Writing Through Cancer: Using Writing as a Therapy and a Way to Help Others

This is an article that I wrote for Shine Cancer Support in the summer of 2019. They’ve kindly agreed to me reproducing it here.

In three months, my book is being launched. In fact, people can actually pre-order it on Amazon now. I keep having a sneaky peak to check it’s still there. It is. There’s a picture of the cover (a photo of my feet in fluffy white socks) with my name in big capital letters. Which is really weird. Weird in so many ways. Had someone told me three years ago that I’d be a published author I would have laughed (very loudly) in their face. You see, I’m not what I would call a ‘writer’. I’m not one of those people who’s lived with an unwritten novel sitting inside them and I’ve never really had any aspirations to write poetry, short stories or even magazine articles. I’ve never studied creative writing and my day to day job only involves the legal kind of writing. But then something horrible happened to me. I had cancer. I started to write about it. And I haven’t really stopped.

I didn’t sit down one day and just write it all out. I jotted things down over the course of treatment: I described my emotions and how I was feeling; I recorded my side effects at length; I wrote long gratitude lists; I wrote about my anger, resentment and fear; I recorded the way in which treatment was given to me; I made lengthy, detailed to-do lists; I ranted about people who upset me with their thoughtlessness; I made lots of exciting life-after-cancer lists; I wrote about my hopes and dreams; and I recorded my day to day observations and general musings about life, death and everything in between. And all this writing made me feel, oh, so much better.

Then, towards the end of my treatment before I went back to work, I took all these notes and I set up a website, wrote a book and starting writing articles for cancer charities and organisations. I realised that whilst the writing was helping me, it might also help other people who were going through similar things.

If you’re going through cancer treatment, or you’ve finished treatment and you’re trying to put your life back together, why not consider writing about your experience?

1.Remember that you are writing for whatever reason that you choose. So, if you don’t want anyone to read it then they don’t have to – you can keep your writing private. Nobody needs to ever read it; you could even ceremoniously destroy it in a defiant move against cancer.

2. Everyone can write about their experience. You don’t need to be a writer. You just need a pen and paper, or a laptop, or a phone. You don’t need to be perfect at grammar and spelling. Just remember to write what is important to you, write from the heart and be honest.

3. Use your writing to stay in control. Going to hospital for consultant appointments, oncologist appointments, scans, blood tests, clinical trial appointments, counsellor sessions and everything else can be so overwhelming. Sometimes it can be helpful to take notes at these appointments and then rewrite the details into a dedicated notebook/computer folder so that everything flows from one appointment to the next and you can keep on top of what is going on, rather than feeling completely out of control.

4. Try keeping a gratitude journal. Having cancer can feel so unfair and cause all sorts of negative emotions to build up inside you. Sometimes it might help to remember things for which you are grateful. And on the bad days, re-reading this ongoing list might help to lift you out of your slump.

5. Don’t be afraid you write down your feelings and emotions, your fears and worries. If you write them out, then they’re out of your head and you can let them go. It might even help lift the weight of anxiety off your chest a little.

6. What to write? If you like the idea of writing about your experience but you don’t know where to start, here are a few prompts to get you going:
• How did you feel to be diagnosed with cancer at such a young age?
• How did it feel to tell your parents, siblings, children that you had cancer?
• How have friends treated you since you told them about your diagnosis?
• How did you feel about losing your hair through chemo?
• What has having cancer made you realise, that perhaps you didn’t before?
• Have any positive things come out of having cancer?
• How have the side effects affected you?

7. Letters. Anyone going through cancer knows that unfortunately not all your friends step up and rally around. This is incredibly hurtful and can knock your confidence to an even lower level. This is not what you need when you have bigger things to worry about. It can eat away at the back of your mind with thoughts like, “Why hasn’t she got in touch?” “Why am I not invited out with my friends anymore?” “What’s wrong with me?” It might help to write a letter to these friends telling them how you feel and why you’re upset with them. Don’t send the letter, just burn it or rip it to shreds and move on.

8. Don’t forget to write about the good as well as the bad. For example, it’s nice to write about all the lovely things that people do for you (like bringing you food or driving you to appointments) and it’s nice to read these back to remember how important you are to these people.

9. Consider whether you’d like to share your writing with others. Maybe you’d like to set up a blog (which is fairly straightforward using one of the DIY blog platforms like WordPress) or a FaceBook page. With both these types of blogs you can share your writing with either just your friends and family, or open it up to anyone. If you don’t want to set up something yourself, get in touch with one of the cancer charities or cancer organisations about sharing your writing as a guest blog on their website (I’m always happy to post guest blogs about breast cancer for my website, www.tickingoffbreastcancer.com).

10. Don’t be shy about sharing your writing with others. It can be a bit daunting to start with, but at the end of the day people going through cancer want to read about the experiences of others who’ve been through the same thing. They’re looking for reassurance, support, honesty and advice so if you can provide these, they’ll want to read what you write. And remember these words of encouragement from me:
You have something to say, so you should say it.
Even if it just helps one person, you are making a difference.
You have a voice, use it.
People will appreciate the advice of someone who has been through it.

July 2019

The information and content provided on this page is intended for information and educational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice.