Beyond Treatment

Why Living with Cancer Should Still Mean Living

Susan d'Arcy writes today in The Times, “Too many spas are still rejecting cancer sufferers. That needs to change.”

It prompted for me a broader reflection, not on spa treatments themselves, but on what happens when society begins to treat people with cancer as though they no longer belong in ordinary life.

Living with cancer, particularly incurable cancer, often means discovering that spaces once navigated without thought suddenly feel uncertain. Sometimes the barriers are obvious; more often they are subtle. No one may explicitly say, “You don’t belong here,” yet policies, assumptions, and unease can quietly convey exactly that.

It raises an important question: how many everyday places stop feeling accessible after a cancer diagnosis, not because of physical barriers, but because of attitudes, uncertainty about what is safe, or discomfort around illness?

The conversation around cancer rightly focuses on treatment, diagnosis, research, and survival. These are vital. Yet we rarely ask what happens to the rest of someone’s life.

Quality of life is not something that begins after treatment ends. For many, treatment never truly ends. Living with incurable cancer means building a life alongside uncertainty, appointments, fatigue, and physical change. Living does not come after cancer; it happens during it.

This is one of the reasons I created Not Dead Yet?

The project is not about illness for its own sake, nor about asking people to share stories simply because they are unwell.

It is about recognising that people living with incurable cancer continue to create, imagine, love, parent, work, grieve, laugh, advocate, and contribute. Our lives remain full of meaning, and our voices are worth hearing.

Art can reveal aspects of illness that statistics cannot.

Waiting-time targets do not capture the hesitation before booking a holiday when the next scan looms. Treatment pathways cannot explain the awkward silence when others no longer know how to speak to you.

Clinical outcomes overlook the quiet exclusions that build over time, the invitations that stop arriving, the opportunities assumed to be beyond you, and the everyday spaces where you begin to feel like an exception rather than a person.

These experiences rarely appear in policy documents, yet they shape daily life.

As Not Dead Yet? develops, it feels important to ask different questions, not only “How are you being treated?” but also:

Where no longer feels welcoming?

What have you stopped doing because someone else decided it wasn’t for you?

What spaces make you feel fully alive?

Access is not only about buildings, inclusion not only about invitations, and living well not only about medicine.

If we want to improve life for people living with cancer, we must look beyond hospitals to the places where life actually unfolds: cafés, galleries, workplaces, theatres, gyms, swimming pools, salons, community halls, parks, and yes, sometimes even spas.

Each of these spaces can either affirm someone’s place in the world or quietly push them to its margins.

I know which kind of world I want Not Dead Yet? to help create, one where living with incurable cancer never means being excluded from living.

If you're living with cancer and have been unsure where to find a spa or therapist that understands your needs, SATCC is an invaluable resource. Through its Touch for Cancer Care initiative, you can search for SATCC-approved spas, salons and therapists across the UK who have received specialist training to provide safe, supportive treatments for people at every stage of their cancer journey.

Everyone deserves moments of comfort, care and human connection. I hope this helps more people find them.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have you experienced exclusion from everyday spaces because of cancer, disability, or long-term illness? Have you witnessed it happening to someone you care about? Or perhaps you've found places that have gone out of their way to make you feel welcome.

If this article resonates with you, I'd also love to invite you to subscribe to the Not Dead Yet? newsletter. As the project evolves, I'll be sharing behind-the-scenes updates, reflections from the residency, opportunities to get involved, ways to support the project, and news about exhibitions, events and future collaborations.

Not Dead Yet? is growing into a community as much as it is an arts project. Whether you're living with incurable cancer, caring for someone you love, working in healthcare, involved in the arts, or simply interested in creating a more compassionate and inclusive society, there's a place for you in this conversation.

Thank you for reading. I hope you'll continue the journey with us.

Until next time,