Sharing Your Diagnosis with Your Family
- Processing a prostate cancer diagnosis in itself can be extremely challenging, but telling your loved ones, especially your kids, about your health news is also an incredibly heavy burden to bear.
- Dr. Kysa Christie, a clinical oncology psychologist at the West Los Angeles VA, tells SurvivorNet that you should sit your kids down and fire off a warning shot first to test their reaction. Try to take things slow.
- Ultimately, through this process, you are showing your kids that it’s okay for them to share their feelings, just like it’s okay for you to show yours, that it’s okay to talk about difficult things together as a family.
“One of the scariest things after a cancer diagnosis is having to tell your family … particularly if you’ve got younger kids at home,” Dr. Kysa Christie, a clinical oncology psychologist at the West Los Angeles VA, tells SurvivorNet.
Read MoreTesting Their Reaction
Instead of inundating them with a lot of talking and information at once, Dr. Christie advises that you sit down with your kids and “kind of fire a warning shot” to test their reaction before proceeding. RELATED: Telling Your Kids You Have Cancer: ‘When it Comes to Your Kids, You Want to Protect Them’Start off with something like, “‘I got some bad news today.’ ‘I’ve been going to the doctor a lot,’ ‘I’ve got these tests found out,’ ‘I’ve got prostate cancer,’ and just stop there for a second, see if there’s a reaction, see what you’re seeing in your kids’ faces, and then if you can share how you’re feeling, it’s probably a lot of things. ‘I’m scared,’ ‘I’m a little overwhelmed,’ or ‘I’m in shock.'”
In other words, it’s okay to be honest.
Setting an Example of Open Communication
Throughout this process, Dr. Christie says “what you’re showing your kids is they can show you what they’re feeling, just like you can show them what you’re feeling, that this is okay to talk about, and that you don’t have to have the answer either because nobody’s going to have the answer right away.”
“The goal is not to be perfect,” she adds. “The goal is to know that you’re in this together, so when you think about how to talk to your kids about this, this may be the hardest thing your family has faced.”
“It may not be,” Dr. Christie counters, “you guys have gone through tough times before, so thinking back about what’s helped you get through tough times, reminding yourself, reminding your kids, and knowing that whatever this is, whatever happens, you guys are going to be able to get through this together because that’s what you do as a family.”
“One of the values of a family is knowing that these people have got your back and you’ve got theirs.”
Do I need to share my diagnosis with others? Psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik weighs in.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
