To tell or not to tell…

One of the worst things about cancer is having to tell people. When you have to say things out loud it actually makes it seem more real. Also, strangely, it makes you feel guilty. Guilty about what, I’m not entirely sure but we felt awful telling people and possibly ruining their day. We felt bad that they now felt bad.

We decided not to shout it from the rooftops and tell just close family and friends. Some people we told we hadn’t seen for a long time and probably wouldn’t see them any time soon but felt they needed to know. Could you imagine meeting up a year down the line.. “Hi long time no see, how’s things?”.. “Yeah good thanks Susan, work, kids, cancer, the usual.. how are you?”. That’s just embarrassing.

Telling the kids was tough. The older ones are men of few words and to this day we are not entirely sure how it’s affected them but we got a couple of weeks worth of sympathy and tidy bedrooms before it was forgotten. Our breast cancer nurse told us to expect just a week so we were happy with that.

The youngest was 4 at the time so we just told her that mummy had a poorly booby. She went off to play and a little while later she came back and said “mummy, I’m really sorry that I gave you a poorly booby”. Heart breaking that in her little head she thought it was her fault.

The actual process of telling people took a lot longer than I thought it would. I could have just checked us into the breast clinic on Facebook with a ‘feeling anxious’ status followed by a worried look emoji but as much as I am a bit of a social media whore that just isn’t us. I don’t think I could’ve handled all the “are you ok hun?” Or “PM me”. No, I won’t PM you Susan. We’ve been Facebook friends since 2007 yet we’ve never spoken face to face.

In between dropping the cancer bomb onto people the wife had a follow up appointment with her GP. She needed a sick certificate for work, a follow up post diagnosis and also an exemption certificate. Apparently having cancer means free prescriptions for 5 years.. every cloud and all that! It was the same GP that she had initially seen back in the July/August. It was extremely unexpected but the GP started crying and hugging my wife telling her how sorry she was. Now some people find it poor practice that she didn’t refer my wife sooner to the breast clinic and she quite clearly felt guilty herself. Yes there is a case for that, however, even if she had done that initially, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome or treatment. GP’s, paramedics, nurses, consultants.. we are all human. Sometimes we get things right, sometimes we get it wrong and other times we are neither right nor wrong but just a little bit off. Its how we learn from these things that matter. If it now means that every woman or girl who has a lump in the breast gets an urgent referral from that GP then so be it. Better to focus on positives than negatives.

We actually got bored of telling people in the end. Partly because people had lots of questions that we didn’t know the answers to. In the end we’d just give them the shiny, new, breast cancer ring binder they’d given us at the clinic which now took pride of place on the mantelpiece and tell them to read it themselves.

In hindsight though, something we both agree on, is that we wouldn’t tell people so soon. Obviously there are people that need to be in the know from the beginning. You 100% need that support network but you also need time to come to terms with everything in your own head before you can worry about anyone else.

And sometimes it’s not fair on others either. I mean let’s face it, what do you say to someone that has just been diagnosed with cancer? Not a hell of a lot actually. It’s a bit like when someone dies. There’s nothing you can say that will make anything better or easier but as a general rule I’d probably steer clear of some of these corkers..

“You’ll be fine”.

I didn’t know you had a PHD as well as foretelling the future Susan?!

“If anyone is strong enough to deal with cancer it’s you”.

Erm… thanks?

“You need to stay positive!”

No shit Sherlock.

“You don’t look like you’ve got anything wrong with you”

Do you want to examine me or would you like my consultants number so you can verify?

“But you look so well!”

Oh I’m sorry.. next time I’ll shave my head and wear a headscarf.

I genuinely don’t believe that any of those things were said with any kind of malice but sometimes saying nothing is better than anything at all.

The following week was a bit of a whirlwind. There was an urgent MRI scan to check it hadn’t spread into the other breast. I couldn’t face going to work, the Mrs was signed off, so we went to lunch. A lot. Take away the cancer part and we could very much get used to this life of leisure. Well, until the money ran out or we became alcoholics.