Managing hope, denial or temporal anomie? Informal cancer carers' accounts of spouses' cancer diagnoses

► Shows that examining coping strategies is only part of understanding carers of cancer patients' emotions. ► Gives a rare interactionist sociology of emotions and temporal analysis of carers of cancer patients' emotions. ► Offers temporal anomie to describe a carers' disrupted future-orientation after hearing their spouse's cancer diagnosis. ► Provides insight into what medical professionals do in delivering a diagnosis: address temporal anomie.