Superwoman needs to remove her cape...but how to tell folks

I would go with your first instinct. Don't tell anyone anything until you have all the testing completed and a treatment plan in place. After that, it's up to you how many people you want calling you every day for updates. Or you can put a 'phone tree' in place. No reason all of those people have to know unless you decide they can be helpful to you during treatment.

kbh2241

Tough call.

I had an initial gut reaction to your question and I will be utterly honest with you but only if you promise not to get offended, because I in no way intend offense. But you asked for opinions and I will give it.

I think it comes down to respect. At times my DH has ... manipulated the truth to maintain control over my reactions. Oh, never tells an outright lie because that is a black and white moral code violation. But he does muddle around in the gray area of telling me what he wants me to hear, when he wants me to hear it, and it is his convenience and personal comfort that is at the crux of this veiled dishonesty.

It makes me homicidal!

He wraps it in the loving name of 'not wanting to cause me anxiety', but what he's actually saying is "I do not respect you enough to allow you to have the reaction that you are entitled to have. I want to maintain control of all things and you and your reactions are messy and inconvenient so I deny you your right to have them." (He is a man of few words and soft tone. I say ALL the words in a LOUD tone, he fears my reactions!) There is no place for this in a relationship in which you respect the people you relate to and consider them your equals. If you do not share this until a treatment plan is in place they are going to feel hurt and angered that you kept this from them. They will feel cheated and they will feel disrespected. Because (purely from my own life views) that is what it is when you keep something this important, this critical, from the people you love and who love you.

Of course you still have to judge how much to tell and to whom and not EVERYONE needs to know everything. And I do think it was gracious to hold back a bit at the birth of new baby, you don't want to steal anyone's thunder. But while you think you are bring loving and caring by not sharing, it can be received as dishonesty, manipulation and a breach of relationship trust for you to withhold this kind of information from those who love you. They may be hurt that they were not able to be there for you and feel cheated of the opportunity to return the favour of support and care. I say tell them (with some discernment and common sense) and let them decide for themselves how to handle it.

FWIW...I was diagnosed on November 15th, the week before Thanksgiving. The only person I told was my daughter and only not have shared it with her before the holidays because she remembered the day my biopsy results were due back. I didn't want to "ruin" my families holiday and honestly I know they would have drove me nuts with questions that I did not have answers too. My plan was to wait until I had all of my results and my treatment plan in place before letting the family know that that's exactly what I did. This way I had many of the answers to questions I knew they would ask.

BTW....I ended up telling the rest of the family the first week of December. It still wasn't ideal as my birthday was on the 14th of Dec, I started chemo on the 15th of Dec, and we were still in the middle of the holiday season (Christmas, New Years, Winter Break for school).

I know this may not help, but I say stick to your original plan of when you want to tell them. It's about the only thing you have control over in the beginning.

~Dee

p.s. when I told my Aunt (she's like a mother to me) that I was having a mastectomy she almost passed out and even tried to talk me into have a lumpectomy. She's lost her mother (my grandma) and all 5 of her sisters. She's the only surviving female of my grandma's 6 girls. She's had issues in the past with Anxiety and had a TIA many years ago so I didn't want to upset her by telling her that I had already decided on having a BMX. I had to keep it from her because she was already making herself sick with worry. She didn't find out about the BMX until I came out of surgery. I felt like she handled it a lot better not knowing and worrying for months about my having a BMX.

What works for one may not work for others.

runor, can you talk a bit more about the delays in your healthcare ? If you would decide on mastectomy, for instance, how long would it take to get to the OR? My own experience was that from diagnosis to surgery was a little less than a month. It seemed a long wait to me. But those around me commented on how fast things were moving.

Hercules, from the time I got the results of my surgical biopsy to the time I was in the OR having a lumpectomy was 20 days. That is the FASTEST that anything has happened. Lumpectomy was April 12th and I don't even get to have a treatment conversation with the oncologist until June 13th. That's a 2 month wait from surgery to even have a talk about what comes next. I cannot imagine how long I would wait if I decided now to have a mastectomy. I am pretty sure that since I am not considered an emergency they would shove me to the end of the wait list. I think that's what's happening now. No one thinks my situation is urgent so they are putting more urgent cases ahead of me. Which I understand, to a point. But what is the point of all this 'early detection' promotion if it is followed by a medical system that lets your outcomes get worse and worse by not treating you in a prompt manner? Frustrating.

