I live in France and am miles away from my children.
I was initially diagnosed on the 24th November when I had a mammography/ultra sound, biopsy on the 2 Dec and more formal diagnosis on the 9th.I have a pre-op appointment booked for 6 Jan.
So far my husband knows and I managed to tell my sister over the phone, and one friend here knows.
But I have not yet told my grown up children who all live in London as I dont feel right about telling them singly and over the phone.We are going to England for Xmas and i shall try to tell them all together if I can straight away.
If i dont tell them before Xmas I shall have to leave it til January when i will be back home and would have to do it over the phone. I want to be there in person so i can physically comfort them if they are upset, but I dont want to ‘spoil’ Xmas…
Telling them is worrying me more than the surgery/radiotherapy…what have other people done?
Hi mgsm,
Im sure others will respond. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2009, and like you, found telling people one of the hardest things. I am facing a similar dilemma (which I wont go into) and worried about spoiling Christmas.
There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to tell people- you know your children but I think you are right, they will be very upset.
One thing I can say which might help you is that telling people, and them taking it in is a process- with this in mind, it takes time for people to digest the news, understand it, so whether you decide to do it in person, or on the phone, they will need time.
I live a long way from my family so I had to tell them over the phone. The advantage (there were disadvantages) was that they could be upset and take themselves away to deal with their own feelings, and then come back to me when they were ready. It’s harder to do this when you are with them in person, and they may not readily accept you comforting them.
The other thing I did which helped (I found I got better with practice) was to tell people what happened ie I found a lump in my breast which worried me, I went to my GP - you get my drift- this meant that whoever I was telling knew where this was going and was better than annoucing it.
There is help on this site about talking about cancer and also on the Macmillan site.
I dont know if this helps. Ask asny questions.
Good luck, Rattles, xxx
Thanks Rattles for your comment …and especially about telling it as a story rather than a straightforward ‘i’ve got breast cancer’
hopefully i’ll get my head straight before the 19th.
Personally I rang close family straightaway the evening of the day of diagnosis and was relieved to get it out of the way. It just wasn’t practical to get people together. A few years ago my Dad told me by phone about his cancer diagnosis. Didn’t make any difference to me to be told by phone - I was just glad he told me straightaway and in a straightforward manner. I contrast this to my mother-in-law who didn’t tell us for 10 years about her BC diagnosis - that left us feeling hurt and patronised.
You know your family best so it needs to be your decision about how best to do this. I hope you manage to do it in a way which feels ‘right’ for you. Good luck.
hi there mgsm
i was dx 17th nov. i am 39 (turning 40 in june)
i went to clinic 15th nov with lump (when GP being sure it was a cyst!) had core biospy cos obviously there werent happy it was a cyst from the ultra sound and unfortunately there were right and was told 2 days later.
i never mentioned any of the above to mum or dad and then had to tell them. i think because i thought if it was a cyst i would have worried them for nothing. but then when i did have tell them it was a big shock. since this the last few weeks they have been brilliant helping doing shopping and cleaning and washing and basically anything to take the pressure off. i have hospital appointments every other day since dx - my hospital move really fast on things so its been stressful. at first i didnt say much about what would be happening until one day my mum and dad said they didnt want to me bottle things up and not talk about everything with them in order to try and protect them. and i think they were right i was trying to protect them. and if it was my mum i would want to know and be there and help in anyway which i could.
i think what i am trying to say is they would want to know and be there for you and wouldn’t think about xmas being spoilt - and if you tell them when you are in england they will feel they are able to be there for you more than if did by phoned from france and maybe would feel helpless. i think you are ultimately trying to protect them and thats why you worrying so much about how and when to tell them. they will be stong and together they will get you through your treatment. i think you will be surprised.
i hope this helps. xxx
Hi
I got dx on 22nd Dec last year and live away from my family, and so I know where you are coming from.
My advice would be don’t delay telling your close family. Take a deep breath and do all the phone calls in one night. It’ll be distressing for everyone, but it’ll give you all a chance to process it and ask and answer questions so that it doesn’t have to dominate the whole of Christmas. If you don’t tell them immediately, would they be hurt that you hadn’t confided in them straight away?
