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Olubukola Ayodele: Melanie Dale Writes Honestly About Pain, Disappointment and How to Live in the Messy Middle of Hard Things

Olubukola Ayodele/LinkedIn

Jul 3, 2025, 05:06

Olubukola Ayodele: Melanie Dale Writes Honestly About Pain, Disappointment and How to Live in the Messy Middle of Hard Things

Olubukola Ayodele, Consultant Medical Oncologist at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, shared on LinkedIn:

“After my post about life after cancer treatment, an overwhelming amount of people reached out. All saying the same thing in different ways: “I had no clue how tough things could be, after all, I thought, it was OVER”.

It made me want to share about a book I recently read titled “It’s Not Fair” by Melanie Dale. She writes honestly about pain, disappointment and how to live in the messy middle of hard things without pretending they’re fine.

And that’s exactly what cancer survivorship often feels like.
Not fine. Not over. Not easy.
Just “not fair”.

We spend so much time encouraging people to “stay positive” that we forget to give them space to FEEL the full weight of what they’ve been through.

It’s not fair to lose parts of your body and identity and still be expected to smile.

It’s not fair to beat cancer and then live with anxiety every day after.

It’s not fair to survive but feel completely lost inside your own life.

Melanie writes about how sometimes what we need most isn’t a pep talk, but someone to sit in the pain with us. To say: “Yes, this sucks. And I won’t leave you in it.”

This speaks so deeply to what I see in clinic.

Patients who’ve survived cancer, but are left wondering, “Now what?”

They’ve made it through the storm, but no one tells them how to live in the wreckage.

And when they express fear or sadness or anger, they’re met with, “But you’re better now!”

That’s not comfort. That’s dismissal.

What if we gave survivors permission to say:

– “I’m not okay.”
– “I miss who I used to be.”
– “I’m proud to be alive and still grieving.”

What if we stopped trying to fix the pain and instead, just made space for it?

There’s a chapter in “It’s Not Fair” where Melanie talks about “sitting in the suck.”

Not trying to wrap it up with a bow.
Not offering silver linings.
Just showing up. Holding space. Bearing witness.

So here’s what I want Survivors/Thrivers to hear:

– You don’t have to be inspirational every day.
– You don’t have to ring the bell.
– You don’t have to feel guilty for struggling.
– It’s okay to say, “It’s not fair,” and still be healing.
– It’s okay to rebuild slowly. To laugh again. To feel joy and fear in the same breath. The new YOU can thrive.