MinusTwo, not EVERYONE needs to know our private business. You are correct and I agree. But there is also a standard of expectation in close relationships about honesty and disclosure. Keeping Big News like this to yourself can be seen as a violation of both. You may have a perfectly solid reason for not telling anyone. But no, your friends do NOT have to accept that. They do NOT have to feel that it's okay, and no, their upset does not make it about them. It makes it about you. When you hurt your friends that is entirely about you.

As relationships get more distant, you are not obligated to tell anyone. But it's the CLOSE relationships, the lifelong friends and the family members, yes, you do owe those people honesty. Keeping secrets, no matter your reasoning, is an awful lot like lying. People are often VERY mad, and rightly so, over what is essentially a very condescending attitude. So again, if you decide to not share with close family/ friends and they end up being angry at you, do not be surprised.

No one HAS to disclose anything to anyone. I agree entirely. But keeping things to yourself can go sideways and hurt people we do not intend to hurt.

kbh, I think your instincts are absolutely right when it comes to telling people. The phone calls, texts and messages will start as soon as you tell people and it can be exhausting repeating information. As for your 99 year old mother, given your family medical history, is it actually necessary to tell her at all?

runor, I would like to present a different view to yours; when I was first diagnosed in 2003, I told all my family, inlaws, friends both close and not so close. I came to regret that a great deal as I mostly received a lot of ignorant, naive, insensitive and thoughtless comments from most of those people. There were some who were helpful and good to talk to but not many. I asked people to keep it to themselves and found that they didn't. There are threads on this site which contain posts saying very similar things. When I recurred nearly 12 years later, I was absolutely sure that I would limit who I told to my immediate family. It has been a much better experience for me not having to deal with others' bizarre reactions. To say that the OP would be hurting her friends and they would be right to feel aggrieved by keeping this from them is ridiculous and offensive. There is enough stress with a BC diagnosis, waiting for results and treatment without having to second guess your friends' feelings.

Very interesting points of view here! kbh2241, welcome to Breastcancer.org. We're sorry you had to join us but, as you can already tell the women and men in this Community are amazing and we hope you'll get encouragement, support and great information from them!

Who and what to tell about your diagnosis is a very personal decision, but we wanted to recommend you the article Talking to Your Family and Friends About Breast Cancer from our main. This section offers some tips for talking about breast cancer with your loved ones that you might find helpful if you decide to tell them.

Please let us know how you're doing. We're thinking of you!

The Mods

kbh2241,

I am so sorry you have to go through this! I am not sure about telling your 99 yrs.old mother. That's tough! And you said you provide part time care for her. I think physically caring for her would be a bit much for you going through treatment and someone else needs to help out! You need to focus on you!

My husband was there from the beginning. My mom and stepdad were told two days before surgery, ditto for two of my close friends. At this point I also allowed my husband to inform his sister and family but no one else. My parents live in another country anyways, they would have come in a heart beat but what can they really do and my mom has back problems.

My one friend was so worried, that I told her not to tell our common other friend since that friend is an ER nurse and would have had a much better grasp on my situation being Triple negative and large tumor. I actually told the ER-nurse-friend when I finished chemo, that was 7 months later and no hurt feelings at all! She totally understood!

I relied on a few close people and had a no-phone calls/no visits instruction which everyone followed!:)  I got e-mails, texts and a few care packages instead! They all had my back and let me do it my way and I am forever grateful!! No feelings were hurt at all! It was harder on my husband though but I just needed to get through it and stay focused.

I had to tell another not so close friend why I am not coming around anymore and she was not even told which kind of cancer and probably never will!

Be kind to yourself and go with your gut feeling!

Runor, I cannot believe your long waiting time! Are you near a large hospital?

Everything was done quickly for me. It was actually I who delayed a bit. I had an old dog whose days were numbered and I just could not make myself steal a day from her life. So we waited until her time came. That dog gave everything to us. My health care team actually understood and they just wanted me in a good mind frame!

I do hope a sooner appt. will be possible for you! Can you talk to your GP maybe? Wishing you the best!

This topic is nagging at me. It won't go away.

