This topic is difficult.\u00a0 Of course, there is no one way to deal with how to tell children about a terminal diagnosis.\u00a0 For 14 months after my diagnosis, we elected not to tell our kids everything about my medical condition.\u00a0 Mark searched the internet for advice on the topic, but it\u2019s very hard to gain knowledge from forums.\u00a0 The reality is that everyone\u2019s family is different and everyone\u2019s children react differently.\u00a0 We decided it didn\u2019t feel right to tell them for that first year, but we both had a desire to do so the entire time.\u00a0 We just didn\u2019t want them to have to shoulder the burden and absorb the stress.<\/p>\n
My turn for the worse in May 2015 was what drove us to eventually tell the kids. \u00a0We had them visit the hospital room one-at-a-time, and Mark and I told them in what we thought were age-appropriate ways. \u00a0We were surprised by their resiliency! \u00a0My 6-year-old daughter reacted by crying initially, but she soon stopped and within thirty minutes she was chasing her brother around the waiting room in a game of tag. \u00a0It’s both a curse and a blessing that they are so young. \u00a0Over the past 8 months since we told them, we’ve had the opportunity to talk to them more and to impress upon them our beliefs about death and what happens next. \u00a0It’s a big relief for both Mark and me to be able to speak openly in front of them about my doctor’s appointments and the medicines I’m taking. \u00a0It also helps that they understand why I sleep so much and why my back hurts (i.e. it’s not\u00a0their<\/em> fault!!). \u00a0In hindsight, I wish we’d told the kids sooner. \u00a0It’s nice to have the entire clan rally around and share in the fight; even when our warrior are so little.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This topic is difficult.\u00a0 Of course, there is no one way to deal with how to tell children about a terminal diagnosis.\u00a0 For 14 months after my diagnosis, we elected not to tell our kids everything about my medical condition.\u00a0 Mark searched the internet for advice on the topic, but it\u2019s very hard to gain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-223","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P75Yu9-3B","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":673,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223\/revisions\/673"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}