Illness stories are a prime analytical way of understanding patient perspectives on cancer. Nevertheless, limited studies have focused on stories of endometrial cancer. An ethnographic study including participant observation and interviews among 18 Danish women with endometrial cancer was conducted to examine prevalent stories and the ways the women responded to them. In this article, the analysis focuses on two exemplary cases, which present a line of issues related to the kinds of experiences that suffering includes. Findings illustrate that feelings of luck were central to the experience of being diagnosed, treated and cured, which was related to the way health professionals framed endometrial cancer as favourable through notions of curable/incurable, trivial and gentle/invasive and brutal, and aggressive/non‐aggressive. Drawing upon the concept of a ‘hierarchy of suffering’, we exemplify how women tended to scale own experiences of suffering against others’, leading some to believe they were not in a legitimate position to draw attention to themselves nor seek help and support, despite adverse physical, psychosocial effects. Thus, feelings of being lucky were intertwined with a sense of ambivalence. We conclude by discussing how suffering arises within a moral context, suggesting that the ways we speak of cancer may make some experiences unspeakable. This calls for increased clinical attention to more diverse narratives of cancer.

In providing women with endometrial cancer with optimal support through diagnosis and treatment, clinicians should attend to the complexity of patients' illness understandings and be aware that assuring patients of a good prognosis not always has the expected impact.

Early diagnosis and rapid treatment are deemed essential in relation to cancer. In 2007, Denmark implemented accelerated cancer patient pathways with predetermined time frames to reduce waiting time. In this article, based on fieldwork with observations at two hospitals and ethnographic interviews, we examine temporal experiences of the cancer patient pathway for endometrial cancer of the uterus at stage I. Results show that while the cancer patient pathway helps suspend thoughts of death it also brings a sense of timely confusion and concerns about whether disease has spread. This ambivalence is linked to a political discourse of cancer in general as acute and a clinical, biomedical framing of endometrial cancer in particular as “good” due to its slow growth. We demonstrate how women customize their temporal experiences to accelerate or decelerate time and argue that waiting is not necessarily a passive state. We emphasize the need for professionals to be aware that the cancer patient pathway time and subjective patient time are not always synchronized.