You are a woman, in your early forties, with young children whom you adore. You have a loving husband, supportive parents, and admiring  in-laws.

Out of the blue, you are diagnosed with cancer. Surgery is performed, followed by chemotherapy, and perhaps radiation.

The treatment is gruelling. After the trauma to the body of invasive surgery, and with scant time for recovery, chemotherapy commences. It’s a bitch.

Doses of chemotherapy are typically followed by nausea, vomiting, weakness, exhaustion, and weight loss. For women, hair loss is the most devastating aftereffect. Most resort to wigs, which are worn throughout the treatment and until one’s own hair is restored, if ever.  If the cancer progresses, many trips to the hospital are  necessary,  and more invasive methods of pain control required. 

Atop a bald scalp, the netting that molds  the hair of the wig can be very irritating. Expensive wigs have silk netting  that are non-irritating; less expensive ones do not. Of course, in this case money is no object.

But, privacy is. Many individuals, when faced with a diagnosis of cancer, do not want anyone to know. They fear being stigmatized, labelled as a victim, and someone not in full control
of their destiny. Moreover, they don’t want to be the recipient of pitying looks, constantly questioned regarding how one is feeling, treated as an invalid, gossiped about regarding one’s life expectancy, and how long it will be until one is replaced.

Those are the fears of a private citizen. Can anyone imagine how one copes, as Princess Kate has been forced to, while living in the goldfish bowl of the British royal family, where her every step is photographed and detailed?

It is impossible to imagine the pain of hearing the howling, greedy, crowd bruiting about rumors of infidelity, body doubles, and even death, when one is actually fighting for one’s life with a loyal, loving spouse fighting with you.

Think about undergoing the horrors of chemotherapy, while pictures of a faux mistress are splashed across the globe, and knowing that your children will be taunted by those pictures as they fear for their mother’s life.

Recent television commercials in the United States tout that if one is treated at a certain hospital for cancer, one is not alone. That is more so true in families. Parents, siblings, spouses, and children are all deeply affected and forever changed.

The human condition mandates that each of us experiences tragic events. Most don’t have to deal with them in public. Now that the gory details have been disclosed, let’s pray for Princess Kate’s speedy recovery, and that the public will allow her to be treated and to heal in private, and with dignity. 

(The author was a witness to the ravages of the disease on an adored family member who was so afflicted until her death).

Image: Nick Warner, via Wikipedia, (cropped) // CC BY 2.0 DEED