How did you tell the children?

Well I asked the kids to come out and they all came out and, that’s a lie, that’s not quite strictly true. We went straight from the hospital round to see my eldest daughter, my only daughter who is the eldest and I think she was prepared because we had talked to her about it and said that probably it is going to be lung cancer. But we went down and had a few tears down my daughter’s house all of us and a cup of tea (laughs) works wonders, a cup of tea. And I seen the boys and told them, and not a very nice job to do but they had to be told and they’ve been excellent really, they’ve been very good.

So you’d recommend being open with the family, with children?

I’d recommend being open with everybody.

How did you tell the rest of the family, the children?

Well I didn’t want to tell them at all, but unfortunately in this day and age if you mention chemotherapy or the treatment it makes you iller than what you are to begin with, well people are well educated enough to know what’s wrong. So I’ve got two sons and two daughters and I told my eldest daughter first and then I went on to tell the other three and obviously they all got upset. I’ve had different reactions from them, I mean now I think they’ve forgotten that I’ve ever had it, you know, but at the time, when I wanted to talk about it my daughters were very helpful and they’d listen without getting upset and weepy. But one of, my oldest son he just, he burst out in tears at the least mention of it, you know really didn’t want to talk about it at all. But like I say, now I think hes forgotten that I’ve ever had it you know.

Telling our two children was extremely difficult. We actually told them on the same day, but not at the same time and the reason for that is that they’re very different people and they reacted, in fact they reacted as we thought they would react, but in very different ways. My son, if hes told bad news, becomes very quiet and introspective. And you, you may wait for months before you get comments or questions about what you’ve said.

Hmm

And the worse the news the longer that period of time, the more hes processing it. Whereas my daughter is much more, you get an immediate response and her immediate response was to be very tearful. So they, they reacted in exactly the same way, in exactly the, the way that I would have expected them to have reacted. My daughter’s married, so you know, we also told my son-in-law at the same time and my son has a partner so we, we told her at the, the same time and that was really hard to do;

You’ve got two fairly young children, would you recommend to other people that they would tell their children about having cancer and how would they tell them?

Tell them, tell them. Tell them, tell them honestly everything you know, it’s the only way. If you’ve got any respect for your children you’d tell them. I think that it’s very much oh I don’t know, I could be getting into deep water here but I have an unconditional love I guess for my children so, were a very close family, and they’re very supportive of me. They’re very intelligent, children are very, very intelligent and they don’t miss things like that. And it might even be unspoken but your body language, everything will tell them that there is something wrong, you know irrespective of whether you verbalize it they’ll know that something is wrong and if you don’t tell them then you know it just sets up a whole series of complications for both them and you later on. Because obviously if death is an issue then you know I think they deserve to be in on it, deserve to have some kind of, you know I’m sure, well I hope I’m very important to them so I think it’s important that they know that I’m alright or that I’m not going to be alright or whatever. I mean obviously the outcome in my case was very good but I’d still tell them if it wasn’t.

What would you say, a message to other mothers about telling children, do you think it’s best to be quite honest?

I do because I have an eight-year-old granddaughter who knows grandma coughs, and grandma disappears, and I felt it was time that she was told because at eight years old you begin to overhear adult conversations and I would hate for her to have an unexplained situation. So my son sat her down very quietly and said to her, “You know grandma coughs a lot,” he said, “Well shes got something growing inside her that should not be there and this is what makes her cough. And when we don’t see her for a while it’s because shes going into hospital to have some nasty medicine to shrink it.” And this shes accepted and not asked any questions. We didn’t mention the word cancer to her but a few days later she sudden looked at me and said to me “Grandma where is it and how did it get there?” So I said, “What do you mean?” because she took me unawares, and she said, “Well that thing that’s growing inside you.” And I just said to her, “Well do you know what is meant when adults say that’s the million dollar question?” she said “Yes, it means that you don’t know,” so, and she has dealt with it very well. And the other question she asked us, will I start coughing again and I said “Yes probably one day,” and shes okay with that.

How has the family reacted to all this, all your children;

Oh, they were very upset. It wouldn’t happen to their dad, you know. But it has and that’s it.

Was it difficult telling them? What would you recommend to people about telling children about serious illness?

Oh, tell them. Tell them. Because they will get very cross if you didn’t tell them. It would hurt them. And even my grandchildren know. I’ve got one grandchild. Shes nine, and she said to her mother, ‘Is granddad ill?’ So she said, ‘Yes he is. So she said, ‘Has he got cancer?’, so she said, ‘Yes he has. ‘Is he being looked after properly?’ she said, so my daughter said, ‘Yes, he is. And were fine. And she comes in. ‘Hello granddad, how are you?’ And she sent me a card when I was going into hospital. ‘I hope it doesn’t hurt too much. (laughs). So when I spoke to her on the phone, I said, ‘No it didn’t hurt at all. I said, ‘They’re lovely, these nurses. I’ve never been helped by so many young women at my age!’ (laughs), and we laughed about it. ‘Ooh, I’ll tell Nanny!’ she said (laughs). And we, we still carry on normal. You’ve got to. I mean, when they come, you just carry on normal;

So do you think it’s best to be open with children about things like this?

Yes, I think you’ve got to pick your child. I certainly wouldn’t like to think that my grandchildren were having nightmares about granddad having lung cancer. I think it’s better and I think children can accept that you have an illness. But whether they accept that it is going, that you are going to die. I mean they say, the little one said, “Are you going to die granddad?” and I said, “Oh heavens yes,” I said “everybody is going to die,” I said, “but I’m not thinking of going yet, certainly not till after your birthday,” and that was it, the subject was never mentioned again.