The Cancer Conversation

We've all had the conversations. You tell someone that you have cancer, they ask what type, and then proceed to tell you that they "know someone who died of that" - the one thing you REALLY don't want to hear. Or, sometimes people say, "how do you feel?" which is perfectly normal in most cases, but for cancer fighters, it's a loaded question.

If you say "how's it going," I'll say fine. But if you ask "how do you feel?" with a grave look on your face, I really won't feel like telling you how I feel. I'll tell you when I'm ready. For most people, it's very frightening because they're afraid to offend the person who is asking. However, if you say nothing, everyone will make assumptions about you when they find out you have cancer because they'll feel too uncomfortable to ask about it.

Like it or not, as a patient, you have to manage the anxiety of all these other people. You have to develop a strategy. One of the first things that I had to do was tell my parents, and I didn't know when or how. Then my friend said to me, "Mike, you may as well just get it over with now because you're going to have to tell them eventually and this way you can stop worrying about when to tell people."

When Should I Break The News?

After that, I realized that I may as well tell everybody at the beginning because that's one more thing I can check off my to-do list. I asked myself how I was going to deal with the anxiety of other people, and then I created a mechanism. I developed an e-mail chain that I could use to inform all of my loved ones about what was going on. I think it also helped create a more positive outlook for me because in a way, I was like, "Look, I'll be OK. I'll deal with this stuff myself."

It made it easier to handle because I didn't have to deal with everyone else's questions while I was trying to deal with my own, and at the same time they knew they were always up-to-date from my emails. They no longer felt the need to call me every time I had a doctor's appointment.

It was uncomfortable for me when I first got my diagnosis, but now I talk about it all the time because I'm so accustomed to it and I've met so many other cancer survivors. I can talk about sports and flowers in the same way I can talk about cancer.

How Can I Tell My Kids?

There are certain people, however, who won't be reading the e-mail chains. My son Luke was six at the time I got my first diagnosis, and I had a real challenge trying to figure out how to tell him. I had gone to a therapist who gave me good advice; "Be simple, be clear, and then do something he wants to do afterwards."

I decided to avoid saying "I have cancer" because I didn't want him to be frightened by the word "cancer." If you tell your kids, "Daddy has cancer, but he's going to be all right," as soon as they hear somebody else died of cancer, they'll think Daddy is going to as well. Or if you tell them "Daddy's going to the hospital for surgery," and they hear that someone else in the hospital died in surgery, again, they'll think Daddy is going to die.

So instead, I told him I had a "lesion," which was true. But I didn't even know what a lesion was yet, so I knew he wouldn't know. I said, "It's a lesion and I have to get it removed and I'm going to be fine, so I wouldn't worry about it."

Then I said, "Let's go get some ice cream."

How did you break the news to your loved ones?