The split method returns a list. To get the second element of this list, the number, do str.split(sep)[1], where "sep" is the separator you use.
If your list contains various couples of elements like ["cancelled:", "7", "accepted", "19"], you can get all the elements of the list with uneven index, using a range(1, len(list), 2):
your_list = string.split(sep)
your_list = [your_list[i] for i in range(1, len(your_list), 2)]