Thriving, Not Just Surviving: Wellness for Cancer Survivors

For a lot of people, the hardest part of cancer arrives after the part everyone celebrates. Treatment ends, the congratulations come, and then you’re standing in your own kitchen on an ordinary Tuesday, wondering what comes next. The calendar that was packed with appointments goes quiet. The body that carried you through treatment is still tired. And the ordinary life you’re returning to doesn’t feel quite ordinary yet.

There are more people in that exact spot than most of us realize. The American Cancer Society estimates more than 18.6 million people in the United States were living with a history of cancer as of January 2025, and that number is expected to pass 22 million by 2035. Each one is someone whose life didn’t stop for a diagnosis and doesn’t simply restart when treatment ends. That in-between — life after cancer, but not fully past it — is exactly what June’s National Cancer Survivors Month was created to recognize.

What wellness can look like after treatment

Feeling well again rarely comes from one big change. It’s mostly small, ordinary things done with some consistency. The American Cancer Society’s guideline for cancer survivors keeps its advice refreshingly plain: eat more vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and beans; go easier on red and processed meat; and, where you can, skip the alcohol. Move your body in whatever way you’re able — the guideline suggests working toward about 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week, like brisk walking or an easy bike ride, plus a couple of days of light strength work once your care team says it’s okay. If you’re still in treatment, the goal is gentler: eat enough, hold onto your strength, and keep moving a little.

Movement helps with more than what you might expect. The ASCO–Society for Integrative Oncology guideline on managing cancer-related fatigue points to exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based programs, and movement practices like tai chi, qigong, and yoga among the strategies with the strongest evidence behind them for the exhaustion that often outlasts treatment by months or years. That kind of tiredness is one of the most common things survivors describe — and one of the least visible.

Caring for the part that isn’t scans

The emotional weight is real, too. The National Cancer Institute notes that regular, moderate exercise — something as ordinary as a thirty-minute walk most days — can reduce anxiety and depression, lift mood, and ease fatigue, alongside its physical benefits. Follow-up care matters just as much: NCI describes a typical rhythm of a check-up every three to four months for the first two to three years after treatment, then once or twice a year — a chance to catch late effects early and stay ahead of other health risks. A good survivorship care plan from your oncology team should spell out the schedule and what to watch for, and it’s the right place to raise emotional concerns, not only physical ones.

Rest as part of recovery

Here at A Week Away, we’d add one word the wellness conversation almost always leaves out: rest. Not the kind you squeeze into a hard week, but the kind that comes from being somewhere else, with the people you love, long enough that your shoulders finally drop. That’s the whole reason this organization exists. Before there was ever a foundation, our founder Caleb Walker took a trip during his own cancer treatment and described what it gave him better than we could: “When you get away, you get to feel normal.” His story is where A Week Away began, and it’s still what we do today.

A respite week isn’t a vacation from wellness — it’s part of it. Time, presence, sleep, and unstructured days with the people who matter aren’t soft additions to a recovery plan. They are the plan, in the part that no clinical guideline can prescribe. If you or someone you love is in active treatment for a life-threatening illness and lives in one of our 15 Pennsylvania counties, you can learn more about applying for a respite. If you’d like to make a respite possible for another family, supporting A Week Away is the most direct way to do it.

This June, finding the peace you thought was lost might look like a salad, a walk, a quiet appointment, an honest conversation, or a week away. Most often, it looks like all of them, in some order.