New diagnosis

Firstly, sorry you're on this path too x

To answer, Kind of?

I had biopsies, and then went to get my results with a work colleague ... thinking we'd get lunch ... obvs wasn't expecting the result i got. Oops!

I told everyone I needed to at work when we returned to the building. Told my boyfriend. Told my closest friends, 2 of whom were an absolute godsend and I wouldn't have coped as well as I did without them...

However, I couldn't tell any of my family as my sister was heavily pregnant, and my mum was supporting her. I didn't want to do anything to stress out my sister, or to divide my mum's attention.

Way I saw it, I was fine! Totally well. All I had was new knowledge that I didn't have before. And my friends supported me through all the testing as the hospital got a better view of my situation & came up with their plan.

Sister had a healthy gorgeous baby. And I'm not gonna lie, I did try to come up with another arbitrary reason to delay telling them ... cos its shit news, its scary, and I didn't wanna!

But I put on my big girl pants, and everyone took it surprisingly well. It also meant when I told them, I had actual information about the general plan for my treatment rather than just "Yo, got a donkey tit!".

I did encourage my partner to tell people to support him too. He told a couple of friends and his folks. Some of his people were very vocal that I was making a mistake, and that they'd be mad or whatever if info like this was withheld from them! But you know what they say about options being like buttholes (everyone's got one!).

I don't regret delaying telling my fam. Like you, i looked at my situation and made a decision that I firmly believed was right, I can justify it, and no-one in my family even really questioned it. The focus wasn't "why are we hearing this 2 weeks late?" ... it was "Omg, what can we do? What do you need?"

I think you're right not to tell your kids yet. And to put it as its most basic, this is actually your private medical info. No-one is obliged to get that. If you do share, it should only ever be on your terms, at the right time for you.

I'm still getting the hang of this site, but I can friend request if you wanna chat? I'm not consistently online but you're welcome to vent as needed and I will reply xxx