Hi @JenPritchard. I was diagnosed a day before my 40th Birthday in 2016. Mine was Grade 3, Stage 3B with 17/18 lymph nodes positive.
My boys were 11 and 9 at the time. We were honest with them from the start about everything. The know my doctors names, what I’m going for and we’ve always told them they can ask anything they want. My littlest one spent 3 months sleeping at the end of our bed whilst our older one was very angry. We told it was ok to be angry but it was not an excuse to behave badly. They are both still scared in and off. You can get a kids brouchure from the Cancer Council to help explain it to the kids. I wore a scarves when I lost my hair and the kids chose them, so I had Pokemon and Wonder Women.
Kids are very resilient, and while unfortunate it our cancer diagnosis becomes every day part of life xx