My Husband
The night I got home from work with my news I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell my family. My daughter recently moved out and my son was in bed. Well he was 17 and it was 11pm so “in bed” is probably inaccurate, but in his room for the night anyway. I didn’t want to say it out loud and didn’t even think I could so when my husband asked, “how was work? Ordinary night?” I replied, “nope!” and handed him my phone to read the pathology results. He doesn’t have any history in the medical field so he handed it back and said, “I don’t know what this means.” “Cancer” is all I could get out. We both stood in the kitchen in shock trying to process this for a good half hour before I headed for the bedroom. I texted one of my best friends a picture of the pathology report. I knew she would know what it meant and she immediately called me. I still wasn’t ready to talk and was still crying, but answered the phone anyway. We cried together on the phone for a good hour in the middle of the night before I decided to try to get some sleep. I don’t actually remember if I slept at all that night.
I waited to tell my kids until I had more answers. I knew they would have questions. I only told my closest family and friends explaining that I haven’t told the kids yet and asked them not to say anything. The last thing I needed was for them to hear it from someone else first.
Phone Calls
I called another one of my best friends the next day and didn’t even consider what time it was where she lives or if she was at work or not (she was). She knew that was bizarre for me to not text first asking if she was available to talk and immediately knew something was wrong. I felt like I was in a reasonable place when I dialed her number but as soon as I heard her voice I started crying again. I was quiet enough that she didn’t know what was going on and asked if I was ok after a few seconds of silence. “No.” Anyone who knows me knows I’ve had a hard life, I’m more independent, competent and capable than the average person and I can count on one hand the number of times in my life where I felt I wasn’t “ok.” I was finally able to get out the words “I have breast cancer” and that spiraled both of us into a half hour crying on the phone together.
I realized it was too soon for this and I couldn’t keep doing this over and over so I switched to text messages.
My radiologist called me to give me my official diagnosis that same afternoon. He apologized that I received the news “by myself” instead of having support (at least him on the phone) and reassured me that although it was going to be a rough road I was “going to be just fine.”
Texts
I felt bad sharing my news through text, but I knew I couldn’t keep having the same disastrous conversation over and over again. At least I could reassure people at this point that the doctor said I was going to be just fine! Again, I didn’t think about what time it was or where everyone lived (I have family and friends from coast to coast) and accidently gave my news to people while they were at work. I really didn’t mean to ruin their day although the support and concern from friends of friends that I didn’t even know was incredible!
My Kids
Eventually, once I got some answers from my medical team and knew what the plan was I told my kids. They were 17 and 20. One still lived with me and the other lived an hour away so I talked to them individually. It was really weird being the one diagnosed, but also being someone else’s support through it at the same time. Most people were older and turned into my support system. My kids needed my support. I explained to them that even though it might be my illness they’re still going through it too. In a different way. I urged them to lean on family or friends if they needed to talk, reach out to a counselor if they felt it would help and of course they could talk to me anytime if they needed to or had questions. After a few tears my son embraced the doctors words that I was “going to be just fine” and went back to doing whatever it is that teenagers do. My daughter put on a brave face while I was there but felt it harder when it got late and she was alone at her apartment to think about it. With time it seemed to get easier. I explained in the beginning that I was going to be sick from the chemo but that was supposed to happen and try not be too alarmed about it. They both were busy with school and finding their place as new graduates in the world so they didn’t have to actually watch me go through much of it. They said afterward that they only thing really concerning was my weight. I got down to 125lbs from not eating much for a few months. Over all, my kids handled it pretty well.
Private Facebook Page
Eventually I started a private Facebook page for my closest family and friends to follow. It seemed easier than everyone asking me for updates and having the same conversations over and over. I posted pictures and kept everyone in the loop as things came up. I invited about 35 people to my page. This also allowed me to get slightly more personal than putting it on my main Facebook page. With this being breast cancer things crossed over to TMI pretty easily. I eventually lost the line as to what was medical and what was personal. A private Facebook page definitely helped.
“Public” Facebook Page
6 weeks after my diagnosis I shared it in just a single post on my main Facebook page. Still private, but bigger than my cancer page. I only friend people I personally know so even then it was only about 250 people and with the algorithm only a fraction of that. So probably not many people beyond my private page even saw it.