Scared !!!

Hi,

Just read your post regarding telling your children. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36 almost 18 months ago and struggled with what to tell my children who were 5, 8 & 10. It was early breast cancer so I didn't have to have chemo but did have radiation so my talk with them was a little different as my hair didn't fall out so I wasn't going to look any different (from the outside!). I spoke with them after the surgery once I knew what we were dealing with. My biggest piece of advice would be to tell the kids that they will probably have other kids telling them about it and saying stuff to them which may not be true (which happened to my kids) but because we told them early and advised that just because I have breast cancer doesn't mean that I'm going to die and not everyone that is diagnosed with breast cancer will die from it. This helped as over time some kids at school were trying to tell them that I had cancer and I was going to die but my kids said "No that's not right." This made me feel much better that they weren't caught offguard with what these kids said. I asked them if they had any questions and then answered them. I made our talk short and to the point with the facts which my kids seemed to respond to. You can only do what is right for you and you know your kids. You know what they can handle. Trust your gut. Good luck with everything. xx