Telling people you have cancer is not an easy thing to do as it is not just something you slip into a conversation. Starting a conversation in this way is fraught with difficulty too. I told my wife as soon as I got home from the neck biopsy and she was predictably shocked but immediately adopted a ‘we’ll get through this together’ approach which was very comforting. We told our daughter, who is 17, a few days later. She had a wee tear but otherwise seemed fine. Even though she is a resilient child I couldn’t help feeling bad I was giving her a weight to carry she didn’t deserve.
I would recommend spending some time on your own in order to get your head round things before telling many other people. In my case I spent a day watching trains in Derby (I have been a railway enthusiast since the age of 10) which is an activity I find really relaxing and allowed me to process how I really felt about things. Long walks are another good way of sorting things out in your mind and dealing with frustration. The conclusion I came to was that I had been given a challenge I couldn’t avoid so there was no point getting down and depressed about it. Instead, I should be as positive as possible about the journey ahead, and that is what I did.
The hardest ‘telling’ was my parents. My dad worries if I have a cold these days, and it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have on the phone, so I decided to fly up to Scotland and spend a weekend with them. I travelled the day after the bone marrow biopsy and was feeling particularly tired, sore and uncomfortable. The trip needed to be made as I knew the chemotherapy treatment would rule out any travel over the Christmas period so I wouldn’t be seeing them for some time. My original plan was to tell mum and dad on the second evening of my stay so as not to put a downer on the whole weekend. Once I was there I realised I just had to get it out and when the subject of my health came up at dinner on the first night I told them. Mum, as I expected, was stoic, but my dad collapsed, weeping uncontrollably at the table. That was hard for me, but he rallied a bit and was doing his best to be positive by the time I left. The last thing you want to do as a son is inflict emotional pain on your parents, but in this case there was no alternative as they couldn’t not know.
I also told my oldest friend, who lost both his parents to cancer over recent years. He is a man of few words whose only reaction was ‘bugger’ then we continued to talk about other things. This was exactly what I needed-acknowledgement but no drama. The exertions of the weekend made it clear how tired and generally run-down I was. Dad served wine with dinner, but I had completely lost the taste for alcohol, another symptom I guess. In fact, this was the last time I touched a drop for nearly 6 months.
Informing work was another item on the pre-treatment ‘to do’ list. My boss was very sympathetic and promised to provide me with any flexibility I needed. His boss, our Chief or Staff, also sent me a very supportive email which meant a lot. It was at this point it dawned on me I wouldn’t be back at work for some time. Rather unexpectedly, the thing I found about telling people is that talking really helps. I’m not the sort of person who normally feels comfortable sharing deeply personal stuff, but once the news got out people wanted to wish me well which is obviously a nice thing, and after telling the story a few times I found I had a well rehearsed script.
