Telling others
There’s no easy way to let those you know and love that you’re facing something as life-threatening and shocking as your very own breast cancer. There’s only one thing harder than hearing the godawful news yourself and that’s witnessing the pain of those you love as you repeatedly drop the C bomb.
This itself is exhausting and draining at a time when you need all your resources to hold it together. If you can, get a cascade going where family members and friends tell each other on the phone or face to face. Don’t try to tell everyone yourself or all at once – you’ve got other things to attend to.
A hierarchy of communications will eventually emerge of those you tell straight away face to face, those you tell straight away on the phone, those you work up to telling face to face and on the phone and those you tell by group email, Facebook or Twitter. Every time will bring back the pain and fear to some extent and while it gets easier to tell your story it never gets easier to hear the silence on the end of the phone or read the shock between the lines.
After we went to get the results of the biopsy, I had to go straight away for a MRI as there was a free appointment. After making sure I got there, my husband went to pick up the kids and picked up takeaways for tea. During tea my daughter (11yr 10mth) asked why I had gone to the doctors again, so we answered the question honesty, she cried and needed a hug, my 8 yr old son said so if you are sick we will get takeaways more often! (Breastcare had a great picture book for kids) The kids went off to guides and Kung Fu that evening so I went around to tell my parents, a real shock for them especially as they were flying off overseas a week later.
My husband told his parents that night by phone. The parent who had given my daughter a lift to guides rang up that evening to offer support.
I texted the parents of my childrens friends the next day so they were prepared for anything that their kids might say after school, I got a couple of return phone calls.
A friend let all my friends from Playcentre know and told them that I was not able to cope with alot of phone calls at the moment.
I chose to cut off my long hair because it would come out during chemo and I would find it hard to look after once I had surgery, lots of parents at school comented on the change which was an opening to tell them why, having decided to be honest and open about what was happening.
Best thing I did was set up a closed facebook group so my friends can find out how I am going without worrying about waking me up if I am having a nap etc.
Thanks for sharing your experience – it sounds like you had a good information cascade going – thank goodness for texts when you’re not feeling up to talking eh? Its also great to hear there’s some good information for kids to help them make sense of it all. FB is so handy at these times too because its one to one without the one to one! We also have a closed FB group for Shocking Pink for us young women to share information and support eachother – there are people on every step of the journey from first chemo to reconstruction so if you want to join us pleae let me know by request to join the group and I can sign you up. Go well. Cheryle
Please add me to your closed group
Hi Deb – please visit the group page here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/151638561587259/ and then click “join group” then one of us will be able to add you