Entertainment
Kate Middleton Shares ‘Difficult’ Cancer Update After Missing Key Event
Kate Middleton, in her first public appearance since missing the heavily anticipated family gathering at the Royal Ascot last month, opened up about the “difficult” stage of her cancer treatment that gave fans new insight into the halting road to recovery she’s traveled for more than a year.
The Princess of Wales spoke about putting on a “brave face” while sitting with a group of fellow cancer patients at the RHS Wellbeing Garden at Colchester Hospital.
“Everybody expects you to be better – but that’s not the case at all,” she reflected. Others in the half-dozen bunch nodded their heads in agreement.
Oftentimes, she’s felt an expectation from the public, especially the media, to “crack on, get back to normal” after spending more than a year in chemotherapy treatments.
“There is a whole phase when you finish your treatment, everybody expects you to be better – go! But that’s not the case at all,” she told the group.
“You put on a sort of brave face, stoicism through treatment. Treatment’s done, then it’s like ‘I can crack on, get back to normal’ but actually the phase afterwards is really difficult.”
But a “very scary, very daunting experience” during her chemo left Middleton visibly shaken as she recalled how the hardship did not end with the intravenous injections. There is, she stated, a “new normal” that all cancer survivors must adjust to.
“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,” she explained. “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.”
Middleton revealed that she has tried acupuncture – a traditional Chinese needling technique to relieve pain and stress throughout the body – and found it helpful in her own recovery process, she told the small gathering.
During her visit, the Princess helped other patients at Colchester Hospital plant rose bushes in a garden established to help cancer patients find peace during their stay.
Doctors had declared Middleton’s cancer in remission last year, but her recent absence from the Royal Ascot horse racing competition left Royal Family adorers fearful about her health. Aides insisted that nothing cataclysmic had occurred and that the Princess had always been honest that her return to public duties would be staggered, the Daily Mail reports.
Describing her cancer as “life changing,” she compared chemotherapy treatment to a “rollercoaster” of ups and downs, both physically and emotionally, and added that she’s taken a “mind, body and spirit” approach to processing the results.
She said, “You have to find your new normal and that takes time.”
The visit, which included a walkabout with therapist Amanda Green through the facility, offered the most intimate glimpse yet of Middleton’s private battle with cancer. The two talked about the benefits of acupuncture as well as reflexology, which Middleton admitted she has not tried yet.
“It’s life changing for anyone,” she said during her visit. “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 unrecognized, you don’t necessarily, particularly when it’s the first time [of diagnosis], appreciate how much impact it is going to have.
“You have to find your new normal and that takes time…and it’s a rollercoaster, it’s not one smooth plane, 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.”