In my case, because I didn’t yet have a treatment plan, there wasn’t that much to discuss at Christmas itself. Indeed, I took a bit of a ‘don’t talk about the war’ attitude. I knew they knew and they respected my way of dealing with it.
Less immediate family/friends can be told afterwards - if you’re not seeing them and there’s nothing they can do, why give them bad news before Christmas?
However, it’s your family and your judgement call. Good luck.
Dx
Hello how are you doing?
I was only dx last week after ultrasound and before biopsy results I’m going on tuesday for my full dx as to what It is and what needs doing.
I’m 39 and have two small children 7 and 3 and I’m terrified of telling them but on the other hand I had to tell my lovely mum the night before she was going on holiday for 5 weeks. She was going to see my sister in mexico who just survived cervical cancer. So the thing Is I know they will be upset but will they be more upset knowing you hadn’t told them. I know if there was anything wrong with my mum I would want to know. They are your family and they love you and I was told tonight ,by my friend, that you aren’t to worry about peoples reactions just to concentrate on beating this thing!
So its up to you but I know what I’d do.
Good luck with what you decide.
Love fran
Hi MGSM
I can appreciate your struggle, I really didnt want to tell my immediate family over the phone. I was diagnosed just after my nan died which complicated the situation a little. In the end I told my family at my Nan’s funeral, not ideal I know but I was really struggling with being with my family and them not knowing. Telling my mum I had cancer was going to be difficult on any day and the timing just seemed awful. This all happened back in July and I do feel I did it the best way I could
Anne
Hi Ladies
I agree that telling people is awful. For me it was the single most unpleasant thing about this whole business. If I could have retreated to a remote island off the coast of Scotland (with a great big hospital nearby of course) I would have done so and not told anyone until it was all over! I ended up telling everyone by email and warning them not to phone me because I could not talk on the phone or in person without crying. I know it’s OK to cry but for me it just makes me more upset and I really couldn’t do it. I also played it down, saying I had just heard I had a lump in my breast which was cancerous and I would have to have a lumpectomy. This wasn’t true because I was told right from the start it would be a total MX, chemo, radiotherapy, the works. But it was my way of easing people in gently and then gradually as I got more tests done they came to realise the full extent of the problem. Now I am absolutely fine and will bore people silly with all the details if they care to listen! The important thing to remember in all of this is to do what feels best for you. This is all about you. For probably the first time in your whole life, you are going to have to learn to be selfish and do exactly what you feel like. If that means not seeing people, telling the odd fib, whatever it takes, look after your own mental health first and foremost.
Mxx
I expect that your children are adults and as such would welcome being there for you at this time, therefore telling them early will likely be very important. I too felt almost guilty about putting my ‘children’ through my diagnosis and treatment. However, in reality, once I told them we were able to air all fears and face the future with positivity about how they would support me and my husband through it. I think what this tells us is that we always are ‘mums’ and want to protect them! The reality of life is, we can’t and our ‘children’ are more resilient and able than we think. I found my family, a son and two daughters showed enormous maturity and strength and were very keen to ‘be there for me’ as I had been for them. Take care and try to have good memories from this xmas despite a horrible diagnosis of bc. I can’t quite believe I am one year down the line and I am looking forward to this xmas with renewed invigoration. J.
thanks for everyones advice on this. Got here on the 19th and told the girls the same night and my son the next day. All upset but it wasnt as bad as i feared. Still had to cook xmas dinner…and boxing day dinner… same old same old!
Youngest daughter said i was to start a blog…dont know about that…might start a scrapbook tho…
Mary
Well done. Interesting that it wasn’t as bad as you feared. I found throughout treatment that anticipation of events/treatments/appointments etc. was nearly always worse than the reality.
Blog/scrapbook sounds like a good diea but not everyone’s cup of tea. I kept a record of how I felt each day during chemo (physically and emotionally) - fascinating to look back as I’ve now forgotten so much about how I felt and it helps me to appreciate how much I’ve moved on.
All the best.