— Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales

You put on a brave face during treatment, but the real struggle begins after.
Because once the treatments stop.
The world expects you to bounce back.
To smile.
To “go back to normal.”
But the truth is, that “normal” no longer exists.
What follows is a deep emotional rollercoaster.
The medical team is no longer by your side every day.
The adrenaline of survival fades.
The exhaustion lingers.
And you’re left navigating a new version of yourself—physically, emotionally, mentally.
It’s a much harder process than I ever imagined.
This isn’t just a story of resilience.
It’s a reminder: healing takes time.
Not just the body—but the soul.
So if you—or someone you love—is in that space after the storm, don’t rush the calm.
Let it come, slowly. Gently. With grace.
And above all, don’t expect to be who you were before.
You’re becoming someone even stronger.

I should just say “Amen” and stop, but this isn’t Princess Kate’s parable, so here we go!

Let me start with this – this is not an accusation, it’s a confession. I’ve come to understand, like Kate has, the struggle in the after.

We in the Midwest and America, tend to be a society of fixers. We like closure. We like things neat and tidy and put away with a bow. We reach out to friends and even pray for them regularly, but we like an ending, a curtain to close. We helped fix that overwhelming problem, let’s move on to the next one.

But life, and cancer, isn’t tidy or neat and it often doesn’t have closure.
Kate’s writing captures it so well. So much lingers after treatment.
In my case, I’ll likely have neuropathy in my feet and hands for the remainder of my life.
My tiredness and lack of stamina will get better, but I won’t be back to where I started.
The inability to do so many things I did pre-cancer is wearing and frustrating.

I have a friend whose cancer has returned. It’s a “whack-a-mole” of treatments to find the right combo to hold the cancer in check. But cancer treatments are hard on the body. Very hard. So, there’s a continual list of physical responses to the treatments and none of them are fun.

My cancer will return. It’s what multiple myeloma does. Some hard decisions will need to be made on treatment options, because the treatment and now I understand, post-treatment, is full of yuckiness.

Just know we can’t explain everything, so we say we’re fine or okay.
Just know we need grace as we’re trying to find our new normal.
Don’t expect that we’re that stronger version of ourselves yet.
Don’t rush the calm. Healing takes time. Long after the treatment ends.