Telling The Kids !

For me telling the kids I am being tested for cancer is the hardest thing I’ve had to do so far. I don’t intend use this post to describe the exact situation I was faced with as everyone’s own situation will be individual to them. Nor will I go into detail about their individual reactions. As you’d expect they are all their own beings and each has handled the news and is dealing with it as we move forward in their own individual way. I simply want to write a short piece here to explain why I decided to tell the kids when I did.

The research nurse I spoke to initially suggested not telling the kids at all until all of the tests had been completed. I didn’t feel this was right for us as a family. I’ve always been upfront and honest with my children and honesty is what I expect from them in return. In the weeks leading up to my meeting with the consultant there had been the inevitable discussions with adults in the family who were aware that I was undergoing various blood tests. The last thing I wanted now was for someone to inadvertently say something in front of the kids, even if all they were asking was how I was getting on with the tests as nobody really knew much more than this. On occasion this had meant me having to leave a room the kids were in to have a telephone conversation with someone for fear of the kids overhearing something. My kids are clever and it wouldn’t take too much of this covert activity for them to think something was going on. In fact when I did break the news the kids told me that they already had suspicions that something had been going on.

I think the main thing that made we decide to tell the kids was an early realisation that this cancer diagnosis was not only going to be about me but was going to have an impact on my whole family. If the tests came back and showed that there was no cancer then it would have all been a storm in a teacup but surely that would be better than hiding everything away.

I wanted the kids to feel that they would be kept informed and that they would be kept in the loop with any big decisions or discussion points that were to be had. I also wanted to open it up so that they could discuss things openly and start to build their own support networks either amongst themselves or if they chose, with family or friends. This is exactly what the kids did. They have worked out for themselves who they can go to for support. They have used things like Facebook to have group chats together (one of my daughters lives in the South of England) and my youngest even went into school within a matter of days and discussed everything with her teacher, just to make them aware of what was going on. By telling them early on and by being open about everything I think in our own situation has been far easier than it otherwise could have been. That may not be the same for everyone and anyone going through this will need to consider their own circumstances but for me it has worked.

The only real tip I feel I can offer here is to use the resources of Macmillan or Myeloma if you need any literature to help you to be able to discuss your illness with the kids. I ordered a number of leaflets from Myeloma.org.uk and left them lying around the house so that they were there should the kids want to read up on anything.