How to tell my son

Hi Sonny09

I haven't been in your position of having to tell a child about my melanoma diagnosis but I can understand that it could be a difficult conversation. You might benefit from reading this on talking to children and teenagers about cancer.

As to when you tell him, you could leave it until you've spoken to the surgeon on Friday. That way you'll know whether you need to cancel your holiday or not.

x

Thank you so much for your help, I will wait until I know more, what a long week it will be.

Hi Sonny09

When I saw my surgeon to have my diagnosis confirmed, he actually suggested a “script” as to how to tell the children (mine are a bit older, at 11 and 15). He suggested we say “they have found something nasty, so mummy will have a difficult few months, but it will be treatable”. 

“Treatable” is a very clever word!

I have had previous experience of this, as my brother died of cancer over 20 years ago, when his kids were 5, 10 and 12, so I saw how they dealt with it. They were very open with the children, which meant the kids could ask all the questions they needed to. The questions they had were sometimes surprising!

The other thing to bear in mind is that children are often more aware of things than we think. I found out later that my 11 year old had been googling melanoma survival rates!

Finally, it is worth keeping the school in the loop. The stress might come out in behaviour so it’s worth them knowing what’s happening.

I’m sorry you’re going through this, and yes this will be a long week, but by Friday you will have a plan, and that will (bizarrely) feel better.

all the best 

Hi Sonny, firstly sorry to hear about your situation, I can understand your position because I was diagnosed in 2016 with Advanced Bone Cancer, I was given 3-6 months to live but I,m still here going strong. At first we didn,t tell my youngest son who was 11 at the time, we just told him I had a bad leg. We told the older children, it was my consultant who told us to tell my youngest the truth as it would hurt them more to let them find out later. Eventually we took him along to a meeting with the consultant and now he is totally up to speed with everything, I promised him I would always tell him the truth even if the truth upsets him, we have the promise of not telling each other lies. So my advice is always tell the truth even if it hurts.

Thank you for the advice SarahT57