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How Do You Tell Someone That You Have Cancer?

February 3, 2010 by  
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LLH Talk logo blog 300x152 How Do You Tell Someone That You Have Cancer?One of the hardest things that anyone might ever have to do is to hear the words, “You have cancer”.  But, for me and I am sure for many others, that wasn’t nearly as difficult as having to tell loved ones about the cancer.  This week on Let Life Happen TALK, I would like to discuss this subject and would appreciate your input.   Please tell me about how you broke the news to your families and friends.  Please let me know how they reacted and how you felt about your personal experiences.  Perhaps by sharing our experiences, we may be able to help others who, in the future, have to face this situation.

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This weeks show airs  Saturday Feb. 6  at 8 p.m. PST / 11 p.m. EST

 

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  • http://nathaliecalifornie.blogspot.com/ Nathalie St-Pierre Roths

    Hello,

    I saw your tweet about your request to find out how to announce you have cancer to your loved ones. Since I am an Canadian expat living in USA, I couldn’t tell my family in person but I gave them a call. I was diagnosed with cervical cancer last September 2009.

    I’ve had a pre-cancer situation for over 3 1/2 years where only some relatives knew about the situation. But even after I told the family about my cancer, many of them weren’t aware how the pre-cancer situation took a toll in my life and how it affected me emotionally.

    I chose to talk openly to everyone about my cancer because I felt I could get support or have people come to me and look for help. As I expected, about half the people I knew by the time I broke the news to family and friends, disappeared from my life. Sad, but true. I talked to other cancer survivors about this behavior and they said it is very common.

    The few remaining people who stayed on that journey with me were really supportive. I also write a blog and the day after I found out I have cancer, I started openly blogging and tweeting about it.

    I had one relative (whose mother is battling breast cancer and chose to hardly tell anyone) who was very negative about my “coming out.” To her, it was as I would admit I murdered someone.

    People are all different and we handle cancer differently. During my journey to recover from cancer (thankfully, I didn’t need chemo, nor radiation), I met a friend online who just survived cancer. He told me to celebrate and jump at every milestone in recovering from cancer. He told me not to wait 1, 3 or 5 years to jump because you never know when the cancer will take your life away, if it does. Hence, I started the jumping photo series that I post on my blog every time I have good news. Right now, I only jump from the ground (due to surgery recovery) but soon, I will also make video blogs showing me jumping on our trampoline. I even told everyone, including my oncologist, that for the 1 year anniversary, I will do a bungee jump. :-) Friends and family are closer to me than ever by the approach I chose about how to live and survive cancer.

    Hope this help and answer your request. If you need more information from me, please contact me via email or on my twitter (ID: nsroths).

    Regards,

    Nathalie St-Pierre Roths

    • http://LetLifeHappen.com Barbara Jacoby

      Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I was so hoping that we would have time to share it on the radio program but we ran out of time. That is why I wanted to make sure that I posted it here for others to read and share. I think that I may still use your story this coming week on the radio show as I do want to talk about how other people react when we tell them that we have cancer so it may be my lead in. Again, thank you so much for being willing to share here. It helps everyone to know that we are not alone.