Counselling

After the treatment finishes then what? (Dr Peter Harvey)

28 Closing words

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We have made a number of references to Alan Bennett’s description of his experience of cancer, a moving, perceptive and wonderfully honest account as you might expect. He describes his feelings after his five year check-up revealed him clear of the cancer like this

‘And yet, more than anything else that I have written or otherwise achieved in my life, against all sense and logic, I feel pride in having come through, or come this far. Unlike so many others, much worse afflicted, I did not even have to fight. Yet I am thereby enrolled as a member, I hope a long-term member, of the exclusive aristocracy of those who have survived cancer.

Thankfully, it's a growing aristocracy, and one day, I’ m sure, such survival will seem commonplace and hardly worth mentioning. Meanwhile, I am one of the many who are here when they did not expect to be here. Take heart.’

The Cancer Counselling Trust has now closed.