Mummy Has Breast Cancer

Ever since Nick returned from London, he calls me "mum." 

"When you are diagnosed, they give you a few leaflets on how to tell your children, but really, it's like issuing a London Tube map to someone running up a beach from a tsunami." 

Can there be a conversation more difficult for a mother than the one where you have to tell your children you have breast cancer? It's horrible imagining delivering a blow that is bound to send them reeling, without being able to, in any obvious way, "kiss it better." It's a scenario you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, and yet, every year, 1 out of 8 women find themselves in this situation.

There are some human experiences that resist direction and this is one of them.  Waiting for the pathology report with my diagnosis was awful, but the thought of telling Alexandra and Nicholas was daunting!  There is a book out there by Oliver James, entitled 

How Not to F*** Them Up, however the book doesn't cover this scenario. There isn't much out there, or I couldn't find anything on the subject of telling your children, so I called a psychotherapist to walk me through the most difficult task I have ever encountered. 

Since they are adult children, I knew they would understand that breast cancer is life threatening. Losing your mother, is to lose the ultimate cradling protection. Our natural instinct as mothers is to protect. Ultimately, you can't protect a child from knowing the fear and grief that is in a house when cancer is diagnosed. You can't make the uncertain certain.  But in talking to them you offer that most precious gift, the gift of a mother's voice.  Perhaps that you talk to them at all is more important than the words you choose.

Ralph and I told them separately, because we didn't think we could handle it emotionally if we told them together.  That was the right decision for us.  Alex just happened to be coming  home that weekend for a post Christmas dinner party with family.  A time of such emotional intensity needs to be shared, not just parent to child, but between siblings who will be each other's support system.

Afterwards, both R and I felt a great weight had been lifted.  Alexandra and Nicholas are both dealing with the situation according to their personalities, which is, what we expected. The most important thing to me was that they got on with their lives and daily routines and they did.

Truthfulness, coupled with love, will enable your children to grow stronger through this family crisis.