First, I would never advise the Original Poster to take out a full page ad in the local paper and make an announcement that she has cancer. You pick and choose the people you tell, for the obvious reasons that many of us have run into. (people can and do say stupid things, some out of pure panic, some out of lazy ignorance). I made that utterly clear in my previous posts. Discernment and judgement. Use it.

However, the OP asked about telling her nearest and dearest. A mother who is quite elderly and perhaps not mentally sound (again, judgement and discernment required). She also has adult children who we assume are of sound mind. So, to me these make up her nearest and dearest. Do you tell them?

Let me put it this way. (cause this is the way my mind works) Would you say to your child / close friend, "Something really important and scary is going on with me right now, and I know it's going to upset you. But I don't want to be bothered with your feelings. Your feelings are messy and annoying and I don't want to give any of my energy to you. So what I'm going to do is NOT tell you, in essence, I am manipulating the truth, or you might say I am lying to you, until I feel the timing is more convenient for me. And if you love me, you're going to be totally okay with this dismissive way I'm treating you. As a 'real friend; I expect you to swallow any rotten behaviour I hand out and I expect you to smile about it as you do. So... I think I will just keep this under my hat and you can bloody well wait for me to be ready. Because this is all about me." If someone I loved said that to me, I'd punch them in the nose.

When I was diagnosed with cancer it WAS all about me! Until I figure out that it isn't. If I live alone in a cave and have no contact with the outside world and no one cares if I live or die, yes, it's all about me. But if I have family and friends who CARE and LOVE then no, I do not get to play the Me-Me card and act like this is something that doesn't affect anyone else. This HUGELY affects my nearest and dearest and yes they are the people whose feelings I should worry about, because that is what love looks like. We are in this together. I do not get to stand as lord and master, deciding in my ultimate wisdom what I deign to tell my underlings. What we often call the lofty goal of not wanting to worry anyone, is not that lofty, and not that loving at its core.

I do think we have the obligation of honesty and disclosure with our nearest and dearest. I do feel keeping this from them is a hurtful action. I do not feel sharing my opinion is ridiculous or offensive. It is possible to tell your closest group and ask that they give you space for a while. Not everyone will give you space. My friends still call and leave messages saying they love me and they're thinking of me. Damn them! Or some leave food on my porch, knock on the door and drive away, damn them too! Man .... these caring people .... they're out of control!

While this is a time for inner reflection and to withdraw for a while, it is not a good time for self imposed isolation. A cancer diagnosis is a big, painful thing to be hit with. There are no brownie points for soldiering on bearing this burden, thinking you're doing anyone else a favour by preventing worry, OR by protecting yourself from annoying acts of caring and love.

Superwoman, take off the cape, spread it on the ground like a picnic blanket, invite your closest to sit with you and tell them today you have sad news to share. Cry TOGETHER, wait for more news TOGETHER, do not deny your crowd the chance to come through for you.

Runor, I agree with your approach, perhaps because I, too, have suffered in a relationship where secrecy/privacy was used to manipulate me. Silence can feel like deception, and I have a low tolerance for that. When I've had people choose not to share major life changing events or experiences with me, I haven't been angry with them but I have concluded that we just weren't as close as maybe I thought we were. From the other side, I'm aware that that might be what I am communicating, and have been careful to try to match my actions and words to the degree of intimacy I want to have with specific people. Perhaps it was easier for me because my professional life is quite public and the visible effects of cancer treatment were going to be apparent in some way to many people. I preferred to let them know my version of the situation rather than let rumors start or false conclusions be drawn. Sharing with that wider circle, of course, is quite different the intimate circle being discussed in this thread, but may have influenced my timing.

Lovepugs:

No tone intended. Just sharing my way of seeing the world and how I believe I would want to be treated and thus, how I treat others. We all do what we want, in the end.

kbh.....I may be the BIGGEST Hamilton fan, and I realize that doesn't speak to a well adjusted nature but it's true. When I had to do something painful or unpleasant I would rap the lyrics in my head and it worked like a kind of meditation, taking my mind away from the fear and pain. And when I'm feeling sorry for myself I sing Battle of Yorktown LOUD. It mortifies my teenagers but it makes me feel better.

I'm glad your lines of communication are open. I've been grateful for all the help I've gotten along the way, and people can only help u if they know what's going on with u.