Adapting to life after treatment can be difficult, and patients and their families may experience a range of different emotions as a result.
Dr Amandeep Samrai & Dr Rachel Marfleet, Clinical Psychologists in Paediatric Oncology at Queens Medical Centre Nottingam answer your questions.
Q: While I’m so happy and relieved my child has finished treatment, I’m also sometimes sad, anxious and overwhelmed. Is this normal?
A: Lots of young people and their parents talk about experiencing a complicated range of feelings at the end of treatment - so this sounds completely normal! There’s happiness and relief that treatment is over and a hope that life will get better. However, there’s also lots of uncertainty with unanswered questions and “what ifs?”. For example, parents can feel anxious about fewer hospital appointments and feel sad that the safety net of the medical team is less available. You might also feel anxious about what the future holds, or about scans and your child returning to school. There are a lot of changes that happen in a short timeframe, so feeling overwhelmed is understandable.
Q: Why am I finding life difficult now that my child’s treatment has finished?
A: Although the cancer diagnosis and treatment would have been especially difficult and challenging at the start, families tell us that treatment and medical appointments provide structure and something to focus on. The goal is to finish treatment, but sometimes when treatment stops it can feel like a bit of an anti-climax. This might be because you hoped things would go ‘back to normal’ when treatment finished.
You may also notice that the emotional experience starts to catch up with you when treatment ends and what you’ve been through really starts to sink in. We hear parents talk about coming off the “rollercoaster” or “treadmill” of treatment, disorientated about what life will now be like. You might have questions about what is possible to do in terms of activities and whether things have changed for you as a family, or if life will be the same again.
Q: How can I overcome any negative emotions and what support can I get to readapt to normal life?
A: We often talk to families about the ‘new normal’ after treatment. It’s a chance to reconnect to people, activities and routines that weren’t possible during treatment. The experience of cancer may have led to you reevaluating who, or what’s, important. You might feel disconnected from things that used to be normal or from people that don’t understand what you’ve been through. It can be a challenging transition and initially you might draw heavily on the support of the hospital team and as life settles you might notice you turn to family, friends and your community more.
We know this is a difficult time that brings up complex emotions. If you think you or your family would benefit from speaking to a clinical psychologist - someone who can listen independently and draw on their knowledge and experience of adjusting to change - then speak to your team about a referral.
