for her and they were seriously thinking about remortgaging to travel to the US for treatment, sadly the cancer spread quicker than anticipated.
I feel so sorry for anyone struggling emotionally, physically and financially with any illness.

Absolutely agree 🌺

It is just unbelievable how many y knots people will tie themselves into to defend the Royals. Like people defending Prince Andrew by saying a 14 year old child was a willing participant in Epsteins abuse of young girls. Kate is very likely to recover from cancer because she had immediate treatment and is undergoing preventative treatment. The ability to concentrate exclusively on her own recovery will also help immensely. The press are making her out to be some kind of incredible example to us all because she got driven somewhere and stood up for 10 minutes after an army of people dressed her, put on her makeup and did her hair. Yet the OP is the one being abused for pointing out that this is not the case.

It’s not a competition. What an odd thread.

And when you are not a young mum with kids no one gives a shit.single older people.oh it's ok if they get cancer

I don't doubt for a second that she has it a lot easier on the treatment front. But she is also a mother of three young children and is in the world spot light. She has to deal with the possibility of her children reading crap online or hearing about her from classmates. Very little is private. Although she is having some time out, she is still under enormous pressure to resume her duties as will not want to be letting charities down. She will still be contending with the same sickness, fear and fatigue. So yes, she has it easier in some respects, but much harder in others (such as all that crap and speculation that she had to deal with a few weeks back). I don't think that any of us can understand that either.

As an aside, whilst i am sorry to hear about your experiences OP, my father's experience (he has terminal leukemia) has differed. He does see the same team of drs. He's not kept waiting for appointments. He's had to wait up to 4 hours in the emergency/critical care A&E to be triaged (for cancer patients with low immunity), instead of being seen and put on iV antibiotics within the hour). But generally the care that he has received has been good.

Did they not give you a special number to call to go to critical care A&E instead of the usual one? I find it baffling that you would wait 28 hours to be seen with low immunity.

Can Macmillan help?

I think a better comparison would be a relatively well off person with private healthcare. I’d imagine cancer as a prominent Royal is pretty pressurised with all the public intrusion.

I am not making the comparison, the media is. The princess of Wales, we are told, is so much braver and worthier than us "lesser mortals"

Firstly I don't know of anyone who has defended Prince Andrew! And i think that you'll find that he didn't sleep with anyone aged 14. She was 17. He would be in prison if he has slept with a 14 year old in this country. I'm not defending him sleeping with a 17 year old by the way. I would love to see him locked up, but it's important to be accurate and factual.

Secondly, i do not know how on earth you can draw a comparrison between people coming to the defence of a mother with cancer and the situation with Andrew. The two situations are entirely different and unrelated. I'd be happy if you could point me to a mumsnet thread though where scores of women defend Prince Andrew, that great protector of women's virtues!

Plenty have defended Prince Andrew on MN. He should be locked up. He allegedly raped a 17 year old trafficked girl.

Honestly, i would be really shocked if people on Mumsnet had defended him, aside from the occasional troll. I fully understand what he did and I believe that he should be extradited because he has committed a crime in the US at least.

But even if some people have defended him, i cannot see what that has to do with Kate's entirely different situation. Surely it is right that people defend Kate..she has cancer. And surely it is also right that people also defend the OP because she also has cancer. Any reasonable person should defend any decent person going through a vulnerable period through no fault of their own.

Plenty have defended Prince Andrew on MN
Have they?!
Thankfully haven't seen any of that.

To everyone on here saying there is always someone else who has it worse, please, please stop. Doing so is emotionally dismissive and you sound as if the OP's feelings don't count when they so do The OP has been, and is still going through, hell. Mumsnet is about support and no-one needs support more than the OP.

As someone who has been through chemo to anyone posting on here who hasn't you have no idea what it is like.

To the OP your journey, your struggles and you matter and I hear you.

Having cancer and going through treatment is horrendous. It is hard for everyone but to have financial, practical and logistical issues on top of everything is not something anyone should have to face.

OP I wish you well with the rest of your treatment and please if you do nothing else email your post to your local MP and ask them what they can and will do to help.

So sorry OP.

As someone with access to the best private health care, no she won’t have to face a lot of what you have had to.

What having money does not do is take away the fear, the ill health and the treatment that she is having to go through. I don’t think she is any more brave or more worthy (of what though?) than anyone else going through cancer treatment, and I doubt she would feel that way. We don’t know what type of cancer she has or what the prognosis is, so can’t comment on that but I am sure like any person diagnosed with cancer, she is terrified.

There is no doubt in my mind though that being comfortable financially would take away a lot of the stress that you have had to endure. The same could be said for anyone who has a cancer diagnosis but who is well off. Im not sure why there is a need to focus on one particular person.