How do you tell your family about this? I talked to the minister at the church we belong to about it to see what insights he might have. He suggested just staying calm and sticking to the facts. That's easy for me, being a factoid freak. It also makes sense. I'm not real upset about the situation at present, so there's no anxiety to pass on to others.
My wife has known about the diagnosis as long as I have. She was with me when I got the good news (it's not multiple myeloma)/bad news (it's an incurable but usually manageable blood disorder) from the hematologist. We talk about how we feel about it, and she subscribes to the blog to get my logical analyses and descriptions of the situation. She seems to be about in the same emotional place as I am right now: this is a serious state of affairs, but not something to get panicked about. It needs to be treated, but it's not an emergency.
My high-school son saw me looking at the huge package from the IWMF (see previous post) the other day, and asked me what it was all about. I had previously told him about the anemia, so he was curious about what's been diagnosed. I told him it's an incurable but treatable disease and that I'll be going to Boston to see a world-class expert. He took it fairly well.
My daughter called this evening, and I took the opportunity to tell her about it. I was going to wait until she visits this weekend and tell her in person, but the time just seemed right. Since there are no good guidelines about how to do this, I just opened up. Like everything else about being a parent, there's no clear-cut way to handle this situation. The conversation went well, although it tends to get tricky when the words "incurable" and "cancer" come up. She was upset with the news - we all are - but seems to understand why we're relatively calm. She had lots of questions, and I told her we're continuing to learn about the disease. She'll be reading this blog to follow what I learn and to follow my emotional progress as the adventure moves forward.
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an update - my other son called today to wish my wife "Happy Mother's Day," so I got on the phone and gave him the information as well. He took it about the same as the rest of us: bad news, serious problem, but can be addressed and panic not appropriate.
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